My 5-year-old daughter refuses to hold hands with her 8-year-old brother in the parking lot. Perhaps it’s because he’s a boy and suffers from the affliction our generation would have called “cooties,” but more likely it’s because he’s her older brother and suffers from an affliction I call the “Jiminy Cricket Syndrome.”
As the big brother he views it as his responsibility to alert us of her mistakes. Whether it’s the occasional “bad” word, toys that are left in the middle of the floor or excessive use of the iPad, all transgressions are brought to our attention. None of this is done out of a mean-spirited need to get his sister in trouble. In fact, it’s quite the contrary; he is motivated simply by a need to ensure that she makes good choices in the future.
Though his intentions may be pure, this watchdog mentality has not endeared him to her heart. She prefers to play alone in her room with the door closed, insists on sitting on the opposite side of the table from him at dinner, cannot share a seat with him in the car and, as mentioned, will not hold his hand. Ever. End of story. For her, the proverbial snooping “big brother” is, in fact, her big brother.
So the prospect of the two of them sharing a school building for the first time was a bit amusing. My son, now a third grader, was eager to show his sister, a new kindergartener, the ropes. Throughout the summer he told her what to expect in P.E., how to behave appropriately in the hallway, what the rules were for using the slide properly and how to navigate the car rider pickup line at the end of the day. Needless to say, most of this information fell on disinterested ears. My daughter has met very few situations she couldn’t handle.
In the final few days before school started, however, her normally steely facade began to show cracks. She was particularly concerned about whether she’d be able to find her classroom the first day. My son assured her that he would hold her hand and walk her to the door. To my surprise, it was an offer she accepted graciously.
And then, the night before the first day of school, I walked into the bathroom and found my son alone, standing in front of the mirror, his eyes full of tears.
“You okay, buddy? Nervous about the first day of school?”
A nod, followed by tears.
“Math was so hard for me last year,” he whispered. “And I don’t want to be away from home. I don’t want to be away from you.”
I could see that my son was in the midst of an anxiety attack, something I knew all too well, since I had been helping him manage them for about four years and helping myself manage them for about 40. Truth was, I wasn’t ready for him to go back to school, either; I wasn’t ready for any of them to go back. But I couldn’t let them know that. One of the dirty truths of motherhood is that 90 percent of it is one big poker bluff.
Just as he was panicking at the thought of going back to math and missing mom, I was panicking at the thought of sending my last child off to kindergarten. I had been asked by nearly every mother I had encountered in the past month how I felt about this transition, and repeatedly denied any type of emotional crisis. “I work,” I countered repeatedly, “so the extra time will really be helpful.”
Shmeh. Of course it was breaking my heart. Every mom sending her last child to kindergarten struggles with the fact that there are no more babies in the house. Had I done all I could do to prepare her for the world? Would we be as close once she started school as we were before? And of course there were the worries that every new school year brings, from the minor (how long before their teachers find out my kids spent the whole summer eating frozen pizza and watching “Days of Our Lives”?) to the unthinkable (what if this year the intruder drill isn’t a drill?)
I gave my son a quick squeeze and put on my brave mom face.
“This year will be better,” I assured him. “I know your teacher. She’s awesome.” (She is. She shakes each student’s hand as they enter the room each morning. How cool is that?) “And all of your friends are in your class.”
He continued to cry.
“Buddy, I know this is hard, but you can’t do this in front of your sister.”
The crying stopped and was replaced by a steady, confident voice that I barely recognized.
“Mom, I know. I’m doing this in here, but I won’t do it where she can see,” he said with determination. “And tomorrow when it’s time to get out of the car, I’ll be fine. No tears. I’m going to be brave and hold her hand.”
The next morning we started with a quick breakfast and the obligatory photos and then piled into the van. I pulled up next to a crowded sidewalk in front of my children’s school and watched nervously as my son opened the door. He paused in the backseat, reached back and took his little sister’s hand. As if preparing to jump out of an airplane, they leapt from the van to the curb, and walked hand-in-hand to the front door.
He was scared, yes; perhaps when other little boys his age were not. But I remembered those words: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” For him, that “something else” was his little sister; at a time when she needed him most, he would put aside his own fear to be the courageous big brother she needed him to be.
"So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:6
Kathy Deters
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