Growing Up

Isabelle often talks about growing up. It used to be that she couldn't wait until she was 18 so she could do whatever she wanted. She hung on to that for months after I explained that she wouldn't have to be obedient to me forever. She would say (after reluctantly doing what she was told), "but when I'm 18, you can't tell me what to do, right?!" Now lately, she is very concerned about how hard it might be as a grown-up. When she found out that having a baby was painful (she was given very limited details and thankfully didn't inquire further, as she is wont to do!), she very seriously told me that she was not going to have any babies that grow in her tummy. She would only adopt children that someone else had to have in their tummy. As much as I told her that she didn't have to worry about it right now, she really wanted to have a thorough discussion with her definitive decision made known to me. OK, I said, you can adopt if you want to (she was already quite educated on the subject, being that I've worked in adoptions on and off her whole little life)

Then just this week over breakfast, we were talking about school, how some people go to more school after high school to become doctors or teachers or reporters like her father. She was dismayed that she would have to go to more school to be a reporter (her latest career choice) and asked what she would be learning. I told her that she would practice writing stories and learn how to talk to people about the stories. She wasn't happy about it and said, "well, maybe I'll just be a mom, then." I was brushing her hair up into a ponytail at this point, and said with genuine enthusiasm, "oh, so you can make your daughter pancakes and do her hair?" Which I thought would sound delightful to a child, right? And she retorted, "I don't want to ever cook!" So, the stress of deciding her future still remains. All she wants to do is play, she says, why would she ever want to grow up? Indeed.