Worst field trip sponsor ever

So, I’m a mom. Two conglomerations of matter and soul took root within me, and I grew lives where lives hadn’t previously existed.

(The above sentiment will be the most beautiful part of this post. It’s all downhill from here.)

I sort of thought that since I had CREATED and GROWN LIVES, this process, by virtue of what it is, would automatically impart to me a new skill set, a sacred wisdom: the gift of knowing how to be good with kids. Not just mine; other people’s, too.

As it turns out: nope.

First, a series of disclaimers:

DISCLAIMER 1: It's not that I don't like kids. I really do. They're fantastic, and funny, and I believe they are the very fabric of our society. But, let's face it: You can really, really like something and not be good at it. For example, after years of denying it, I will admit to you all that I love to dance. Does that mean I'm good at it? Oh, heavens no. Though the ardent whispers of my sometimes-weekend lover Captain Morgan tries to convince me otherwise.

DISCLAIMER 2: If you leave your kids in my care, I'm not going to ruin them. Just don't expect them to be writing home about my awesomeness. Expect more something to the effect of: "Um, Evie's mom is kind of weird. She kept trying to tell me about women's revolutions and was singing something that she called Hamilton."

DISCLAIMER 3: Age matters. I'm good with babies and toddlers, because I'm not above a long game of peek-a-boo or a rollicking ten verses of Where Is Thumbkin. I speak the language of the very young, and they usually like me okay, because I smile a lot and am kind of a goober. And teens, they're fine too. There's around an 85% chance that they're going to be into Harry Potter (or other nerdy fandom), sports, shopping, music, or theater, and I can work with any of those variables.

But that 6-12 year old age? Man, those kids throw me for a loop. They're like sharks: they fascinate me and I'd spend all day watching them behind glass, but do I wanna get in a tank with one and see what happens? No sir. I do not.

DISCLAIMER 4: I have two kids in the baffling 6-12 year old age range, yet I make every effort to be what is, in my understanding, a Good Mom.

And it is because of this last bit that I sometimes, despite my obvious shortcomings in the realm of all things kid, occasionally volunteer for stuff at my kids' school. Isn't that what Good Moms do? That being said, I can’t shake the feeling that when I show up for these things the people in charge are all like "Oh no. Not her." If this is indeed the internal monologue of teachers and other parents I've volunteered with, I wouldn't blame them. I deserve it, you guys. I’m terrible. Honestly. I’m the worst parent sponsor on Earth. 

Allow me to demonstrate: Last week, I volunteered to go with my kids’ school to their annual “Ride the Waves” event, which is a field trip to one of the indoor YMCA pools. I’ve gone every year, so this was my fourth time. When my kids were little, I was a Cool Mom at this event. My kids wanted to play with me, and then their friends did too, and I figured out what to do because the kids were so engaging. This year, when I rolled in, Evie acknowledged me with a wave and a grin but was too busy with her own clique to pay me much mind. As for Jonah, he looked over at me once and then his eyes slid away, like I was a stranger. I realized that my Cool Mom days were a thing of the past.

So, mostly I sat on the ledge dangling my feet in the water, staring awkwardly around at this pool full of kids, wondering what it was that I was supposed to do.

Another mom stood near one edge of the pool, tossing rings in for the kids to dive in and retrieve, a game that a bunch of kids were clearly really into. It seemed like she knew what she was doing. I wondered: is there a game I should be playing with the kids? I had no idea what kind of game or activity would be fun for them. Pool charades? Would You Rather? Maybe a quick round of Settlers of Catan, poolside?  I chose to sit back and quietly observe.

At one point a tiny girl, shivering and crying, made her way around my post. Since I was in my swimsuit and a lot of the sponsors weren’t, I thought I should take it upon myself to help her out. I held her hand and walked around the pool with her, and she temporarily calmed down. But then she started crying again. I squatted down so that we were at eye level, because I’ve heard that’s a thing you’re supposed to do with kids. And I said, “My name is Allison. What’s your name?”

Trying to talk to her? That was my first mistake. She lurched away from me and started crying harder. I went for a distraction route. I asked her favorite color. I asked about her family. I asked, did she have any brothers or sisters? She said she had a sister. I said, “What’s your sister’s name?”

And she said, “I DON’T KNOW!!!” Then she started crying so hard that a teacher had to come manually remove her from the pool.

I thought that went pretty well.

I spent the rest of the time lurking around my third grade daughter. My behavior was probably only moderately creepy. I felt like a kid on the fringe: wanting to join in, but waiting for the cool kids to welcome me to the inner sanctum. Turns out that third graders aren’t super jazzed about awkward 34-year old psychologists who like talking about universal health care and the latest Barbara Kingsolver novel.

And yet, there was one golden opportunity, a time I could have stepped up and been a grown-up. A few kids caused some commotion by climbing OVER the pool rope, instead of going UNDER it, which was AGAINST THE RULES. However, during this event I’d been spacing out and thinking about fried fish and peanut butter cups in ice cream and also wondering what it would have been like to have lived in New Jersey in the 1970s. By the time I realized there was commotion, the teachers, fully dressed, from the side of the pool, had taken care of the scene that had unfolded literally five feet in front of me, in the middle of the pool. #winning

Other school volunteering that I’ve done went about as well as Ride the Waves did. I helped out at a classroom Thanksgiving party when Evie was in Kindergarten. I, per usual, didn’t know what to do with the kids, so I just let them stick foam stickers all over my face. It made them laugh, and that was a step up from my usual performance.

And then we all got in trouble with the teacher and the other sponsors, because apparently that wasn’t what we were supposed to do with the stickers. *shrugs*

Another time, we were hosting a sleepover for Evie at our house, and during the half-hour that my husband ran out to the store to get ice cream, the girls started bickering at each other. They split off into tiny-but-brutal feminine gangs, the Bloods raging up in the piano room while the Crips staged a hostile take-over of the downstairs TV room. One lone soldier stood by the door and said she wanted to go home.

I was paralyzed. What do you do when a group of 7-year olds that’s supposed to be cohesive and BFFs-4-Life all of the sudden goes full on gang war? I stood in the kitchen, wide eyed, watching it all go down, and thought, “Oh no.” And that was as far as my thinking went. It stalled out on “ohhhh nooooo” and looped.

So I didn’t do anything. I stood there and watched as the Bloods yelled and the Crips taunted. The lone soldier at the door glared at me, accusatorily. My husband came home, took one look at the scene, and immediately engaged them all in some kind of fun joint activity that mended fences and prevented drive bys. Jeb knows how terrible I am with kids. Dude’s got a fricking degree in education, taught for 8 years in public schools, and also worked with elementary-aged kids as a teacher-naturalist for several summers. He’s got a leg up on this whole “I know how to talk to kids” thing. (When I said to him, as I was brainstorming for this post, “Man, I’m really awkward with kids,” he said, “Yeah, I’ve seen.”)

I think that probably even if I did have all the right kinds of education, mixing with kids still wouldn’t be a strength of mine. Hell, even when I was a kid I sucked at talking to other kids. I didn’t even realize this about myself until I saw video evidence of me on a day of preschool. My peers are running amok, parading around in dress-up clothes, smashing playdough between their hands, giggling, laughing, skipping, dancing. I’m sitting crosslegged on the floor next to the teacher, a very serious, doleful expression on my face, no doubt engaging her in a conversation about the Chernobyl disaster or Ronald Reagan’s diplomatic progress with Gorbachev.

Yet somehow, between the field trips and class parties, I always forget my deficits. Enough time goes by between volunteering events that I get myself to thinking, “This won’t be so bad!” and “You can totally do this!” It’s like how a woman can forget the pain of childbirth, only to be rudely awakened when it’s upon her again. (Or so I've heard. I don't actually know. My kids came out the sunroof, thank you very much.) Or, like that time at the age of 21 I decided I was a master roller skater and should totally go to a rink, even though I hadn’t skated for 13 years and had been absolutely awful at it in my childhood. In case it’s not obvious how this excellent choice panned out: Immediately upon entering the rink on skates, I fell and hit my head. I cried for a long time. Mostly because my head hurt, but also because I was really embarrassed, but also because I was drunk.  

Pre-skate optimism

Post-skate realism (and pain)

It seems that optimism comes for me in the stretches between life events. Optimism, with a splash of denial, and a misplaced confidence chaser.  Maybe adding a stiff shot of realism to the optimism cocktail could help, the next time I think about school volunteering. Maybe I could volunteer for a task better suited to my strengths….like, maybe I could organize the library. Or just read the library. I don’t know.

There's this part of me that wants to be more of a kid person. This is the Pollyanna part of me that thinks that maybe, if I take the right class or read the right book or observe the right people, I could become Kid Competent. The other part of me-- the louder part, the bigger part, the part that talks like Doctor Phil-- is pretty sure that it's time to settle up with reality. I’m 34 years old, I’ve got two kids of my own, I have seven nephews and a niece (all of whom I’ve had ample opportunities to practice with), a PhD IN EFFING TALKING TO PEOPLE, and I’ve still got nothing.

Chances are, when it comes to me and kids: this is as good as it’s gonna get.