Contagion

We're infected. The Child started it.

As contagions go, this is pretty mild with scratchy throat and coughing being the worst of it. But I kept her home yesterday so as to not infect other innocent children and let her stay home today because a) I feel like crap, b) it's a three day weekend and 3) turns out The Child is 'way ahead on a school project.

The assignment is to read a biography about an artist or musician with whom the student is not familiar. In a completely wacky and radical move, the teacher has insisted that no research come from the Internet. As much as these kids are safely ensconced in a high tech world, it's probably good that they learn to use books for research. There could be a power shortage. James Frey did not write any of the books in question.

The Child picked Wolfgang "Rock Me Amadeus" Mozart. She has read one book and is working on a second. I've been sorta suggesting that she start making note cards or an outline for her report, affirming the beauty of working steadily on a project rather than leaving it until the night before, which was her mother's MO. She hasn't been doing that and I've had to shut up already because more and more that is my job. Anyway, turns out that she was to have chosen her subject by today. Since she is already doing the reading, I will back off.

Backing off: pretty much my job these days and even the attempt is giving me new respect for my parents. The job of parenting consists of keeping the child alive long enough to let it leave you. You have to teach it values. You have to teach it to think for itself. You should teach it to pick up after itself, how to clean a toilet and that it never killed anyone to write a "thank you" note. But at some point, which we are rapidly approaching, you have to start trusting that you've done a good enough job and let 'em go. Which is very difficult because you are always second-guessing yourself, not to mention that failing is part of the game. It can just be so hard to watch.

The Child walked when she was 10 months old. This is really ridiculous, by the way, because a 10 month old has absolutely no sense and no appreciation of spatial relationships. But idiots that we were, we encouraged those first steps, recording it on video for posterity. It's all there, the "come to Mama", the cherubic face, the pride as she pushes off from the coffee table and the frustration as she falls on her diapered butt. But she got up to do it again and again until she nailed it, until she didn't need me there to catch her.

One of The Child's leading characteristics is fierce determination. If she wants something I recommend that you get out of her way. I had nothing to do with that. Meekness is my middle name. Or maybe it's Tentativeness. Anyway, I had nothing to do with the spirit that The Child brought into the world. All I can do is help guide it to do good and not evil, pray a lot and stand aside.

Which is a long way from a biography about Mozart (talk about your pushy parents, by the way). Sometimes I think it's hard for me to let go because of all the advocacy I've had to do around her learning disability. But I think it fundamentally tough for any parent to let go. There is a delicate balance between being supportive and backing off. Plus we do bring our own agendas to the plate, for good or ill. And they are our babies. We love them. We don't want them to suffer as we suffered, even though making mistakes is part of life. And we worry about the mistakes. At some level we're going to be held accountable. I know that I blame George & Bar for our current state of affairs.

Anyhooha, parenting will be easy today. It will be comprised of chicken noodle soup, honey lemon tea and marathon veiwings of the Food Network. We might listen to some Mozart. I gave The Child some CDs to play while she read the other night. I asked what she thought of the music. "He's pretty good," she replied.