Being the grown up
Now that the new year is here our thoughts are tending towards the move. A residence needs to be found and possibly bought, schools need to be decided upon and warned about what is going to hit them. We need to decide whether to sell our current house or to rent it. It’s all a lot of very grown up stuff, especially for someone who spends the first few months of every year twitching about her tax return and thinking about moving to a tropical tax haven rather than have to fill out the tremendously convoluted forms produced by the U.S. Office of Confoundment and Befuzzling.
Daniel is very wound up about the whole process. What will our house look like, he wants to know. Does it have a yard? Can we have a dog? Will I have my own room? How many windows will it have? Will there be other children on the block? Will there be boys my own age I can play with? Can I ride my scooter on the sidewalk? Can we have a sprinkler? Will there be a fireplace? What will my school be like? Will it all be okay?
And I have all those questions too, and more and I don’t have answers yet and I wish there was someone I could ask. But this small, excited, anxious child needs someone to know his answers. Trust us, I say to him. You don’t have to think about these things. That’s a grown-up job. Your parents will take care of things. We will make this move as okay for you as we can. You tell me your fears and I will take care of them for you.
This is what being the grown up means. Holding your own fears. Taking care of them.
Pssst, you can tell your fears to me, and I promise, I will be as best of a grown up friend as possible, and hold my fears in private for you- but continue to say, TRUST ME, you can handle anything.
Because, you know- it’s true.
I am a grown-up (at least I believe I am one), and I am also moving, and I have most of Daniel’s questions and more. Will there be girls my own age I can knit with? What will my job be like? Will my sofa fit in the living room? Will it all be okay?
Sometimes I wish I had a mother to manage this move and tell me everything’s going to be all right.
Holding your fears and taking care of them. Oh, so true. As soon as Hannah found out we weren’t accepting the job, and she didn’t have to worry about moving and leaving her friends, she immediately started worrying (again) about money and where it’s gonna come from. And I tell her what you told Daniel – that’s our job. You and I will both find those answers, one by one, as annoying as it is to not just have them already!
Wishing you smooth sailing for this adventure.
It is such a scary time for children. But I am always amazed at how resilient and brave they are when faced with challenges.
I struggle with this dichotomy too – a part of me hates the grown-up stuff of tax forms and so on, but another part of me accepts that for all the small people in my life I have to be that person. Good luck on your path and in helping Daniel on his.
I, too, will be the grown up for you and tell you to trust yourself, it will all be okay…I say this as someone who lost her marbles (literally, I haven’t found the box in which we stashed them) in the aftermath of the move. Eventually, it all works out. But you already know all that.
Would it help Daniel to look at maps of the new town? Have you checked out Google Earth and what the place looks like from above? The microquestions (how many windows will my room have and will it be mine and only mine?) may be unanswerable at present, but perhaps the macroquestions can be addressed (in part) using the miracle that is the internet.
Good luck!
Oh, moving–the stress and duress. Give yourself grace–and I like the Google Earth idea.
We moved from PA to FL when Wizard was about the same age as Daniel (+- a year). What helped was honesty inside and outside the process. I told him why he was going to his grandparents (househunting), that we’d call him nightly while we were away, and that I would take pictures to show him. I did all of these things, and I also bought him an age-appropriate book about moving. Mr. Rogers and The Berenstain Bears (usu. barf) have pretty good books on the subject. If these are too juvenile, I’ll look for older titles.
Instead of telling him he doesn’t have to think about “these things,” encourage him to do so. A great creative exercise would be to have him draw a picture of his dream house and the dog he would get if he could. Have him make a list of things he would really like his new house or neighborhood to have. Interview him and see what’s important to him, e.g. a park down the street or a playset in the backyard. You can go on to remind him that he will not get everything on his wishlist, but that you will try very hard to make sure one wish comes true.
If he’s old enough to understand surfing the Internet, kill a little time with him one afternoon looking at houses for sale in that area or at websites of the community, etc.