Eight

Despite having briefly majored in psychology about a million years ago (and perhaps, more importantly, despite being a parent for eight-plus years) my understanding of child development remains woefully inadequate.  I’m definitely in the “learn as I go” school of child rearing, having decided early on that the plethora of parenting books available to me served more to make me feel guilty and neurotic than supported and reassured.  So I have stumbled my way through fierce diaper rashes, oppositional toddlers, limit-pushing 5-year-olds, and now eight-hood.

Eight is a beautiful age.  Kids have all kinds of independent skills and minds still open to the wonder of the world.  And they still snuggle.  My daughter is eight, and while we’re seeing some sassing and more attitude than I would like, I generally enjoy her company very much.  I love hearing her read, watching her run, and seeing how she seeks out the company of her friends.  I love that she dotes on her baby brother, running to me to report the latest cute thing that he said.  I take joy that her oft-repeated answer to the question, “What did you do in school today?” (i.e. “nothing,”) can still be subverted by animated discussions of the Iroquois or poetry or some historical figure that they read about.

I also see eight as a pivotal age, when one’s senses of self and self-worth start to take shape.  Maybe it’s because children only really start to understand how they fit into the world around that time.  They begin to understand how their actions impact others, and how they have the power to hurt, disappoint, comfort, or cheer.  They start being aware of how they are perceived, and there are the first glimmers of adolescent self-absorption in how they regard themselves.  It is so, so easy to introduce seeds of insecurity at this age, so easy to deny children the tools that they can use to create a healthy sense of self-confidence.  Sometimes, try as we might, kids are just anxious and unhappy.  Sometimes, there is something that sets a child apart so that the train that carries that most precious cargo, feelings of worth and confidence and being good enough, derails at the start.

For myself, I always seem to come back to eight when I think about first feeling, first noticing, first worrying, first doubting.  It was the age at which I was first teased about being fat, the age at which I started becoming self-conscious in ballet class.  Eight was my first diet, overseen by our pediatrician.  I remember how defective I felt.  Eight was coming home to an empty house after school and eating and eating, probably to soothe my anxiety about being alone, and to express my relief at being someplace safe where I couldn’t be teased.  Eight was being sure that my dad didn’t love me as I felt his disgust with my weight.  I had no way of understanding that he saw me through the filter of his own depression and feelings of inadequacy.  My parents–well, my mom mostly–were loving and attentive and I know that both of them wanted the best for me.  They put me on a diet because they were worried about my health.  They had me come home to an empty house because my mom wanted and needed to work.  There was no malice, and in many ways, I grew up in a stable, loving environment.  But I was fat and smart and sensitive, and my train derailed in a big way.

The beauty of now having an eight year old girl is that I am finding it easier to spend time with my own self at eight.  I hear the words that I say to my daughter (the kind, supportive words, not the come-inside-and-practice-the-piano-RIGHT-NOW words) and imagine that I am filling in the blank spaces of my own childhood.  I tell my daughter what I would have wanted to hear at eight.  Now, I know that my daughter is not me.  That much is clear.  Just as her long, muscular legs and her smooth, shiny hair are so different from mine, so is her personality.  Quirky like me, yes.  A little too smart for her own good like me, ditto.  But she has a thicker skin than I do.  She is sensitive, but she is self-assured.  She looks to her friends for fun, but can just as easily be entertained by her own inner world.  She takes pride in being a little offbeat; as she once said to me, “People who aren’t weird are just boring.”  So I take heart knowing that she may not be so harmed by the slings and arrows of mean kids and ignorant adults as I was, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to hear that she’s loved.  That she’s safe.  That she’s beautiful.  That she is a good person.  I try to tell her these things every day, and my hope is that my own eight year old self is listening, too.