mean girls (and boys) September 26, 2006
We went to a nearby school’s playground late this afternoon, and it was still filled with kids long after school was out. Zuzu takes a little while to warm up to strangers, so I was surprised when she bounded over to a group of girls hoping to make some new friends. She returned to where I was walking with the baby shortly afterward and said the girls told her she couldn’t go on the monkey bars with them because they were “doing something.” She got on a different piece of equipment, and a boy tried his best to make her fall off, which I discovered after watching several other kids must be part of the appeal of this particular see-saw balance beam thing. She hung on as if in a rodeo and thought it was fun, even though the boy trying to unseat her didn’t seem to have her amusement in mind. I felt bad for her as I thought back to some of the rejection and bullying I experienced as a child. I was not only the class runt, but wore glasses and was a brainy nerd; the “city” kids in our middle-of-nowhere Kansas town of 1200 also thought they were somehow more enlightened and cooler than us farm kids, which I knew at the time was ridiculous but still gave them one more reason to pick on me. Still, these moments didn’t phase Zuzu much at all and she just went to another part of the playground to play by herself.
I don’t want to be overprotective and am not for the most part, but it was hard for me to restrain my Mama Bear instincts to try and make someone play with her. And trying to make someone do anything goes against my nature. Once, on a church playground after service, some junior-high-age boys suddenly got into a heated argument, and two boys started hitting and kicking at another one. I don’t know who started it or what it was about, but there were younger kids on the playground too and without even thinking I rushed over to the boys and demanded that they stop fighting. My shouting momentarily distracted them and drew the attention of a couple of men talking in the distance, who came over and had to physically break up the fight. I was shaking and felt sick to my stomach because I’m usually quiet and more passive. (A former boss even made me go to assertiveness training once.)
I talked to my daughter on the way home about her enthusiasm for wanting to play with the other kids, and I encouraged her to try again next time. Mean kids and adults are unavoidable, and I want her to learn how to handle that and to even try to see them the way God does. I get the feeling she already does this more easily than I do.
Last week we rowed Amber on the Mountain. I had Zuzu try her hand at making a clay mule like Amber’s gift to her friend Anna. Here’s her sculpture.
We visited the