Open Letter to My Twin Fifth Graders

Dear Ladies,

You came home one day this past week with scowls pasted to your beautiful faces. A furrow creased each of your brows and you both twisted your fingers as you admitted to me that a friend of yours, a good friend, had said something not nice about someone else. She called her flat face, Mommy, one of you said. And to be honest, I don’t remember which of you uttered the words. The other followed up with, And that just isn’t nice. 

I was pleased that you both acknowledged the transgression; we’ve taught you well enough to know that even though the term wasn’t a standard one, like stupid, dumb, idiot, jerk, or a whole host of other pejorative words, the way in which the description was used, wasn’t, as you said, nice. We discussed the subject of name calling and bullying and how we should behave at home and school and beyond, until someone came to the door and you both flitted away, gracefully, after placing a sweet kiss upon my cheek.

I watched you, out of the kitchen window, as you left our yard; your backs grew distant, twin blond heads, bobbing down the street in an attempt to keep up with a different friend. I turned toward the kitchen island and began to chop vegetables for dinner, and thought about the comment this young girl had made. Based on my interaction with her, I knew she understood that a description like flat face would be hurtful to another classmate. Even if she tried to pass off her behavior as teasing -- something I could imagine her doing when her mother, mortified by her behavior, mentioned the incident to her -- in her heart, the friend knew it was wrong. I felt sorry for the one that was called the name, and hoped that the girl who said it at least had the decency not to speak the words to the girls’ face.

As I am wont to do, the longer I diced the carrots, the more my mind began to wander. I thought about a previous conversation we had, the one in which you revealed someone at school was a bully, someone that I would never expect to exhibit such abhorrent behavior. I thought back to the times I’d heard people speak ill of one another, at a game, or at field day, or at a simple school event. And I thought to myself, here we go; we, meaning both of you and me, are on the cusp of a brand new journey here, one that begins next year, in middle school, and drags us through high school and college. Life and the way we live it will be morphing, and they are doing so right now, obviously.  The question is, am I ready for the changes?

Of course, that’s really a rhetorical question now, isn’t it? (And if you don’t know what the term rhetorical means, girls, please, go look it up. Find a learning opportunity in everything, right?)  I know the answer. I am not ready for any of the transformations that might be happening and will occur in the near future. I want to hang onto you, my children, as you are: the innocent souls with angels’ wings. I am not ready to experience what your fluxes in hormones have already oh-so-subtly started. I am not prepared for the mood swings that might attack at odd times and the possible rage that simmers beneath the surface. I am not ready to help you face the insecurities of being too fat or too thin; too smart or too dumb; too short (because, let’s face it, ladies, you’ll never be too tall); too quiet.  Take your pick and someone, anyone, can find something different about you, some characteristic the person can hone in on and point out to you in a way that might be, not nice.

You might not have the right nose, clothes, or shoes; your hair might be too straight or too dark; your knees too wrinkly or your skin too freckly. Believe you me, in the years that come, if someone wants to hurt you, they will. Because you will be vulnerable, you will believe what they say, even when it isn’t true. And how am I supposed to shield you from all of that? I don’t think sitting next to you in class and at lunch time will be so welcome in middle school and beyond, do you? Can you imagine a mother who follows her kids to college? As much as that behavior would help me keep you from much harm, it would be inducing another completely beastly form of other danger to you and your psyche. And it would be a complete disservice to you. You both need to grow up, so you can live your own life, find your own loves, and create your own families, whatever type of family that might be. I need to cut the strings. If nothing else, these past few weeks have shown me that severing the ties comes a littler earlier than I ever expected.

The only thing I can say is that I will try to be ready for whatever the two of you  and the future decide to throw at me. I’ve been through the stages before, because, believe it or not, I was once your age. So I’m hopefully full of enough wisdom to use what I know and learn from the situations you two wee beast endeavor to present. I will apply the knowledge I have for the next big confrontation, and most importantly, I’ll attempt to reach out to those around me, open up the lines of communication, and rely on my friends who already went through it with their own children. Hopefully, the steadfastness of our relationship now (yours and mine) will give us an advantage and help get us through to the next big stage. If not, I am not against pulling out the big guns: a whole lotta running and an even larger amount of prayer.

But this whole metamorphosis of body, soul, state of living, etc., isn’t about me. It’s about you and your discrete journeys. You might be identical twins, but you both know you are completely distinct as individuals. Each one of you needs to realize that the time has come to make a leap of faith. So really, the better question to ask is, are you ready? Are you ready to batten down the hatches and stick to your beliefs? Are you ready to show some backbone when someone says something not nice, directly to your face? Will you stand up for your friends and family and look away when someone mentions that you aren’t smart enough because you know, inside, that God made you just as you’re supposed to be, and that really, it is not a question of what the insecure, mean girl says. It’s what you know to be true inside of you.

And so, when all of the turmoil of the next few years starts to brew (and I’ll be honest, let’s hope the brewing is minimal and pretty painless), I want you to remember this conversation we had the other night. Remember how you both came into my room. Zoe, you flung yourself onto the bed while you, Talia, headed into the bathroom to brush your teeth. Mom, you (Zoe) said to me, do you know who my two favorite people are? I placed a bookmark between the pages of the novel and closed the covers together. No, who? I anticipated that Zoe would say Talia, who was oblivious to the conversation we held thanks to the closed door and the running of the tap water. You and Dad. You’re just awesome. You snaked your arms out and gave me a shy hug. You know what, Zoe?  I replied. You’re awesome, too. Not surprising to me, Talia said the exact same thing when she was finished with her teeth.

I want you to think back to our dialogue when you have a bad day, or can’t quite get the math problem right, or think that your nostrils aren’t shaped like those of the girls in the magazines. I hope you’ll think about it, too, when all in life is going right for you. You are awesome. You are special. You are unique. And you are my daughters.  I can’t think of anything, anything, more awesome than that.