I still don’t know if I’m picking what’s best for my kid, but here’s how I muddle through
Last Tuesday I stood at my kitchen counter, half-eaten bag of Goldfish crackers spilling crumbs onto my laptop, and stared down two conflicting emails. One was from the travel soccer coach, saying my 8-year-old Lila had made the team and we needed to commit to weekend tournaments starting next month. The other was from the tiny pottery studio downtown, saying the after-school beginner class Lila had begged me for all spring had an opening starting the exact same day.
For 20 minutes I paced the kitchen, opening and closing the fridge for no reason. All the other moms in Lila’s third grade class do travel soccer. My neighbor whose kid goes to a fancy private high school on a soccer scholarship told me three times last month that I’d be stupid to pass up the spot, that it builds grit and discipline and looks good on college apps. I grew up swearing I’d never force my kid into something they hated just to check a box, because my mom did that to me with piano for four years, and I still can’t hear a Bach prelude without getting a tight chest remembering how I’d hide in the bathroom before lessons crying. But there I was, second-guessing Lila when she’d already said, clear as day, that she wants pottery more.
It’s like this all the time, isn’t it? No one gives you a rule book for this stuff, just a million different opinions, all of them sounding right until the next one comes along and contradicts it. I remember when Lila was four, and her pediatrician pointed out that her speech was a little delayed, suggested twice weekly speech therapy. I ran into a mom at the playground a few days later who told me I was overreacting, that her nephew didn’t talk until he was five and he’s now a 16-year-old genius who tests out of high school math. I got in my car after that playdate and cried in the Target parking lot, because I didn’t know if I was pushing her too hard or not doing enough. I ended up signing her up for therapy anyway. It wasn’t because I was sure it was the best call. It was because I figured if I did it and it turned out to be unnecessary, the worst that would happen is we wasted an hour a week playing with speech toys and ate too many Goldfish crackers in the waiting room. No harm done. If I skipped it and it turned out she needed it, I’d never forgive myself. That’s the only rule I’ve come up with so far, actually: pick the thing you’ll regret less if you’re wrong.
It’s not a perfect rule, obviously. Last year I signed Lila up for a week of sleepaway camp because everyone said it builds independence, and she called me crying at 9 a.m. the first day saying she hated it, she missed her cat, she didn’t want to sleep in a cabin with ten other girls. I drove an hour and a half to get her, and the camp director gave me that look that says you’re coddling her, you’re ruining her. I felt awful the whole drive home, convinced I’d messed up, that I’d taught her to quit when things get hard. Then we spent the rest of the week eating ice cream for lunch every day, working in the garden, and she kept saying how happy she was, and I realized that sometimes quitting when things are terrible isn’t a weakness. It’s just knowing what you don’t like.
I still get the jitters when I see other parents posting their kids’ awards and competition wins on Facebook. Last month I forgot to sign Lila up for the school science fair, and I spiraled for an hour, thinking I was killing her love of STEM before she even hit middle school. Then when I told her, she just shrugged and said “good, I didn’t want to do a baking soda volcano anyway. Volcanoes are boring.” That weekend she spent three days building a bug hotel out of fallen branches and old pinecones in the backyard, and she taught me more about native mason bees than I’ve ever learned in my life. Was that better than a science fair? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. It just was what it was.
So back to soccer and pottery. I signed her up for pottery. I still haven’t written the coach back yet, actually, which is terrible, I know, I keep putting it off because I don’t want to deal with the “oh you’re passing that up?” disappointment. Last night she came home from her first trial class, clay crusted under her fingernails and all up her sleeve, holding this lopsided blue mug that says “MOM” in big wonky letters. She was so proud she could barely stand still, kept turning it around to show me the handle she molded herself. I put it on my nightstand, and I look at it every time I get up to get water in the middle of the night.
I still lay awake sometimes worrying. What if she never learns to work on a team? What if she wants to play soccer in high school and she’s behind because I let her skip it before she even started? What if the worm digging and clay and bug hotels don’t add up to anything impressive when she applies to college? I don’t have a nice neat answer for any of that. I don’t have a conclusion that wraps it all up in a pretty bow. The only thing I know is that right now, when I look at that lopsided mug, I don’t see a missed soccer opportunity. I see a kid who’s exactly where she wants to be. And that’s got to count for something, right? Even if it’s not the best thing on paper. (Word count: 1128)
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