The Things We Share
By Molly Flinkman
@molly_flinkman
When my son, Sawyer, asks me if we can go through a car wash on our way home from the library, I hesitate before I answer him. This isn’t because we don’t have time or because our van is clean (of course it isn’t clean). I hesitate because, well, I am a little freaked out by car washes.
The problem lies in the fact that I cannot see every step, beginning to end. I have too many questions: Do they take credit cards? How will I know which car wash option to choose? Will I need to drive carefully onto tracks and then put my car in park, or will I have to manually drive my car forward at a snail’s pace? Am I going to stall an entire line of cars if I do something wrong and create some kind of scene? Also, once my dad’s window got jammed as he was headed into a car wash. He was soaking wet by the end, so, for good measure, I always take that possibility into consideration, too.
I have driven through a car wash before; it’s just always after I watch my husband, Jake, do it first. Once I can visualize everything from start to finish, I am usually confident enough to tackle it again on my own. On this particular afternoon though, it had been years since I’d driven through a car wash, and I had never even sat shotgun through the one across the street from our house.
The car does need to be washed, I think, and the boys will love it. You are 34 years old, I say to myself. You can do this.
So, I turn into the parking lot and take a small step outside my comfort zone.
My oldest daughter, Lily, shares this particular trait—an aversion to the unseen and unpredictable—with me. On her first day of four-year-old preschool, she gripped my hand tightly as we walked through the parking lot toward her school. Her purple bag was slung over her shoulder, and her face was taut.
Two nights earlier, I stood in the back of her classroom surrounded by all the other parents on back-to-school night as her teachers explained that four-year-olds were now expected to walk down the hallway to their coat hooks by themselves—a change from last year when parents could walk them all the way to the classroom door. “They love the independence of doing it on their own,” one of the teachers assured us.
She obviously hadn’t met Lily yet.
Lily wants to picture a situation from beginning to end. She wants to see it in her mind and be able to predict exactly how it will play out. If she can’t? Well, she’s just not interested. She’ll sit it out or flat out refuse to join.
I waited at the end of back-to-school night, so I could mention this to her teacher. She had never walked down that hallway before. She had never found that hook. She didn’t know which classroom she should go into first, so someone would need to physically walk her. “Of course we will!” they assured me.
I hoped her teachers would remember this conversation as we walked together through the front doors on the first day. Her grip on my hand tightened as we waited in the foyer. I pointed out the hooks at the end of the hallway and reminded her she knew how to find her name. I showed her the classroom at the back on the right and gave her hand a little squeeze. She stood with me, unmoving, as the other kids walked happily down the hall until her teacher spotted us, grabbed her hand, and led her down the hall one step at a time.
More recently, Jake and I took all our kids out onto the lake in a small fishing boat we recently bought. Fear overtook Lily after she hopped in. The rocking of the boat made her feel as though we were going to tip over, and I suspect her mind ticked through all the possible worst-case scenario outcomes. We reassured her she was safe—that the boat wouldn’t tip—but still she panicked, never mind the fact that she was wearing a life jacket, had recently passed her swim test at the pool, and jumped into this lake water from a bigger boat a hundred times the summer before.
It reminded me of that first day of school when she didn’t want to let go of my hand.
I rarely need to crack any codes to figure out what Lily feels, but she’s not the only one of my kids who I understand deeply. Norah avoids rule-breaking at all costs and is horrified if ever corrected. Sawyer is easily embarrassed. Jude is prone to rage if the plans don’t go exactly the way he expects. When it comes to most of the big feelings in our house, I share them. They are inherited—passed down with my blue eyes and wide feet and the way I say “bag” like I live somewhere near Canada.
I am sometimes tempted to try to parent my kids out of these inclinations—to help them master all their fears and hesitations and personal struggles by the time they reach adulthood. But the truth is, they will probably always lean a little toward these qualities, as evidenced by the fact that, at 34 years old, I still do what I can to avoid car washes. I have come a long way though. My default settings might still be the same, but I am more confident in the face of uncertainty and better able to adapt to the changes life throws my way than I was even a decade ago.
I have my kids to thank for much of that continued transformation.
For every new place I pushed them to go, I had to go there too. For every new friend they met, I met a new person too. For every situation that made them feel something strongly, I was always there, usually feeling it and adapting to it, too. As I try to help them understand themselves and their inclinations, their growth and change equally fosters my own. I teach them, but they also teach me.
This is the way forward, so, together, we’ll continue to take small steps and deep breaths. We’ll hold each others’ hands and stick together when things don’t go as planned. We’ll make each other better. We’ll nudge a little if needed. And, we’ll drive through car washes because there really is so much joy in starting on one side of a thing and working your way through to the other.
Photo by Kaytlyn Eggerding.