IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:When it comes to childhood love, there's no way to stave off the inevitable hurt
THE ELDER went to school last year and I worried for her safety. I worried she would be hurt by her classmates, singled out by a vindictive teacher or attract the unwanted attention of an older bully. I worried, almost as much, that she might make someone else's life uncomfortable, someone weaker or slower.
Fortunately, we have been spared the experience of her being tormented in school, or the ordeal of facing another parent whose child is being made miserable by our kid's menaces.
School hasn't been all chocolate and honey, though - the elder enters, most mornings, without too much prodding, but there has been some heartache. She has a buddy in her class, without whom she struggles in the playground, as was revealed when the buddy went on holiday. The elder is a little shy, and because of this sometimes she can come across as diffident.
Watching her on the fringes sometimes breaks my heart, because all she wants is to be in the thick of a gang - she just needs to be brought in. When that happens, she becomes all exuberance and joy. As bold as the next, charmed with life.
She is intense and, like most people of intensity, prone to being hurt. And like most people open to hurt she can sometimes hurt, seldom with intent. She has a friend in the neighbourhood she loves, in the pure way a child of six can, and it appears this girl loves her back. They would, if they could, spend every minute of every day together. They would move away, set up house and forget all about the rest of us.
At least the elder would. I think her friend probably has the sense not to put all her eggs into this one basket. The elder can't have that sort of rational foresight. She is blinded by her love and, should her friend, for whatever reason as kids do, choose to favour someone else, the elder will be distraught. Inconsolable, for a week at least.
Another girl who tried to come between them - at least in the elder's eyes - has already been despatched. She was not harangued or abused, but she was excluded.
Her father, a friend of mine, spoke about it and asked that the two doyennes make an effort to keep his girl in the loop. This other girl turns up to play with gifts and enthusiasm. Edicts have been issued for her to be accorded as much respect as the next woman. She is not to know she has walked into a Shakespearean romance with her as the first tragic casualty.
Whether more will follow is yet to be seen, but one would presume that blood cannot fail to be spilled in a drama of this ferocity.
I encourage the elder to develop the friendship beyond the boundaries of the twosome, to bring in the third girl, get a gang going, terrorise the neighbours, anything to ease the inevitable pain of being let down by the one person in whom you invested everything, for that is too much for one small girl to carry.
They are a wonderful pair, similar in looks and temperament, with nothing but good things to say about the other. They call each other sister, but they need to add to the family. Once again, I am realising the helplessness of the parent. I can show her how to do things, I can teach her how things work and I can pick her up when she's down. But I can't tell her what to feel, or what way is the right way to feel, because what I would advise is no more legitimate than the path she would choose.
My motive is to avoid hurt for her. My advised paths would be ones of safety, conservative. She exudes a desire for the full experience; who am I to argue otherwise? Who am I to say that avoiding hurt is any better than being cut? How can you appreciate safety if you have never had the full flush of terror, the anguish of loss, thrust upon you? Being a kid isn't about staying clean, it's about rolling in the mud.
As she learns her own lessons, and receives the clouts that come with them, I continue to become aware of how little I can do. It's like knowing the future and being powerless to change the outcome - whatever you do, whether unreasoned or planned to the finest detail, the result will be the same.
Someone will get hurt. And someone will feel joy, and intrigue, and anger, and hope, and love.