Too old for toys, too young for boys. That’s the description I found when I Googled “age of tweens” the other night. Obviously, I’d had a bad day with one of my kids. I just had to confirm what I was sensing: that my little girl is molting her girlishness. How long until it’s a sad, dry husk of yesterdays and used-to-be’s? Almost suddenly it seems she’s entered the halls of that mystifying place mothers have been telling me about (read: warning me about) since I first held her nine and a half years ago.
Nine and a half. What was I doing at that age? Like her, I was in the midst of the third grade, learning how to multiply numbers and spin around the monkey bars with just one leg hooked. I had a number of “best friends,” and we often gabbed in annoying baby voices that made my mom want to split her wig. We played chase and kickball and thought boys booger-nosed and unessential. I fancied myself a stellar singer despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I also thought myself a wowzer of a dancer, artist, runner, roller-skater—basically an ace of all trades. My parents had to endure a lot of painfully stupid living room performances in which the whole point was for me to be watched, watched, and watched some more. Yeah, I was a lot like my kiddo.
Yet I sense something is different with her version of nine and a half. Namely, I don’t remember being embarrassed of my mom at that age. I don’t remember kind of hating her or resenting her, trying to make her feel like an idiot, eagle-eye nitpicking her for everything from a mispronounced word to a chin hair. I don’t remember trying to annoy the crap out of her, poking at the wasp’s nest with little misbehaviors I knew would set her teeth on edge. Sometimes, I think that’s what’s happening under my roof. Is it really already time? Are we on the precipice of the age of eye-rolling, on the age of sullen brooding during camping trips once filled with flower-picking and imagined woodland pixies?
Last summer I said to my husband, “I have a feeling this might be her last little-kid summer. Let’s take a good trip and enjoy it.” Ultimately, we couldn’t. Financially it just wasn’t within reach. Instead we camped and swam and went bike-riding and on picnics. It was a good summer, full of water balloons and tree-climbing. She ran around naked a lot. While my husband started asking her to please put on some underwear in the name of all that’s holy, I quietly appreciated the persistence of her childish lack of modesty. Big kids cover up. Little kids let it all hang out. It’s a very clear line of delineation between two worlds.
It won’t be long before the line is behind us, that dry husk of little girlishness shrinking almost out of view. Sure, my heart will ache a bit when I revisit images of her still-round face surrounded by a happy, wild mess of curls as she jumps for joy on my bed at age two, age four, age seven. But I will try not to let it get to me when her eyes narrow now as she pushes at the boundaries of my patience with hints of sarcasm, a head turned away from a kiss, and her completely annoying and exaggerated disapproval of every food, movie, outfit, song, activity, you-name-it that I suggest—simply because it was me who suggested it. I’ll try to laugh at the obnoxious juvenile humor that has come to replace her not-quite knock-knock jokes that never made any sense. (Knock, knock! Who is it? It’s me, you cow eyeball!) And hardest of all, I’ll have to accept that even though I can insist on respect, I can’t insist on being liked. Sometimes I’ll be hated. That sucks. All you veteran mothers, you warned me.
What you didn’t tell me was that there are so many new things to love: She’s already traded in her dress-up clothes for a Beatles shirt, running pants, and a skateboard, and, oh, how I like to see her becoming something a world of Disney princesses could never shape. She uses her manners. She leaves me notes. Lately when she notices me exercising, she’ll fill up a glass with cold water and bring it to me the very moment I’m done. She’ll help her little brother without being asked. Her personality and talents are taking shape in a clearer way, and I like the person I see when I see her interacting with the world. She sometimes chooses “chat time” with me now over “read-alone time” before lights-out, cautiously revealing secrets that are big to her but so small and still-innocent to me: a cute boy, a bad word, a friend’s fib. Little by little, she shares her foreign world with me. She still needs me, even if she wants to choke me sometimes.
The Second Magpie 
Did you ever sum that up perfectly. I’m there too right now, sad and glad and everything in between as my little girl inches towards double digits.
Thanks, Lynn. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones, right? 😉
Sadly I entered last summer…this makes me cry all over again! I’m right along side of you!
It’s rough! Misery does love company, though. I’ve been getting some comfort out of talking with other moms whose kids are the same age.
I love that shes sleeping with her board. I have no daughters but I can only imagine that tweendom will be just as fun with 3 boys all hitting it at about the same time. They’re currently almost 4, 1, and 2 weeks old. I know it’s interesting now so it definitely will be a few years from now when they all have their funky little sayings and opinions.
You are in a pretty yowza stage yourself right now, with kids that age! You’ll be a pro when it’s your turn!
Yeah, two in diapers is a handful. Not to mention trying to transition to a sippy with a newborn. My oldest keeps me feeling pretty optimistic by letting me know that I’m Captain America and hes the Hulk. I figure between the two of us (and Dad, who is the Hulk as well), nothing will get in our way lol. I would probably be screwed without my little Hulk-man!
love that she has the skateboard in her bed!!! So awesome. My oldest is almost 7. I’ve still got a couple of years don’t I???
I think you’ve got a couple of years left, yes! For me and most of my mom friends, it started right around 8.5, and it was just glimmers at first. Now it waxes and wanes. One day she surprises me by grabbing for my hand, and the next, she’s acting like I’ve asked her to wax the top of the Chrysler Building if I have her wash a dish. Highs and lows!
Oh, there’s a piece of my heart that is cracking a bit, knowing how this feels as a mother. And now I feel like I get to go throughy it again with grandchildren. It’s all necessary – we can’t be children forever, although I’m almost 65 and I still often want to be. Childhood is just too darned short. If you young mothers REALLY want a good cry (and I’m sure that’s just what you need), read the poem “On Turning 10” by Billy Collins. But in leaving childish things, remember there is as much or more to look forward to – seeing your daughter become a mother, for one. 🙂
I think she’s got at least another summer of barefoot walks and tree-climbing with you, Mom. You bring out the little girl in here, in the best way. 🙂
I clicked the “Like” button above but wish there was a “Love” button. Beautifully written.
Thank you, Leanne! I appreciate that!
So sweet. Sigh. Sniff. Love. Alas, we’ve left tweendom on the side of the road and are in the midst of the scary teen years. Love this post!
Ack! I have to admit that when I was Googling the tween stuff, it was mostly out of anxiety that I’m steering toward the ominous teen years and feeling like I am going to be absolutely miserable at handling them. But honestly, in the past month, I’ve met two moms who have teenagers, and when I said something like, “Oh, my. Is it rough?” BOTH said it isn’t as bad as they expected, that the worst of it lasted maybe a year and at the very beginning. Those are my two piddly data points, but I’m going to try to hang my hat on them.
A girl can dream, right?