The Cracked Cereal Bowl and Other Bad Decisions I Make For My Kid
This morning, I stood by the kitchen sink watching my 7-year-old Mia dig out her chipped blue dinosaur cereal bowl to take to her class potluck, and my first thought was absolutely not. That thing has a crack running along the rim that catches food if you’re not careful, and the dinosaur’s tail is half rubbed off from two years of being her go-to for every meal. I have a whole set of new matching ceramic bowls my mom got us for Christmas, still in the cupboard half-unused. Why would she bring the beat-up one when she could bring a nice one? What will the other parents think?
I was half-way to saying “pick another one” when I stopped. I remembered being 8, and having this faded red raincoat with a big coffee stain on the cuff that I was obsessed with. It was my grandma’s, and it smelled like her lavender hand cream, and it was big enough that I could tuck my favorite stuffed rabbit in the sleeve when I got scared. My mom made me leave it at home for our class field trip to the zoo, made me wear the new scratchy blue one she’d bought for me, and I still think about that 30 years later. I didn’t cry about it or anything, but I walked the whole zoo feeling wrong, like I was wearing someone else’s skin.
So I shut my mouth and let her pack the cracked bowl.
That’s the thing, right? No one gives you a rule book for this. I had all these plans when I was pregnant, typed out in my notes app like an idiot. No screen time before age 2. Organic everything, no processed sugar. All wooden open-ended toys, no plastic junk. By the time Mia was 18 months old, I was letting her watch Bluey on my phone while I cried in the bathroom after a 12-hour day of teething and work deadlines, and I was just happy we were both still breathing. All those plans went out the window faster than a sippy cup thrown from a high chair.
Last year, the school sent home a note saying Mia had qualified for the district gifted program. All the parents in the class chat were blowing up the thread, bragging about their kids getting in, talking about how it’s the first step to getting into a good college, how you’d be crazy to turn it down. I went back and forth for a week. Mia is good at reading, she’s always got her nose in a graphic novel about frogs, but the program meets during recess. When I asked her if she wanted to do it, she just blinked and said “No, that’s when I swing on the big swing with Lila. If I’m gone, who will push her?”
I almost made her do it. I almost said think about your future, this is a good opportunity. But I didn’t. I emailed the coordinator and said no thank you. Some of my friends said I was crazy, that I was throwing away her shot. Some nights I lie awake and wonder if they’re right. What if this is the thing that means she doesn’t get into the college she wants 10 years from now? Did I mess up the biggest decision of her life just so she could swing on a swing for one more year?
I don’t know. I really don’t.
I stayed to help set up the potluck this afternoon, and I saw her bowl sitting on the snack table, right next to all the nice matching bowls from other kids, and no one even cared about the chip. Ms. Henderson, her teacher, picked it up and said “What a cool dinosaur, Mia!” and Mia lit up like I’d given her a new car. That moment didn’t get her into college, but it was hers.
I think about that birthday party I went to last month, for one of Mia’s classmates. The mom had made a whole sugar-free, gluten-free cake, hired a guy to do educational magic tricks that taught the kids about chemistry, and all the kids stood around staring at him while he talked about atoms. Afterward, Mia came home and asked why we don’t do cool parties like that. Her last birthday, I bought a $12 pre-made cake from the grocery store that was so blue it dyed everyone’s tongues for two days, and we just let the kids run around the backyard chasing our cat Mochi, and I played pin the tail on the donkey with a printout I taped to a cardboard box. I felt guilty for like two days after that. Was I being lazy? Was that bad for her, that I didn’t put more effort in?
But she doesn’t remember the fancy homemade cake I baked for her when she turned 5. She remembers the time the cat got loose and stole a whole slice off the table.
No one talks about the small awkward parts, right? The time you’re in the grocery store and your kid has a full meltdown because you won’t buy her a $15 light-up unicorn slime kit that she’ll forget about in three days, and you carry her out kicking and screaming while every old lady in the produce aisle gives you the side eye, and you sit in the parking lot sweating while she cries, and you wonder if you should have just bought the damn thing to make it stop. Was that the best decision? I don’t know. I still have the three unopened slime kits in the play closet to prove I was right, but I also spent 20 minutes of my afternoon with a sore arm from carrying a kicking kid, so who really won?
I don’t have a neat answer to how you decide what’s best. I don’t have a list of tips or a big inspirational ending where I say I got it all figured out. Today I got the cereal bowl right. Last week I yelled at Mia for coloring on the wall when I was really just stressed about a work deadline, and I made her sit in time out, and I still feel bad about that. I’m wrong way more than I’m right.
Most days, I just guess. I try to remember that what’s best for her isn’t what looks good to other people, or what’s going to check a box on a list for her future 10 years from now. Sometimes it’s letting her take the cracked bowl. Sometimes it’s saying no to slime. Sometimes it’s saying no to a fancy program so she can swing on a swing with her best friend. Sometimes you mess up, you apologize, and you try again tomorrow.
I came home tonight, and Mia washed her cracked bowl and put it back on the shelf next to her bed, because she doesn’t want me to put it away with the other dishes. It’s chipped, it’s stained, it’s not perfect. It’s ours. I guess that’s as good as it gets, right?
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