The Children Are Our Future...

...teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier... Thank you Whitney Houston for that song I can never get out of my head. RIP Whitney. 

I took my daughter to her first counseling appointment last week. At the end of the school year, my daughter's teacher and her guidance counselor were concerned about her self esteem. The divorce, her grandmother's cancer, my kidney stone, issues with school work. If I were 9 and was going through all that, I'd be a little insecure too. My daughter's teacher wanted to meet to discuss her self esteem issues. Getting the teacher's email literally a week before school ended made me want to scream... or kill the teacher. Yeah, probably kill the teacher. I honestly didn't have the energy to deal with it then. I was basically just skating to the finish line of the last day of school and the freedom that the summer would bring. I didn't see much point in scheduling a meeting with a teacher she wasn't going to have again nor talking with a guidance counselor she wouldn't be seeing over the summer. I'm not a bad mother, I'm just a mother who temporarily checked out of everything to lick my wounds. Don't call Social Services, I was done for a while there but I'm back now. 

Since our vacation with my sister and niece is over and I have my head out of the pain-filled divorce cloud, I finally scheduled my daughter to see a counselor. The counselor was nice, very nice. She was a little new-age-y/love child-y/free spirit-y. Are all female counselors that way? Tony Soprano's counselor wasn't but that's a tv show so I'm not sure if that's a valid exception to the rule or not. Anyway, the counselor, who I'm going to call Poppy (for no reason other than it makes me giggle), was very nice. My daughter was chatty and giggly and seemed to feel instantly at ease with her. Maybe it was the huge Bernese mountain dog that sat at her feet the whole time (Poppy's mascot apparently) that made my daughter open up but I'm going to stick with the reason being that Poppy is good at what she does.  

We talked with Poppy about why we were there. I mentioned the divorce and Poppy asked whose idea the divorce was. I said my husband's. My daughter looked at me and said I thought it was both of yours. I said no, Daddy made the decision. I'm probably doing the exact opposite of what the divorce 'experts' would say. You need to suck up the shit sandwich and let the kids think it was a joint decision. Uh no, I don't think so. I won't lie to my kids about that. When I told one of my friends afterwards about Poppy asking that question, my friend wanted to know why that was even important and that maybe I shouldn't lay the blame at my husband's feet in front of my daughter. That person is no longer my friend. Ha, just kidding, but I did tell my friend that I'm not going to let my kids think that I had much of a choice in their father's decision. I am not going to let them believe that I imploded our family willingly. Does it really matter? Should Poppy have asked that question? I don't know but if I was my daughter, I'd probably want to know what the heck just happened to my safe family that seemed fine six months ago. 

Poppy asked my daughter what she was worried about and my daughter said nothing. Then Poppy listed off things that she would be worried about if she were my daughter. Is Daddy lonely? Is Mommy lonely? Is Grandma going to be okay? Are we going to have to move? Am I going to be able to do the schoolwork of a fourth-grader? If we move, will I make new friends? 

Was this validating what my daughter might be feeling and therefore was a good thing to discuss? Or was it putting ideas in her head? I don't know. This being a parent is challenging shit. When I signed up to be a parent, I didn't expect to have to be doing it on my own, all the worrying and wondering about the kids. I'd like to think in my husband's pea sized brain, there's a fraction of what I'm worried about in there. But I'm betting he's just worried about what his supper will be that night and not whether his kids are going to grow up to be successful, well adjusted human beings. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit though, I'm slightly biased by the vision of his 'OMG, that's disgusting' pics in my kitchen. 

Poppy gave my daughter some homework to do before the next session - make up a list of all the things she's worried about. A few days ago, my daughter and I were driving in the car in the middle of a bad rainstorm. As we pulled over on the side of the road because the torrential downpour made seeing almost impossible, my daughter yelled from the backseat, "I'm going to put dying in a car accident in the rain on my worry list!" 

So I guess that will be the topic of Poppy's discussion with my daughter at the next visit. Rainstorms and car accidents = worrisome. Divorce and moving = no big deal. If that's actually the case with my daughter, then I'm going to cut myself a break and maybe think that she's going to come through this divorce okay.