to my daughter
September 4, 2014 § 2 Comments
Last night over homework we pushed and pulled against one another’s expectations with false assumptions that undermined good intentions. I clung tightly to a desire to be purposeful and present in your learning while you built walls of righteous independence with admirable expressions of stubborn determination to hide hurt feelings.
Like an argument never spoken, we were responding to private fears and insecurities more than one another’s beliefs. I almost dismissed disrespectful undertones as a premature posturing of pre-teen arguments to come. Then, with a deep breath, I turned to leave and caught the sigh in your shoulders; recognizing a tenderness and vulnerability that mirrored my own.
It was an opportunity I might have missed had I blinked or looked in the wrong direction. Instead, by chance, I found the path to a conversation I was unwittingly silencing. First, though, I had to hear a few hard truths.
My messages of support were clouded in subliminal statements of judgement. Somewhere along the way you came to hear a criticism of can’t.
At this I wanted to bristle, I could feel the dander of prickly injustice. My head spun against the false contradiction to my genuine intentions, but my speech only cluttered yours. So I listened.
Every struggle shared with your brother, each statement of can and must; assertions of ability and questions of effort, however irrelevant to your personality or needs, had been carefully itemized and internalized as measurements for my expectations. Within these messages was the beginning of a new awareness of how my words translate your assumptions.
Today is cluttered with commitments, but I needed to carve out a moment to preserve yesterday least I forget this lesson between us: I had to first hear how I sounded to your ears before you were willing to listen. I had to accept responsibility for unintentional harm before you would invite my help.
I’m still listening.
Love, Mom
scribblechic 
As a SAHD of four, two of them girls, this was a refreshing read. This is a wonderful poetic conversation that is ever so spoken on a nightly basis. I can easily assimilate into your writing as a parent of a young(what I imagine) tween, as it so mimics my own. I look forward to reading more!
Thank you for hearing poetry in the everyday language of love. Your comment was a beautiful beginning to a new day.