Let’s be honest: It’s been a long time since I was 10.
But that’s the age my oldest is now, and I want to make sure I’m connecting with him the best I can as he ages.
Around the time of his 10th birthday, he began to experience what my husband and I dubbed “ennui.” Every once in a while, usually when he was overtired, he’d break into tears and say he felt sad or lonely or just not himself.
I didn’t know what to do with my typically easy-going, even-keeled kid, so I turned to another tween I know: myself. From age 9 through to my college years, I faithfully chronicled my adolescence in a series of journals, and I kept them all.
So I opened up my first diary, the one with Berenstain Bears on the cover and a note inside that says: “Keep out! This means you!”
Early entries chronicle my experience seeing Titanic in the movie theater (“so good I was shaking,” I wrote) and a list of the cutest boys ever (Aladdin comes in at No. 3). But others actually point to what kind of emotions a fairly typical tween feels.
I wrote that I was sad when my goldfish died. I vented about how frustrating it was to go back to the orthodontist yet again. I wrote about a big presentation everyone had to give in health class, which one was funny and who forgot their lines.
I wrote about being at odds with my parents. I feared telling them if I forgot a book at school the night before a big test or if I got a bad grade. I got mad at them for not letting me call boys.
I notice any negative interaction with my parents that I describe is a BIG DEAL. I was a pretty sensitive kid, but when I look at how I deal with my own kids I hope I’m also a sensitive parent. These little people are dealing with their own problems, whether it’s tests or drama on the school playground, and they need me to be a safe place, but another source of stress. I want to be a stable force in my kids’ lives.
But what strikes me is that my parents don’t actually show up as much in the pages as I thought they would. I had enough of a life to literally fill a book, and my parents are background actors. I look at my own kids and think that their dad and I and their siblings are their world — but we’re not necessarily.
There’s a lot I don’t know about what goes on during their school day or on their play dates or on the bus — especially on the bus. (What is it about bus rides that inspires anarchy?) My diaries focused on who had a crush on who, who was on my basketball team that season, how many books I read for extra credit determined to beat the other avid reader in my class. I recorded every time I got a new beanie baby.
When my kids were little I came across a quote that has stuck with me: “If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” And that’s what reading my diaries has reminded me to do. To pay attention to my kids and to care about what they care about. To listen when they tell me something matters to them.
Once I wrote “mom got on my nerves ‘helping’ with a brochure with my project for school and I got mad.” I don’t recall exactly what project I was referring to, but I do remember my mother continually offering unsolicited advice because, she said, she knew what was best for me. I remember desperately wanting to show her that I was capable of doing things well even if they weren’t the way she would have done them.
My son often wants my help with school projects — to a point. When I offer a piece of advice and he replies: “I got it,” I try to back off (usually I try once more, but I’ve learned by the second “I got it,” he really means it). And almost always, he does have it. I’m continually impressed with what he comes up with and how creative he is. And if keeps a journal someday, I hope he writes that his mom was proud of him. That his mom believed in him.
I think that’s what 10-year-old me would want.
Lauren Davidson is a Pittsburgh-based writer and editor focusing on parenting, arts and culture, and weddings. She has worked at newspapers and magazines in New England and western Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with degrees in English and French. She lives with her editor husband, four energetic kids, and one affectionate cat. Follow her on Twitter @laurenmylo.
