Embracing Our Children For Who They Are

Mommy, please, help me, my daughter whispered, panicked but unable to talk any louder. I looked at her beautiful face covered in hives, her lips swollen, her eyes puffy and red. I had to look away to compose myself.

Its going to be fine, I said, not sounding convincing even to my own ears. I looked up at my husband, on the phone with a doctor, silently pleading with him to help me make a decision. Despite already taking an oral antihistamine, our daughter was complaining about her throat itching and burning, and I feared it wouldnt be long until she struggled to breathe. I somehow instinctively knew she was having a severe allergic reaction to a walnut cookie she ate, the same type shed been eating for the past eight years with no problem. I held my sons EpiPen in my hand, ready to use it on her.

Tears poured down her swollen cheeks. I wiped them away as my mind raced. She wants to be a singer on stage. She loves her dolls and her puppy and dancing. Shes always happy, always singing, always twirling. My sunshine girl. Seconds ticked by, but it seemed like hours.

Shes so different from me, I thought, as I looked at her olive skin, raven hair, and chestnut-colored eyes. She doesnt look like me, act like me, or speak like me. There are many, many days when I struggle to parent her because we are so different.

Just a few weeks ago, her teacher and I were speaking about my daughters academic performance. So many parents today want to believe their child is academically gifted. Well, not mine; she is not one of those kids who learns quickly. My daughter works harder than anyone I know, because school doesnt come easy for her.

Her teacher looked at me, smiling, and said, Your daughter told me she doesnt need to learn math because shes going to be a singer on the radio. I simultaneously felt the blood drain from my head and heat creep up my neck. Really? was all I could muster.

Well, the teacher continued, I explained all the reasons you need math as a business person and in life. . . She continued on while I made an effort to listen. But my head was swirling. Who was this child? And how is she related to me? I was a model student, always earning straight As, focused and driven to succeed in school. I did not understand this child at all.

So I asked my daughter about what she said to her teacher. Eyes wide, ponytail bouncing, big smile on her face, she looked me straight in the eye and said, Mommy, I know what I want to do. I feel it here, she pointed to her belly. I love to sing and dance. And thats why God put me here. To make people happy when Im on stage. And off she bounced, full of joy and smiling. Always smiling.

I was dumbfounded. Shes only eight. Im 42 and Im still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. Two little voices inside me debated each other: Dont crush her dreams. Give her a serious dose of reality. Back and forth and back and forth until my head pounded and my heart hurt.

Mommy, my tummy doesnt feel right. I snapped out of my own thoughts and went to grab a plastic bag nearby, but a family member had a large Solo cup in her hand and stuck it under my daughters chin. She vomited everywhere. I looked up at my husband, still on the phone. Shes in anaphylaxis, I said, starting to panic. Ready to stab her with the EpiPen, I noticed her lips and eyes returning to normal size, and her hives disappearing. Lets just wait a second, a nurse who happened to be with us counseled. Shes breathing fine. My eyes never left her face, the Epi still in my hand ready to strike. Was I doing the right thing?

Suddenly, my daughters academics didnt matter and I didnt care that she didnt like math and wanted to be a performer. Let her live out her dream, I prayed silently, dramatically. It occurred to me at that moment, that while I said I would support her dreams and convinced myself I had embraced her for who she was, I wasnt actually doing that. I was really only focusing on the one thing that came easy for me, the one thing that I believed mattered. Academic success.

Thats not easy to admit, because most parents I think would want to believe they support their kids dreams and accept their differences no matter what they entail. But realistically, we all know as adults what it means to have to put food on the table, and I personally dont want my daughter to have to rely on someone else to do that for her. So its hard so hard to admit that, sometimes, your dream for your kids may not be whats right for them. Maybe theres a different kind of success, a different path, I thought to myself. I have to help her find it.

Her color started to come back to normal, her throat stopped itching, and all the swelling went down. We got instructions from my sons allergist on how to proceed, and we all took a collective deep breath. This was going to be a long night and a long road, but wed been down it before with our older child. Although unexpected in my daughter after eight years, food allergies were nothing new to our family.

What was new was my perspective. Id like to think of myself as open and progressive, but the reality is that I wanted my daughter to be just like me. To learn quickly, love school, get good grades, and go to some fancy graduate school. I had convinced myself that my wishes for her werent a referendum on my own choices, but if Im being honest, they were. Ive made enough mistakes along to way to know I certainly didnt have all the answers.

At eight years old, my daughter had more answers than I did and she had more passion, more grace, more hope, and more faith than me, too. Plus she was the epitome of grit. Maybe school is not as easy for her as it was for me, but I never had that kind of grit at her age the kind that makes you keep going and drown out the negativity and chase your dream even when its really hard to do that. The kind of grit that you feel in your belly, the kind that lets you see there is a world beyond third-grade multiplication.

I still dont know dont know if Im parenting her right, but I do know something between us has shifted. We are so very different, and we are learning to embrace those differences. I have only viewed the world as a type-A, straight-A, academic over-achiever who didnt always follow her dreams. And Ive been wildly blessed with a little girl who has a contagious, dynamic personality and a big dream that she has the grit to chase. How lucky am I to see and experience the world from a whole new vantage point and how lucky is our corner of the world to have her in it.