Emma and I are driving home. It is an autumn 8 PM. The four lane is empty. The darkness in the car is punctuated by the rhythmic light of the streetlamps.
Emma is talking to me about her just completed soccer practice. As I drive I periodically glance at her. Her face is shaded them lit, shaded them lit as we drive by the lights.
I am listening to Emma talk, but I am mostly watching her smile. Every time the light shines I see her beautiful smile. Her voice is happy. Her smile is radiant.
My husband and I work diligently to protect our two children. We desire with all of our hearts that they be physically safe and functionally happy. We have been vigilant for any potential harm or hurt that might come to them from the outside world.
Today, for the first time, I realized that I am the greatest threat to my daughter’s happiness.
When Emma emerged from the high school orchestra room at 3:30 this afternoon she was smiling. Her day had been good. She had eaten lunch with friends. She had very little homework.
We stopped by the house for a snack, a change of clothes, and 45 minutes of English reading.
At 5 PM we were back in the car driving to soccer.
“Susan drives me crazy,” Emma says. “She acts so sweet to the older girls and then she is not nice to me. I mean, one day she is nice because she needs me to help her with French and the next day I think she talks about me behind my back. Ooh, it makes me so mad and all those other girls think she’s so nice.”
I look over at Emma and even though she is complaining she doesn’t look unhappy. She is smiling.
“You’ve done pretty well with Susan this year,” I say. “You’ve been cautious about trusting her.”
“Oh, sure Mom,” Em replies. “I know Susan pretty well by now.”
Emma pauses in her stream of conversation to pull on soccer socks over her shin guards.
“You know, Joe didn’t speak to me today.”
I know that Joe is a boy she has liked a little. “What’s up with that?” I ask.
“Who knows,” She says. “He’s just a boy and who understands boys anyway.”
I am glad that neither of these issues seems to fret her at all. In fact, at 14 years old and a new freshman in high school, I believe she is very tough with these emotional issues. She is minimally touched by the willfulness, selfishness, shyness, lack of confidence of those around her.
“You won’t believe this, Mom,” She tosses into the conversation, “But my group in Science got an 85 on our project.”
Now she has my attention. She has been an A student always, but this 85 in science is one of a string of average grades in the subject. “What happened?” I ask casually.
Her smile is gone. “They told me that I didn’t have to write down the questions, just the answers and we got a minus 8 because we left off the questions. Then we had the wrong answers to 2 of the fill-in-the-blank questions at the end. They told me the answers and I wrote them down and they were wrong.”
“By ‘they’ I take it you mean the others in your group.”
Yes, they,” She replies. “And, you know, my teacher should have told us what an ellipse is and then we would have gotten that right.”
I pause for one second and then begin the lecture, “Emma, it is certainly my opinion that any work you turn in with your name on it ought to be the best work you can do. You should not depend on anyone in any group to give you information or answers that you aren’t certain that you understand or agree with. You are responsible for all of the answers on the paper you turned in. In addition, I helped you look over your science chapter just a few days ago and ‘ellipse’ was in bold letters in the chapter with the definition just next to it in the text.”
“You are just mad because I made an 85,” She says. The smile is gone. Tears are welled up along the lashes of her lower eyelid.
“I do not care about the 85,” I say. “I care that you take responsibility for your work. I do not want to hear that ‘they’ gave you the wrong answer or that your teacher didn’t tell you something.”
I park the car at the soccer field. I get out of the car, collect her water bottle from the trunk and come around to open the passenger door.
She is using her fingertips to brush away the few tears that have dared to trickle over. She is rooted in the seat of the car. “I cannot play soccer if you are mad at me,” She says.
“I’m not mad,” I answer.
“What do you want me to do?” She asks.
“I just want you to take responsibility for your work,” I reply.
“Okay,” She whispers. She reaches into the glove compartment for a tissue. She dabs her eyes and pops open the vanity mirror on the sun visor. She takes 15 seconds to dry her eyes and imagine that she can leave the car without a hint of sadness on her face.
She gathers her soccer ball and slips out of the car to stand next to me. The tears are gone. The smile is gone, too.
“I love you,” I say, “More than anything.”
“I know,” She says, “I love you, too.”
She takes her water bottle and walks over to join her team.
And to think that I worried about them. Any moment I have spent fretting that a thoughtless teenage boy or a careless, selfish girl might hurt her was a wasted moment.
As I reflect on it, it becomes crystal clear that no one is more of a threat to her genuine happiness that I am. I can entirely derail her confidence while trying to prevent her from making mistakes. I can completely sap her happiness while insisting that she act responsibly. I can take away her joyful smile while I walk hand-in-hand with her down our life-road.
Here it is for me, the fork in the road. I can take the way of understanding, listening without lecturing, encouraging without demanding. What lies at the end of it? Will she be a joyful, confident young adult who has learned from her mistakes or a spoiled, frequently failing, irresponsible individual.
I can take the way of high expectations, getting down to business, always acting responsibly. Where will that take us? Will she be a successful, organized, serious adult or a stressed, never satisfied, no-one-can-suit-me-either young woman?
It is my turning point, I think. It is Robert Frost’s moment of life decisions:
“…. Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Only for me it is the path chosen not for myself, but for one more dear. Is there any other choice, but to follow her smile?