Driving home on an unusually warm February day, I heard from the backseat an announcement that caused my shoulders to tense. My daughter said she needed to make Valentines for everyone in her first grade class. “How many kids are there?” I asked. “Twenty-three,” she answered. “Minus one for me.” I had horrible flashbacks to white paper doilies, Elmer’s glue and scissors. My daughter really knocked the wind out of me with her next statement. She wanted to make a special Valentine for a certain boy.
Already? My first crush wasn’t until second grade (which now seems awfully young to me). "Luke" had very blond hair and even bluer eyes. At recess he gave me a plastic ring topped with a tiny plastic bird. He called it an “engagement ring” and it made me feel special. That was the extent of our romance, but years later I was hurt to discover that I wasn’t the only girl in the second grade to whom Luke had given an engagement ring. I’m not sure what I saw in Luke--I think I liked him mostly because he liked me.
What I know now is that I’m not ready for my daughter to be thinking about boys. She needs to go to college first, get a career, prove that she doesn’t need a man. . . . But I can easily picture her as a bubbly teenager wearing a pink prom dress and matching corsage. She isn’t shy, like I was, and I worry she will have plenty of dates. I worry because I know often a boy’s good looks outrank his personality when we are young. I worry because I am a mom.
Returning to the present-day, I asked my daughter why she liked this boy. I braced myself--confident she would say that he was “cute.” She surprised me, though. She didn’t mention his looks or gifts of toy rings. She only had one thing to say: “He’s nice.”
I hope you’re as wise at sixteen as you are at six!
After you’ve supervised the making of Valentines, treat yourself to a novel by Karen Lenfestey. A Sister’s Promise and What Happiness Looks Like are available as e-books or paperbacks at amazon.
Already? My first crush wasn’t until second grade (which now seems awfully young to me). "Luke" had very blond hair and even bluer eyes. At recess he gave me a plastic ring topped with a tiny plastic bird. He called it an “engagement ring” and it made me feel special. That was the extent of our romance, but years later I was hurt to discover that I wasn’t the only girl in the second grade to whom Luke had given an engagement ring. I’m not sure what I saw in Luke--I think I liked him mostly because he liked me.
What I know now is that I’m not ready for my daughter to be thinking about boys. She needs to go to college first, get a career, prove that she doesn’t need a man. . . . But I can easily picture her as a bubbly teenager wearing a pink prom dress and matching corsage. She isn’t shy, like I was, and I worry she will have plenty of dates. I worry because I know often a boy’s good looks outrank his personality when we are young. I worry because I am a mom.
Returning to the present-day, I asked my daughter why she liked this boy. I braced myself--confident she would say that he was “cute.” She surprised me, though. She didn’t mention his looks or gifts of toy rings. She only had one thing to say: “He’s nice.”
I hope you’re as wise at sixteen as you are at six!
After you’ve supervised the making of Valentines, treat yourself to a novel by Karen Lenfestey. A Sister’s Promise and What Happiness Looks Like are available as e-books or paperbacks at amazon.
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