Recently, I have wished my adult children young again, at home again. I have also wished myself young once more, and holding a do-over card. However, a remedy for such nostalgia came in the way of a live-in teen — a grandchild attending a nearby arts camp — staying with her grandparents because she lives further away. Reality is a kicker.
Small things. Big things. They both kick back. The wet towels, for example, left in a heap on the wood floor in her upstairs bedroom. “What did you forget?” we ask, when she reappears downstairs spanking clean minus the towels. Because we are not the real parental deal, we get only a minor eye roll as she heads back upstairs to retrieve the goods. However, she also manages to place them in a heap on the bathroom hook so that the objective of drying hasn’t the ghost of a chance.
Then there are the trails of wayward camp gear left strewn about the house, all things essential to a timely morning departure. Someone must keep track of the parts, which is when you remember that the cardinal rule of child rearing is to “pick your battles.” This is also that familiar dilemma that sucks up critical mental energy as you deliberate between those life-teaching consequences versus personal self-preservation. In other words, it’s easier to do it yourself. Which is one of the reasons at the end of the day you are beyond tired. “What did I do today?” you ask yourself.
There are also the biggies. Your beloved grandchild, with the beautiful chestnut skin and long curly hair, navigates camp solo. She’s one of the new kids, without a ready-made partner or friend. Which is when you start recalling those times, in your own life, when you had to harness all the nerve you possessed to sit down with a group of strangers only to be ignored. Or when you offered up a good idea, only to have it dismissed. Or when you walked into a cafeteria and no one called your name. Those times when you felt alone and lonely, shy and unacceptable, left to wonder what is was you lacked, or needed in order to be cool and if not cool, at least worth talking to. “I’m a counselor sandwich,” our grandchild said, after day one. She was referring to the way her considerate counselors filled in the gaps.
Yet, despite the oh-so-awkward social terrain, every morning this granddaughter is up early, bathed, oatmealed and ready to rock and roll. And at the end of the camp day, she reports on her activities with interest and pleasure. She loves helping to create a musical, to sing in a band, or to investigate film animation.
Which is when you also realize just how much courage it takes to be a young person in this world today (or yesterday) and that you are, in fact, privileged to witness the curiosity and kick-butt attitude of your grandchildren. They seem to learn, on their own, to negotiate the pecking order or the kinds of social sorting that seem resistant to even the most idealistic missions. And in the process, to ask hard questions about relationships, and as our granddaughter said, “to appreciate the friends I have.”
However, I think I can set aside my recent nostalgia for younger days, content with arranging this younger generation’s wet towels and skip the do-over for myself. I no longer have quite that kick-butt frame of mind.
Ruth Charney lives in Greenfield.