Some of you may remember my story about my daughter's "problem friend," who I referred to as K, from a few weeks ago. Well, K has been back in the picture the past couple of weeks, since summer started, really...which is kind of good as most of Mia's other friends on the street are in full-time day care during the summer...
...and kind of bad because we still have a lot of problems with K, especially her complete disregard for the boundaries of other people. Today she was in my house for three and a half hours and I thought I was gonna lose my marbles by the time she left. In fact this is something that I am considering addressing directly with her in the very near future, and I am absolutely loathe to insert myself into my daughter's relationships in this way. I probably won't do it, but boy was I ready to by the time she left today.
The shit that comes out of this kid's mouth, though. Some of it is really reflective of a troubled home life, like the other day when she laughingly referred to her bedtime as "whenever I pass out," or like today when she casually told me over a game of Uno that her mother had a heart attack a week and a half ago, and when I tried to expressed sympathy she waved it away by saying she hates her mom's guts, all they do is shout at each other all the time, and she wishes she was dead. At first I was thoroughly convinced it was a tough girl act but as the scene continued to unfold I started to have my doubts, especially because she has expressed resentment for her mother before. I dunno, I didn't get along with my dad when I was that age (because he was frightening and abusive), but an event like that would have scared me into a catatonic state nonetheless. Maybe I'm wrong? I'm trying to give her all the benefit of the doubt because I can't imagine what it would be like to go through that at that age. But she didn't make it easy.
Regardless, unless something truly abusive is going on there, that's probably not my business either way. Much more bothersome was when she told my daughter right in front of me that she was going to get fat by the time she gets to fifth grade, because "everybody does." (Mia will be entering fourth grade in the fall) "You should see all the kids in fifth grade," she says, "they're all fat...except the little tiny kids I guess but you don't want to be one of those." I really did not know what to do while it was happening, I was totally speechless. Perhaps I should not have been, but I couldn't think of a good way to insert myself in that conversation without hurting anybody, as K herself, as you may have guessed, is overweight...and Mia is, indeed, one of those "little tiny kids." I'm sure K just sees her as small because she's a couple years younger than her, but Mia has always been petite for her age, like her mom.
Now, I'm not too worried about my kid's body image...not yet, anyway. She eats healthy, she's fit and active and she always seems very comfortable in her own skin. She handled the situation really damn well, telling K point-blank she didn't want to talk about it anymore, and when K ignored her and kept going anyway she changed the conversation herself and K dropped it. I had a sit-down with Mia after K went home, and that went well too. She did not seem particularly bothered by what had happened and she didn't seem to suddenly be worried about her weight.
But I still remember when she was seven years old and some off-handed comment from a distant relative that I can't even remember the details of (something fairly innocent but careless about what a cute baby she was because fat babies are the cutest) lead to her checking herself on the scale every night until we got rid of it. So it's not like she's invulnerable to this. And of course my wife pointed out as soon as she got home that Mia's reaching an age where she is going to be dealing with this stuff all the fucking time with her peers and we'll all just have to learn good strategies to deal with that. ARRRGH. Man. I know raising boys is hard too, I had three brothers growing up and believe me I know it's hard in its own way, but girls have it so fucking hard socially, and it begins so early it's cruel. I never had to deal with any of this shit when I was growing up. My wife wasn't phased by what had gone down one bit.
Anyway. I'm not really looking for advice this time around. Just needed to vent. For the first time I feel like I'm totally unprepared for a new developmental/social stage and it scares me but good. I'm glad this thread is here because it could be a long summer.
