All I keep thinking is that I’m not supposed to be a part of this.
Look, I love holding on to my little boy as long as possible. I love keeping him safe in our nest by the sea. This card-carrying codependent loves making sure his Chromebook is plugged in and handwriting is neat. (Just kidding, we don’t have cards, but if we did, mine would be laminated.)
This was supposed to be his moment. Kindergarten. Ed Vere’s Max the Brave reminded me of that this week as I was reading to Beckett. This charming picture book is about a kitten that is so brave he decides to go chase some mice. Yet, he has no idea what a mouse is. So, he goes out asking all sorts of creatures if they are mice. He is eventually tricked by a cunning mouse that a giant monster is actually a mouse and the mouse is actually a monster, sending him right into the belly of a monster. Max is spit out, and returns home to spend his days chasing “monsters” his own size.
Guess who does not swoop in to rescue her baby? HIS MOTHER.
Eric Carle said, “I believe the passage from home to school is the second biggest trauma of childhood; the first is, of course, being born. Indeed, in both cases we leave a place of warmth and protection for one that is unknown. The unknown often brings fear with it.”
The pandemic stole his transition from home to school from him and, quite frankly, I’m mad about it. Instead, I have to sit here and watch him get swallowed by the “mouse” over and over and it’s not fair. I have to tell him “no” when he gets called on by his teacher and doesn’t know the answer and looks to me for help. I have to bite my tongue when he doesn’t know the directions to his assignment because he was picking at the side of the chair. I have to be the asshole that lets my kid be uncomfortable despite everything my instinct is telling me to do. I can’t let covid-19 take away his opportunity for the self-regulating, independence-cultivating and self-discovery that happens when our kids do things when we’re not looking.
I can’t let Covid give me an excuse to continue rescuing him from the monsters — at least some of them. Otherwise, I just take away his pride from learning how to chase them on his own.
