It seems to be the question of the week around here. As she gets older, she asserts her independence more and more, which makes sense.
The first thing she wanted to do was walk around my parents neigborhood by herself. It's a very safe neighborhhod, the kind where you can actually play in the street and only have to worry about a car coming every once in a while. With a little convincing from my sister, I let her go. I was nervous about it the first few times, but eventually I was fine with it. Shortly after, I let Katherine go with Emily but I wouldn't let Katherine go alone.
A couple of weeks ago at Mardi Gras, she wanted to walk around by herself. The event is spread out across the school...in the gym, the cafe, and the hallways. I was nervous about this too. She goes to school there so I knew she wouldn't get lost but there were so many people there. Again, with a little convincing, I let her go and gave her a specific time and location in which she had to meet her father in the gym. She folllowed the guidelines and it was all good.
Her latest question is, "When will I be old enough to stay home alone?" My joking answer was, "I don't know, when your 20?" Her response was a long, groaning, "Mommmmmmmm." This is a big step though, and whether or not she is ready, I am not. Ten is way too young to be home alone.
She also keeps asking when she can get contacts, to which my answer has been, "when you start taking more responsibility for your things" which, I think is a good answer really. If you can't take care of what you already have, you can't get more. Of course, I am hoping that this type of thing would motivate her but, things like that don't seem to affect her. I don't know why but I think it has to do with the Executive Functioning Disorder, and not being able to plan for or anticipate things appropriately.
Anyway, the whole point of this entry was to say:
This parenting thing (especially with the first child who generally asks all these questions first)? It's hard. Damn hard. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but honestly, I don't think I ever considered how tough this might be at times. Most people don't I would think. I mean there's a huge difference between holding a beautiful new baby in your arms and parenting a pre-teen. Yes, you think about the future and what it will bring, but you don't (or at least I didn't) think about all of the finer details, and how they all come in to play.
I really have no idea if I am doing a good job of saying what I am trying to say here. Anyone out there understand? Anyone?
2 comments:
I understand, b/c we have Emily's the same age. I'll email ya.
Just after I turned 12, I road my bike over 3 miles from Halifax to Adam's house for the first time. This made me an evil agent of change, because at the time Adam was allowed to ride his bike only between like the lower end of the driveway and the far edge of the lawn.
I was closer to Emily's age when I started riding my bike from the house in Halifax up to Colby Drive, off Oak Street, up route 36 almost to Pembroke.
I must have been circa 2nd grade when I would visit a friend almost across from what is now the entrance to Stop & Shop, and we would walk as far back down 106 as Richmond Park, picking up containers with deposits (before there stopped being such a thing, lobg before deposits came back when I was in college) to turn in at the little store on the corner of 58 and 106 so we could get ice creams.
Of course, that was 1968 or 1969...
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