Last weekend I traveled to Spokane with my daughter Grace, my niece Maddi, and my sister Kati. The girls, both violin players, were signed up to compete in the Northwest Fiddle Contest. This was our second year attending this fun event, and we knew that the competition was going to be fierce in both of their divisions, but that didn’t matter. Our main goal was to enjoy each others company, stay in a hotel with a swimming pool, play some fun music, and eat at a favorite restaurant.
Cousins, contests, and strawberry lemonade!
I picked Grace up from class before the school day was over. She was excited to play hooky from school, but didn’t like the attention drawn to her, so she was a bit embarrassed at the “good luck Gracie” hoots and hollers from her classmates. Grace, to my knowledge is one of the only kids in our K-8 school that plays violin. That is sad to me, considering there are almost 400 children in her school. As a result it is vital for her witness other kids her age that play violin to motivate her in her musical journey.
I have always encouraged diversity in my kids. “Find something you love, and that you are passionate about. Do it well. Be proud of being unique. It’s okay to stand out from the crowd, as long as it is in a way that is positive and uplifting.” Up until now, that has worked really well. My tweens have been okay with our lifestyle. But just this last year, as if an invisible line was drawn across the grades in the school hallway, things have shifted. Peer pressure showed up. Cliques formed, ego was born, and all the sudden I am remembering being eleven and how difficult it was to be anything but “normal”.
When I became a mom, I guess I hoped that we, as a society, had evolved. That the discomfort I felt in growing up was a trait that would mutate in my offspring, saving them discomfort, embarrassment, and the need to “blend in”. Wow, was I wrong. The only thing more uncomfortable than feeling insecure when I was a pre-teen is recognizing my daughter has to go through these same road blocks.
As we exited the highway to our hotel in Spokane, we discussed the contest the next day. Each contestant is required to play a hoedown, a waltz, and a tune of choice, (which cannot be a hoedown or a waltz.)
A hoedown derived from the southern part of our country, and traditionally is linked with dancing. A group of dancers try to outdo each other in fancy footwork. The one who wins is the dancer who received the loudest cheers.
Grace has experienced fancy footwork happening this year in class. When she was given a new pair of boots for her birthday she was so very happy. But her bubble burst a bit when a friend asked her if they were “real” UGGS. Of course, they weren’t the fancy footwork. However, Grace was poised about it, and told me that she didn’t mind that they were generic. She liked them anyway. That’s my girl…putting her best foot forward and being proud of her cool new boots!
Grace’s waltz was the Tennessee Waltz, a self-referential piece that talks about a man losing his darling to an old friend he introduced her to while dancing a waltz.
Listening to old-time fiddler Orville tell jokes between sets.
In school, I am seeing relationships change, evolve, dissolve, and become complex. I am trying to teach Grace just to keep dancing. Friends will change, come and go. I hope that she will choose girlfriends who aren’t afraid to dance to their own unique rhythms, and embrace hers. My deepest friendships to this day are forged in deep acceptance and diversity, as well as humor and laughter.
We all make choices and this is a topic for parents to discuss with their children that begins with the toddler, perpetually gets trickier and more ambiguous as a tween, and becomes the lifeline throughout the teenage years. Luckily, the tune of choice was a simple decision for Grace. She chose a piece named “Gallaghers Frolics”. It was lively and fun, and fiddled flawlessly.
The evening we arrived in Spokane the girls wanted to swim at the swimming pool. I was tired, but I decided I should go down to the pool for a while. What transpired was over an hour of a competitive “Marco/Polo” game, underwater singing, acrobats, and swimming games. I recognized the importance of never forgetting how to frolic when my niece informed my sister that one of the best memories of the weekend was “playing in the pool with weird Aunt Jen”….and she’s fifteen! If Grace forever can frolic like I remembered to do that night, she will have a joyful life.
Kids have serious situations these days. I feel so fortunate that the road blocks my children have are manageable, everyday life lessons. Some kids I know have such severe roadblocks I don’t know how they manage the invisible line of peer pressure and fitting in. I have also seen remarkable resilience and wisdom through the children who I work with through Center for Music by People with Disabilities in the schools. The kindest hearts, the most giving of friends, and the smallest of egos are children who aren’t aware there are roadblocks, and they march to their own drummer.
So, the lessons continue as a mother more astutely than when I went through those difficult years myself. Being older, I analyze, philosophize, and strategize. I wonder, dear readers, how you react and educate your tweens on social graces? My Grace, she just continues to try to stay in tune with the friends she loves, and hopes she makes it to the next round in the wacky competition of tweenhood!
Next time on the Tween Chronicles: Pet Peeves
Jen Slayden is a long time Missoulian who thrives in the chaos of being a mother of three while also being a Certified Life Coach, musician and educator. She enjoys writing about all of life’s little lessons on her blog, which you can find at www.bigskylifecoach.com .
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Wonderful Jen! I completely relate to watching our children going through these tough times- I think it is even harder watching them than going through it ourselves! Which then leads to the question- is it going to be even HARDER to watch them watching their children go through it! The never ending cycle!
Underwater singing? What a perfect reminder to be silly and receptive to joy and laughter.
I remember well the invisible line drawn in the hallways of my tweens. Too bad the genes haven’t mutated! I acutely remember being different. Maybe there is some benefit to surviving this round: I have embraced my own weirdness
and those with differences. This attitude and openness are constant delights and boy have I earned them, having survived my youth!
Cheers to being joyfully ourselves and any age!
Great pictures, great story, great kids. Ma&PaSchwa
Great piece, Jen…….ahh, those years of middle and high school…..wouldn’t relive them for anything!
My daughters have certainly had their experiences with peers that are not always positive, I guess that is part of the “human” experience. My youngest and I have had a number of conversations recently about what “being a friend” means, and navigating some of these moments.
I sent a copy of the following poem to school with my 7th grader to post in her locker as a reminder…..
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
what you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Columbia Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under the Words
Yup…the message is BE KIND.
Beth
Lovely to see those 2 fiddlers and to know that their Moms and their music can give them the strength to get through roadblocks! Well done
Again, another great article Jen. And oh that dance, I’m not sure I can keep up because the tune keeps changing!! I asked Lydia if she thought it would be fun to do a “Freaky Friday” and change places as I wonder what her days are like. She thought it was a great idea!
I love this!
Nice Jen! It was a fun weekend and yes, Maddi Loved your game in the pool….maybe next year I can join in rather than pass and have Grace say I am the cool weird Aunt!!!
Each article of yours I read, I truly believe to be better than the last. Each time I think the next one can’t be better, yet it is…this is my favorite so far. The angst of growing and changing seems more difficult as a parent watching, but I wonder if it really is or have we simply forgotten how painful and awful it felt the first time? Wonderfully done! Thank you!
The only thing more uncomfortable than feeling insecure when I was a pre-teen is recognizing my daughter has to go through these same road blocks.
TOTALLY.
This was a reason I almost didn’t have children…sounds extreme but ug that time of life when friends do unfriendly things, when cool boots aren’t cool enough was really painful for me. I was a sensitive kid and my first born is exactly the same.
Now that I am a mom, I look to other moms (you!) for guidance and advice and I know that, in our amazingly supportive and embracing community, I am supported. I think we are evolving as a community.
Right on for being the fun, weird aunt who encourages silly play. She was my favorite too.