Love You Through It

“When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
When you let go, I’ll hold on
When you need to cry, I swear
That I’ll be there to dry your eyes
When you feel lost and scared to death,
Like you can’t take one more step
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.”

These are song lyrics from one of my favorite Martina McBride songs. Her song is specifically about women with breast cancer, but the chorus is empowering in many situations. Most recently at our house we have been having discussions with our 11-year old about “Mean Girls.” Now, in her defense, she doesn’t use this term. She told me that it seems unkind to call anyone else mean, and she doesn’t want to be unkind. She is a better person than I am. The friendship struggle is as old as time. There are always people who make themselves feel better by putting other people down. It was true when I was her age and it will be the same for her children. There is no real solution, only teaching your own children to be kind and how to cope when others aren’t. During this time, this song has become my mantra. I’m going to talk to her, I’m going to listen to her, and I’m going to “love her through it.”

Her grade has always been a bit “dramatic.” There is a large number of very smart, very outgoing girls and there is bound to be some conflict. Fifth grade, however, has seemed to increase the drama exponentially. I’m not sure if it’s because they are the oldest in the school, if it’s the anxiety of starting middle school soon, or if it’s just the pre-teen hormones surfacing early, but it has been a rough year in our house. I have listened to her pour out her sweet little heart to me over the unfair treatment of others that she witnesses. She has cried on my shoulders not understanding why a friend acts one way when they are alone together, but completely differently when they’re around other people. She has bemoaned the thoughtlessness of girls who find it necessary to put other people down without regard to their feelings. We have wondered at the party invitations that don’t come, or why she gets made fun of so much for having friends that are boys. She takes it in stride and asks good questions and continues to think the best of people when I am ready to write them off forever. She always sees the best in people and hopes things will work out, while I am secretly plotting how I can avoid ever having that person come to our house. I have a lot to learn from her.

So far, I have realized that the best thing I can do for her is to not try to fix her problems. She doesn’t need mom to swoop in and vindicate her reputation. She doesn’t need me to talk to the moms of these girls as that would just make her more of a target. She needs a sympathetic ear. She needs me to be a listener and commiserate with her and tell her it gets better with age. And it does. She needs me to just love her through it.

I tell her that mean people don’t just stop being mean all of a sudden. There are still mean adults, there are mean moms, there are people who make themselves feel better at the expense of others in all walks of life. The benefit I have is that I don’t have to hang out with those people. She has to go to school. She has to be in classes, in activities with people that treat her poorly. I don’t. As an adult, I can choose who I spend my time with and who my friends are. If someone is mean, I can avoid them. It doesn’t help her in her current situation, but it does let her see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve settled on the idea that most of this behavior stems from people’s insecurities about themselves. How people treat others is less of a comment on the target, and more of a reflection of how the person feels about themselves. When behavior is viewed in this light, it isn’t any less hurtful, but it is easier to be empathetic.

We pray for the girls that are mean to her. It isn’t easy to do sometimes, but it is hard to dislike someone that you pray for regularly. We try to build her confidence up every chance we get. Unfortunately, this mean girl behavior can shake the confidence of the most self-assured children. We can model for her kind behavior and reinforce to her that choosing to be kind is always the best response. And sometimes we just let her wallow a little bit. We talk about how unfair life can be and eat chocolate and watch the movie “Mean Girls” together. It is helpful to know that you’re not the only person dealing with this and watching the Lindsay Lohan parody of this behavior helps to keep the mood light. I tell her stories of friendships in my life that have come full circle. I tell her about “mean girls” that turned out to be really great adults. And I tell her about broken friendships that I just had to let go of for my own sake.

It hurts to watch her deal with this. It always hurts when your child hurts. But I would rather be on this side of it than having to talk to her about how not to treat people. No mom wants to be the mom of a mean girl. We all want the best for our children. Sometimes, I think, our own insecurities as moms are teaching our kids to be mean when we don’t even realize it. I hope that if I’m ever on the flip side of this coin, I will be wise enough to realize it. I hope that I model for my daughter how to be kind when that is not my natural instinct. I hope she sees her value is not in what other people think or say about her. And for now, I’m just going to love her through it.