Tough Girls
the dark art of defending your kid's honor
At Rowan’s soccer game last Saturday, the team was warming up as I sat in a chair 1.5 inches off the ground that may as well not have been a chair at all, watching Zoe smear yogurt all over her face, hands, and clothing, the same way she has done every time she’s eaten yogurt for 4 years now. Rowan ran up to me, tears in his eyes.
“Lucas is being mean to me!!!”
All of a sudden, in his age 6 world, everyone is “mean” or “lying,” which is a neat transition from 5’s nothing being “fair.”
“What happened?” I investigated, hackles raised.
“He told me I’m bad at shooting balls and goals and couldn’t get a goal even if I tried!”
This is laughable, because Rowan is one of two (2) kids on his team who scores all the goals in every single game. Multiple team members consistently loll on the sidelines during the game, idly picking at the grass or “resting” because their “ankles are tired.” One of them has a Greek climate scientist dad whose casual approach I really enjoy: “It’s my job to open doors for him. I take him to the games. It’s his decision if he wants to play or not.”
“What?! That’s RIDICULOUS,” I hollered at Rowan with indignation. “Do you want me to talk to him for you?????” I asked without considering the whole hands-off European open-door approach.
“YEAH!” Rowan immediately brightened, and for the first time I got to see what it looked like for my son to feel protected and defended by an almighty power, basically. He looked so shocked at my offer he looked almost bashful, covering a grin because he was, ostensibly, enraged at Lucas.
I marched over to the kid with Rowan at my heels. “HEY, LUCAS!” I yelled, realizing I had absolutely zero clue what I was going to say to this kid. Everything I could say seemed either impossibly lame or stupidly cruel, given he was…six.
“My name’s not LUCAS!” he called back. I looked at Rowan, confused. “It’s LUKE!”
“Okay, LUKE…” I was closer now, unsure of how to keep the power structure in place, with Rowan seeing me as Almighty Protector Who Made Him Infinitesimally Proud and me as, you know, rightfully earning that title. All of a sudden I flashed back to sitting in the counselor’s office in high school, my mom having been called in for a meeting because I had been caught “cheating” on a chemistry test (it was a makeup test and the other girl and I were whispering how we had no fucking clue how to do it because our teacher was the worst most ineffective and vindictive teacher in the TRUE HISTORY of teachers (she gave out an immediate D if you stapled your homework in a place she didn’t like, etc.)). My mother sat, outraged, defending me, sharply asserting that I wasn’t CHEATING, how I was MERELY ASKING FOR HELP, and should be a red flag given I had straight A’s in every other class, but was flailing in this impossible one.
She defended me so hard the chemistry teacher herself lashed out emotionally — “Do you think I WANTED to be a high school chemistry teacher? NO. I. DIDN’T!” she seethed, her green teeth spewing forth spittle. “I wanted to be a PSYCHOLOGIST!” she screamed, and then ran out of the room.
My mom sat back, triumphant. “Small miracles,” she smirked.
I needed to be as good at my mom at defending my kid’s honor, which was clearly a tall order! I blurted out, “Rowan is going to show you just how GOOD HE IS at making goals, okay?? Because he’s REALLY GOOD AT IT,” I winked at my son, proud that I had transitioned from potentially saying something shitty to a six-year old into making it a moment of action, where Rowan really got to defend himself with his own prowess. Showing him what he very well could have said back to the kid himself - oh yeah? Watch me! - but understanding that this was not Rowan’s instinct, given neither his father nor I are “shit-talkers” but rather become mortally wounded immediately upon insult. Genetics and all.
Luke shrugged and ran off to the opposite side of the field but that’s all Rowan needed to feel better. Giggling, he kicked around me and scored a goal from a foot away. I screamed in congratulations, overly compensating for Luke’s disbelief. He looked up at me, beaming. I had done it. I had Protected Him, I had maintained my Superhero Status. A veritable Tough Girl. Not “Tough Girl” like my aunt who once got out of her car and punched someone through their car window for flipping her off, tough, but…tough for someone talking to a 6 year-old, tough.
Speaking of which, there’s another Tough Girl in our household. Got this email from Zoe’s teacher last week:
Tears of laughter of course sprang to my eyes before I envisioned how to sternly talk to her about this incident after school. I sure hope Mr. Poopy Pants’s parents supplied him with enough strength and grace to handle his future schoolyard baldness with aplomb. My apologies to him, too, wherever he is now, even if it was “JUNE’S IDEA!"“ to call him that.
MS DITKOWSKY 😳 Bless your mother.