The other day we were enjoying a lazy weekend and watching the baby kick my stomach mercilessly. I'd never seen her so active, don't remember Bella being like this so early on in my pregnancy with her. Peter looked at my stomach and said, "hey, you in there. You are supposed to be our calm baby!"
Bella isn't calm. Almost ever. She's loud and assertive and determined and strong. She's a LOT like her mama. And there are many times when I look at her, knowing so well the weaknesses that come with our personality type, and wonder how I can teach her to overcome that, when in 30 years I still haven't done it myself. Lately I've been focusing on the things that make Bella a really easy and wonderful child to parent, and that in itself, presents some challenges.
I feel like strong children are very undervalued in society right now. What is so great exactly about being compliant and quiet? About sleeping through the night at six weeks old, (other than the obvious benefit to some poor wretchedly tired mother)? I understand that of course all personalities have their strengths and weaknesses but incredibly extroverted and determined people get a really bad rap sometimes. They don't learn to hide their less desirable qualities, they don't hide anything. So yes, my child has thrown an epic fit in a grocery store over a bag of Hawkins Cheezies (they're my favorite too). There are many times where I feel like I can't control her, like she runs the show and I stand behind her bewildered while the judging eyes of onlookers bore into my back. She's nearly impossible to manipulate, and trust me, I have tried. She has called my bluff so many times and at such an early age that it's embarrassing to admit it. I have felt like an awful parent many, many times. I feel it when I'm telling a coworker about some funny/exasperating thing she's done and their eyes get all wide and they say, "yikes. Have fun with that attitude in ten years." I've allowed that thinking to permeate my own. We will be locked in some battle at home over some seemingly tiny thing that so-and-so's child has done perfectly since birth and I will think it. "Right now you're three and I can't make you eat an apple slice. How will I tell you at 18 not to elope to Hong Kong with some badass gorgeous guy who deals heroin but somehow makes you feel beautiful and excited and alive?"
Except I'm missing something very key here. She's impossible to manipulate. I pity the badass heroin dealer that tries to tell Bella to quit everything she's doing or has done and take off to some non-extradition country with him. Dude, I can't get her to eat an apple and I'm her mother. Have a good time with that. Go right ahead and try. Because guys like that prey on girls with low self esteem. They prey on girls that have been told that they are less, girls that feel misunderstood and alone. And that could be Bella, I could make her that way - if I refused now to embrace her very obvious strengths. If I chose to let those judging eyes make me wish I had an introvert instead. She has been strong and vocal and occasionally defiant since birth. I won't change her. I can't.
So I've been trying a couple of different things with her lately and I've been stunned at her response. Mealtime has been a fight with Bella and I since I stopped nursing. I have cried, begged, yelled, threatened, and attempted to starve her out. Nothing works. Nothing. So after reading that "strong-willed children do better when presented with choices" I've been trying that. I lay out two options and their subsequent consequences and tell her to make a choice. I'm shocked at the consistency that she will choose the better thing, when given the choice. But again, no manipulation allowed. If I say she's allowed to choose not to eat her veggies, she legitimately has to be able to decide that without me freaking out, trying to convince her of what's better. She's tested me on it. But when she does, I'm shocked at the maturity she can show at dealing with the consequences of her decision, and how quickly she will admit to being wrong. Obviously that can't be done with everything. Sometimes she just has to listen to me, and those times can still be hard. She is still only 4. However, I'm learning that it gets worse when I try and change her. She makes choices based on their value to her. She doesn't make choices because I told her to do it and I'm her mom. She simply isn't compliant. But she is confident. And for me, the idea of teaching her value isn't half as intimidating as trying to make her blindly listen to me. Her obedience simply because I'm her mother would make me feel pretty good about myself. It'd be a nice ego boost. But watching her choose something better makes me proud of HER. And she's learning to trust that seemingly innate confidence in herself (that I'm sometimes so envious of). I love watching her become herself.
I love that she communicates with us. That she tells me if I've made her angry (and boy will she tell me!) What if she didn't say it? What if she hid that hurt and frustration, what if I didn't know she was stewing inside because her desire to be "good" made her ashamed to vent her own hurt and frustration to me? Or worse, I had taught her early on that being quiet was better even if it wasn't honest than being loud in the grocery store? What if I had somehow succeeded in making her value my often selfish desires for an "easy" child to the point that she no longer felt sure of herself? Then what happens when the badass guy comes to my door to pick her up? Who does she pick? Because let's face it, that guy is coming. I met him. Every girl I know has encountered him in some form or another.
I believe that we were "created before the foundations of the world." I believe that she was chosen by God for Peter and I. I believe that her little personality was known to God before she ever even existed in my womb. I believe that she bears His image, even while laying immobile in the snack aisle, sobbing about Cheezies. I think she's amazing and smart and that very little of that has anything to do with me. I think that she's going to grow up to be something amazing. I don't have to create that in her. I do have to teach her to trust the good parts of herself, which means I have to see them, celebrate them, and call them out. And if all that you can see when you look at her is a kid who can be defiant, someone who didn't sleep through the night or eat fruit, you have missed it. If all you can see is that she's noisy then you're not really listening. She's exactly who she's supposed to be, and while that looks messy, and like less sleep, and a lot of other inconveniences, I am proud of her. I wouldn't change her for anything in the world.
