mallrats
My oldest daughter grew up today. While she came out of the womb fighting - with though-she-be-but-little-she-is-fierce energy from birth - she grew shy with age.
Our youngest has never had this problem. That’s wrong: our youngest refused to leave my wife's side for her first three years on earth. My wife would put her down to grab a beverage, or to use the bathroom, or to start to make dinner and the littlest one would wail. And while she prefers the company of my wife at home, in particular at night when she pines for a cuddle in bed, outside these four walls, she's the one we have ask the waiter for ketchup, to go up to the front desk to ask a question about a product at the store, to return a dropped something to a stranger.
Covid did something to them. It did something to all of us. But our kids in particular were impacted more than us adults. Part of it was the advent - really, decrement - of Zoom school. There is something so completely unnatural about a) not only trying to sit still not just for educational purposes but to b) do it from the comfort of your home, where all of one’s distractions remain. It's why working from home just doesn't work, despite all the digital ink spilled in favor of the topic.
Yes, I had a good pandemic. We had just moved into our house with a sizable backyard that allowed for socially distanced parlance over an outdoor fire with friends. I ran everyday for almost two years straight. But I was also an adult, my developmental brain already fully formed. But not our kids'. Kids need other kids to develop social skills that technology simply cannot replace. Add to that being cooped up in the same place with the same people for the same Mondays, and Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Fridays only to welcome the weekend to spend time with the same people again just doesn’t feel healthy.
But back to my oldest growing up today. I've written before about the community in which we live. It is an abundantly accessible community, with sidewalks and crosswalks and houses that nearly touch. We watch out for each other even if we don't know our neighbors names (I'm working on it, I swear). The community gives; we receive.
Our town recently provided us with babysitting classes for seventh and eighth graders. We missed the first class offering - it was oversold. But that's the wrong word as the class was free. Besides, if we had gotten her into that class, my daughter never would have gone: she's rarely first to try anything.
I should not have a problem with this as this was exactly how I was as a kid. Asked to see if the neighboring table could spare their ketchup, I would beg off not to. Asked to get up to grab an extra napkin from counter, I would refuse. Asked to order my own meal from the waiter, I would clam up. Tears would sometimes result. OK, most times. Asked to call the doctor's office for an appointment, I would avoid it at all costs. Some things never change.
But back again to why my daughter grew up today. We finally convinced her to sign her up for the babysitting class on one condition: her friend would join her. If a problem shared is a problem halved, an event attended together is a nervousness divided. They could even start their own Baby-Sitter’s Club when they obtained their certification, putting up flyers in our neighborhood to drum up business. So we coordinated with my daughter’s friend's parents, we reconfirmed with each other and we recommitted to the youth director coordinating the event. We weren't going to succumb to last minute antics and their associated refusals. This morning's moanings, while something fierce, did not inhibit us from pushing her out the door to join her friend in their car on the way to start the class.
I usually do school drop off for both girls in the morning. Part of me - the rational part - thinks that she wouldn't have gone had I been the one to drive them. What is it with kids and their behavior around their own family versus when around others? If hell is other people,1 and by extension hell is other people's kids, then heaven is having other people's kids' parents take your kids to an event.
So here she was, out the door, and off with her friend to learn how to be a babysitter. The plan was for me to pick them up at 4:00pm. Around 2:00pm, my wife and I received a text asking if we could pick her and her friend up earlier, around 3:45pm since class was moving more quickly than expected and heaven forbid that children be bored for 15 minutes. Sure, I said, I’d be happy to.
Then the lobbying began. First she asked my wife if she could walk to the mall after the class with her friend. She conveyed that her friend's parents already said yes. No, was the answer from my wife. But my wife somewhat capitulated by suggesting that our daughter ask me instead. And that's when the flurry of texts came my way.
To set some further context, the place she was receiving her training was at the armory, right across the street from the mall. Yes, it would require crossing two sets of two lanes of traffic, but there was a large median in between with an oversized basket - easily 15 feet long - serving as a planter box and a brief oasis while awaiting the walk signal to turn in one’s favor. While she'd been to the mall numerous times, never had she gone alone. She hadn't even walked around the mall by herself, nor with a friend, while I was in another part of the mall.2
But after receiving confirmation from her friend's parents that it was OK with them, we agreed to let them go, so long as she kept us informed of their whereabouts. She texted as she was leaving the class and as she arrived to the mall as we agreed. But here's the wild thing: I didn't even check my phone incessantly awaiting her message. It's not that I didn't care about her or her safety. I did and I do. It's that I trusted her.
In that moment, we both grew up.
She was not yet thirteen then but she is now. My wife and I both agree that something has changed - for the better - these past six months since she first tasted an independence in the flavor of Auntie Anne’s pretzels bought unsupervised with her friend. She's always been a kid who could make us laugh, but now her jokes are more grown up, her routines a bit more polished, her impressions a bit more on the nose. She's nicer to her sister, disappearing with her upstairs or into the basement to watch TV and play; she shares physical things - toys mostly - with her, like when they were both younger; she opens up with her thoughts and perspectives of a now-teenage girl. She's nicer to me and my wife. I'm even considering taking her to a music festival in a few weeks not because she wants to go, but because I actually think it will be fun to go with her.
My sister, when sending my daughter birthday wishes, said that the teenage years were some of the best times she's had with her daughter. I’m starting to believe her.
But today, my oldest daughter and I are mallrats. She asked me yesterday if I would take her to the mall today. I completely forgot, but she didn't: she was getting ready when I returned from the gym. She had some birthday money starting to burn a hole in her virtual wallet that she needed to insert into a payment device at a minimum of one or two shops to put out the fire. She had her mind set on the LEGO store, Sephora and Innogoods. We headed out, she in the front seat next to me, Noah Kahan on the stereo in stereo around us. It's a short drive, but it was filled full of conversations, laughs, and singing.
She makes the observation that my wife and I were laughing so - too - loudly watching TV last night, that it shook the house.3 I told her one of the jokes that had us in stitches: the father in the episode says that something is bussing, his 12-year old overhears and says that he should never say that, the dad responding that it didn't feel right coming out. My daughter laughed in concurrence.
We first stop by Newbury Comics, a modern day manifestation of Spencer's Gifts and Sam Goody of my youth, but with more Anime, Magic the Gathering Cards, and 1990s movie t-shirts and fewer posters - no blacklight versions to speak of - than when we went in the actual 1990s. Her birthday money still tactfully intact, I've picked up two records: Travis' 25th anniversary of Good Feeling which included the song Tied to the 90s, and Noah Kahan's Busyhead, as good a combination as any to bridge my youth with hers.
We arrive at the LEGO store, a box of the Concorde set welcoming us to open our wallets. The bounty I seek - the Jaws set complete with the Orca and the Shark - is out of stock: I'll need to backorder a bigger boat. My daughter comes away with a LEGO Friends Vintage Shop set that's on sale, and I gain purchase of the Vintage Radio set - as good a combination as any to bridge her love of old things with my love of old things - to take up the space between my LEGO Polaroid and typewriter sets next to my actual turntable (point further made).
I receive a text from my wife with one item requested from Sephora, so we head there next. While we find her leave-in conditioner on the way, my daughter can't decide which Sol de Janeiro scent and set she wants so we set out and ascent the two escalators back to the third floor to pop into Innogoods. While something has been ventured, nothing has been gained for her on this trip, as she wavers between a Kermit and Miss Piggy Squishmellow unable to draw to a conclusion.
We're hungry, but instead of heading to the Mall Foodcourt, regrettably devoid of Orange Julius and making me long regretfully of the past trips to Milford’s Post Mall, we make our way to Bareburger for some namesakes, fries and onion rings. Following the shortest ever visit to the Trader Joe's at the other end of the strip mall, succeeded by the harpooning of some bubble tea at Whale Tea, and then an even shorter trip to Target, we're back home with time to enjoy the fruits of our labor-purchased fruits of our shopping mall visits.
My daughter sits at the dining table, getting its first seated visitor for months, set on completing her set; I finish the last few pages of a novel I've been reading, Busyhead’s Side A playing, my daughter humming along. The needle reaches the end to Side A before I conclude the last pages, the hum of the vinyl softly providing the soundtrack to the final few sentences of page 313.
I get up, carefully flipping the record to Side B, and to take a look at the progress my daughter has made on her LEGO set, while reflecting on the progress she's made this past year. She's finished the first floor, complete with a changing room, some interchangeable vintage clothes in the window for the mini-figs, including a crossbody bag; she's finished more than half of her secondary schooling, started to take care of the curly hair she's recently inherited from me, come into her own style - she'd say aesthetic - complete with Lululemon cross-body bought during her recent trip to North Carolina with her cousin.
But she still has a few more bags of bricks to open; she still has yet to put her babysitting certification to use, yet to have her first boyfriend (though she mentions in passing during our drive earlier that maybe this will be the year), yet to walk into town on her own from our house, yet to take initiative to complete her share of the household chores, though to be fair, as my wife pointed out, she folded an entire load of clean clothes when looking for a specific article of clothing to complete that aesthetic of hers.
She's currently in the basement building LEGO freehand. It's nearly 9pm and she's been there since 10am only coming upstairs for dinner, having skipped lunch in her concentration. I remember those days of my own youth, lost in the focus of the task ahead of me. Tonight, she'll still announce that she’s going upstairs to take a shower, still ask to be tucked in, still say “good night, see you in the morning” before she drifts to sleep still with her stuffed animals. She'll have wrapped herself in nightclothes like a Victorian lady, cocooned in her blankets. I remember similar evenings, my own fear of whatever lay under my bed grabbing my feet forcing me to ensure that the top sheet at a minimum would cover my lower half no matter how hot or humid it was in our climate uncontrolled house. I would have been younger than her thirteen years when I had these fears. At least that's the lie I tell myself now.
I asked her again before she headed down into the basement whether she wanted to join me to go see Noah Kahan headline Day 1 of the Soundside Music Festival to close out September. She's been prone to saying yes to something only to say no (see above: babysitting class), and a purchase of this size requires time and space to ensure it comes with the necessary commitment. On her second assent, she shares her outfit ideas - two-toned jeans, a cowboy hat, and a desire to buy a concert tee at the show to complete her ensemble. She'd get the chance to hear some artists from my youth, too - Boyz II Men, Goo Goo Dolls, Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - though none of their albums were purchased by me at the aforementioned Post Road Mall’s Sam Goody when I was her age. Her continued affirmations take the ticket from my cart and puts it into my e-mailbox in exchange for a few hundred dollars.
In a month’s time, we'll get the chance to bond over music as day turns to night along the same stretch of coast upon which I grew up. She may not consider me a cool dad. But that doesn't matter. I never got to hang out with the cool kids at the mall. But while the venue is different, 30 years later and 30 miles away, I'll finally get to hang out with one of the cool kids.
Apologies to Satre.
Full disclosure, it was usually the LEGO store.
And yes, we were actually laughing, watching the television.