Control in the Block Room

Your sister has been having a little bit of a tough time lately.  Even at school.  A few days ago she had to be taken away from the art table because she was so adamantly instructing every other child about appropriate color choices.  On the following day she was so intent on directing the exact pattern of a game in the block room that she ended up in a face-off with the teacher, arms crossed over chest, back against the wall, full-on dress up garb, refusing to move.  Teacher Sarah took her to the kitchen area for a quiet conversation.  She told Thisbe that the only person she really needs to worry about is herself.  That all of the other kiddo will worry about their own selves.  And then the teacher said (and this is what kills me), "Thisbe, we just want you to feel happy inside" at which point Thisbe broke out into huge, heaving sobs.

It is hard not to feel this as a huge fail in the parenting department.  In part because our daughter so deeply needed for someone to tell her that her happiness was important.  And in part because the whole control thing?  Well, I am definitely the don't-splash-the-bathwater-all-over-that's-too-much-paint-on-the-brush-at-one-time-why-don't-you-wear-different-pants-it's-cold-out-sit-down-while-we're-eating-please-don't-stand-on-your-head parent.  I really, really love control.  Or the appearance of control.  Or rather, not attempting to control things causes a great deal of anxiety for me. So when Teacher Sarah suggested that Daddy and I model the kind of behavior we hope Thisbe will enact I thought: "Duh" followed by "Shit."

Letting go of control completely, while a nice thing to do on a beach in Marin, high and wearing a howling wolf T-shirt, isn't really reasonable as a parent.  I guess it is if you want your child to write a memoir called "The Glass Castle" later on, but most parents try to control some parameters for their kiddos in order to keep them safe or to teach them something.  I mean, car seats and cribs are fairly "controlling" devices I suppose, but most of us agree they're necessary.  And I don't always know what separates unnecessary (crazy?) control choices from pragmatic ones. 

But I suppose that all of this, what Thisbe is learning, what I am trying to learn myself, is preparing us for everything that happens to us and to those we love over which we have no control.  Like how over on the other side of town our friend David has been diagnosed with cancer.  David, who is the husband of our wonderful friend Jennifer who died last fall.  This diagnosis feels unfathomable, awful, completely out of control. 

When I asked my wise friend Trish "what do we do in the face of something like this?" she talked about sacramentalizing the ordinary.  And maybe this is an important act because control is so caught up in our own will and desire, our own vision of how things should be.  And it's easy to spend all afternoon with your back against the wall in the block room, wishing with all your heart that the world was behaving differently.  But then, of course, you miss the world as it is.  And you miss getting to join your friends in the game.