Yesterday we were snuggling, Lily and I. It was time for her to fall asleep, and she loves it when I stay beside her after reading to her. It was early, we both had had bad nights since Lily came down with a weird cold-hot-normal sequence, where she'd complain about feeling very cold in the evening and demanding a lot of blankets. Then she would suddenly overheat and stay very hot for a while, before finally normalizing.
Parents know that this kind of stuff costs us sleep. So, it was barely 7pm when I turned out the light since we were both incredibly tired. And then suddenly, she started talking. Not really asking questions. But making statements. And I listened. And answered. And gave my opinion. And argued. We had a real discussion. For around 45min (which didn't help our tiredness today...).
It was the first time. And I was confused. We had some longer exchanges of words before, but not like this. Obviously, the situation we're in merits longer discussions, yet I wasn't sure how much a 7.5 year old can handle and do. Apparently more than I thought.
She talked about all the topics that are moving her at the moment. She knows that her mom wants to take her out of here again, and that the mom doesn't like the school nor her teacher (which Lily herself adores) and so many other things. Including me, top of the list. And she had been exposed to a lot of that from her mom's side.
I want to be on mom's side.
That's a phrase that caught my attention. Not "I am on my mom's side", but "I want to be". I knew she were conflicted between what she feels and what her mom constantly complains about, but I didn't know that it was that bad. In the end, even that whole cold-hot-normal-sequence could've been just an psychosomatic outburst of her emotions being hyper-stimulated.
The whole discussion made it clearer to me that she really wants to please her mom. She repeated several times "Mom is crying a lot", something she had said before. I think she feels somewhat responsible for her mom's well being, her happiness. Which is a lot to carry for a little girl. If it's too much for the mom to carry, how could the child?
I'm not sure if I handled it all well. That's parenthood, I know. I wasn't prepared for this at all. But I'm incredibly happy about it. Her having the trust towards me to say it all. And I did make clear that she can (and should) always do that, and that it's absolutely fine if she has a different opinion than I. I tried to be as respectful as possible, recognizing her mom's opinions coming out of her in a way that makes sense to a little girl. It wasn't fun to notice her scrambling to find arguments to support those opinions. But in retrospective, I now know that I did the right thing, being respectful of those opinions, but also placing mine against them.
It's clear that she's not only growing in body, but also in spirit and mind. Though I enjoyed that precious exchange of minds, I know that more of that is coming now. And not long, and the discussions will get harsher. I'll have to adapt my parenting to that now. Establish strategies, prepare answers, work on my patience. It's going to be a lot of work.
But it also means that I made it. We have that connection, and it's only growing stronger, despite being under heavy fire. She might not yet be capable of breaking out of this vicious cycle of Child Adulting.
One day, she will.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!
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