My experience as a parent has been interesting lately. Besides the fact that I have gone from stay at home mom to full time working mom, my son is a different little boy now. He's 5. He's school age. He's taller, bigger, stronger, more talkative (lord love a duck is he talkative), more demanding, more loving, more everything and everything else in between. With this change from toddler to boy, I've recently noticed a change in his interactions with others. It hasn't been so much his interactions with his school mates that caught my attention, there is the usual little one that kind of gives all the children a run for the money, but his interactions with other children, most often children that are just a little older than him, unknown to him at the skating rink, the swimming pool and most recently the hockey game that makes an uncomfortable feeling rise up in me. Mostly what I see is, C being his usual self. Talking away, lost in his imagination, chatting it up with new friends, being super social and trying to make the crowd laugh. What I don't see anymore is the, 'oh what a cute little thing' look that always came along with him being a baby or toddler. Now what I see is, little boys on skates trying to get away from him, little girls rolling their eyes and whispering and trying to get away from him and children making him sit in a seat away from them.
Do you hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking.
When I was little I was an oddball. I didn't know popular music, I didn't dress like everyone else, I didn't think like everyone else and I certainly wasn't included with everyone else. I didn't realize there was anything wrong with me. Truly, there wasn't, but it sure as heck felt like there was after a long time of not being included in things and after that while I did my best to fit in, to not much avail. My experience of this really didn't start until I was preteens but there were still happenings of it that I recall as early as kindergarten. I wasn't equipped with strong role models of self confidence at home so I sure as heck didn't know how to stick up for myself, in fact the only way I was able to cope was to usually break down and cry.
And now, the thing that I have most dreaded about being a mama to C, has begun.
Sometimes when I'm close enough, when these little happenings occur, I make eye contact with the children that he is interacting with and I see it in their eyes. There is guilt or fear when they look back at me like I'm going to call them on their behaviour and get them into trouble. They know that they are being mean. But I don't interfere... much. Sometimes my little eye to eye is enough to satisfy myself, to know that they know, that I KNOW.
But oh, what to do about the uncomfortable feelings? Obviously I have unresolved issues about being bullied. Most likely because in some ways as an adult I still allow myself to be bullied. I'm working on those. Believe me. But to see my little babe, still oblivious to the looks, to the ignorance. I don't want to be a giant mama bear that takes away his power to resolve the situation and learn how to cope and take care of himself. But boy oh boy does mama bear want to maul those little out of line cubs.
So it is my job to rise above. Because there is nothing wrong with C. He's an oddball perhaps by some societal norm, or simply because he's being raised by a reigning oddball, he doesn't see that and I would prefer to keep him exactly as he is and is meant to be because after all the years of conforming to fit in, I found happiness as an adult by returning to my oddball roots. I don't want him to lose touch, ever. One thing I truly miss as an adult that I gave up as a child to conform and fit in was my naivety. I see C is still pure and strong with the force of naivety. I want to protect that, and if anything model the best behaviour that I can so that oddball or not, he makes strong choices from a place of confidence and not fear or wanting.
Most of all I want him to continue to look at those other children the same way that he does now. With love. He sees so much goodness in them. Perhaps he is just much stronger than I am or was. Regardless, I want to keep that. Screw the bitterness that I have lived with for so long. Together we will learn together to keep our integrity, love the planet and all the people on it. XO. S


