I was co-oping this morning. With the rain, the children were all inside for free play. I saw my Clara playing something that looked like "house." She was with a pack of girls, all older, all four, a few were even five. They had built some structure that looked like a cross between the car from the Beverly Hillbillies and a baby hospital. There were some bleacher-esque seats but in the front were what looked like two high-chairs where two girls were "babies." It was difficult to discern the pecking order, the power-structure that was at work. Clara was off to the side sitting with what looked like a bristle-block camera that she had built. I went over to her and asked her what it was. She said it was her tv and that she was watching a movie on it. I watched another girl, make her way around to the babies, then around to Clara, clucking and tending to them. I invited Clara away from the game but she refused. What made me so uncomfortable was that she was alone. I wasn't sure if she was excluded, if she was voluntarily alone, or if something had transpired that she was sitting silently alone.
One challenge for me with co-oping is my sense of children older than my children. But I made some head-way today. When Manny was three at this nursery school, the four and five year olds were very intimidating to me. Their familiarity with the school routine, I took as precociousness. Their confidence with potty-training seemed downright arrogant. And then the alliances, all the switching up and the frequent play-dating, made me feel in over my head! When it was all I could do do leave my house with my child, let alone entrust others with him, the thought of all these other things was very difficult for me.
I asked the teacher of the older girls, who was nearest to them, to help me. I said, "I can't figure out the dynamic. I feel anxious for my girl. Will you help me? " I am proud of the ability to do this. This is not a normal pattern of mine but I was not getting a good vibe and I wanted to hesitate from just intervening and accusing these girls of anything. The teacher kept an eye on things and reported, "Clara said that she was feeling included in the game. But she knows I'm right here if she needs help." Later in the afternoon, at home, Clara said, "I was the cousin." My heart sank. The "cousin." The pecking order was that these older girls did not deem Clara worthy enough to be in their nuclear family of play. They were trying to dominate her and subjugate her. My mind spun, "Those little. . . !" but then I looked at my girl. She was not phased by this role. She was happy to be the cousin.
This reminded me of Hersheypark circa 1992. My friends and I are in the recording studio at HP. For something like 25 bucks, you can record a song and take home 5 copies of it. Our natural choice was "More Than Words" by Xtreme. There we were belting out this ballad and our ring leader gestures for me to step back from the microphone. I can still remember it. I remember her telling me to step back, and I remember immediately doing so. And not thinking twice about it. And not being miffed in the least. To this day, I still love that song. (And would be happy to perform it for you.) I paid my share of the recording cost, got my tape, even though, I was relegated to step back like that. I think I was like, "Yeah, I'm here, I'm happy to be singing, to be sharing in this experience." And I think this is how it was for Clara playing the role of the "cousin." I think she was happy to be part of the game and not plussed by her status in it either way.
Why do I so quickly assign a value or a status to every game she's playing at school? Or every activity obsess that she is not triumphing, not excelling, not kicking the collective ass of her developmental age group? Why do I do that?
What I want it to boil down to is this: I want her to find her way, to have fun, to pick up a little knowledge in life and as her teacher said, "know that [someone trustworthy and safe] is right there if she needs help along the way." If I think back to the hands-down, bar-none best moments of friendship in my childhood all one needs is fairly simple: someone who you find repeatedly sitting beside you when you are not even aware. Someone who you helps you recover something you lost. Someone who walks with you to the school nurse. Someone who makes you little gifts out of wire or buttons.
