Needing a village

On the off chance that things might be feeling too smooth and easy here (which, by the way, they aren’t), we have moved, this last week, into some tricky territory with Naomi. I know I know I know that this is neither the first nor the last week of such difficulty, but we have now entered uncharted parenting space.

Naomi will be a decade old this month, and she (and I) think that’s a big deal. She wants to have a lovely party, and on Sunday she decided on the theme: a luxurious spa-themed slumber party. A cake like a princess, facials, pedicures (all my responsibility to provide, alas) and a marathon watching of the Princess Diary movies. So far, it’s a little over the top (no, we’re not hiring a masseuse, no matter how cool she thinks that would be), but mostly ok. But then comes the conversation about the guest list. It would seem that she isn’t inviting friend X because Naomi's bestfriend Y doesn’t like X which means she can’t invite friend Z because Z and X are best friends. Hmm. This starts to ring my bells for isolation, for cliquishness, for general nastiness. Each of these girls had Naomi to her birthday party. Each is a regular guest in our house. “But X is a desperation friend!” Naomi tells me, wailing, I don’t have to have her at my birthday!

On Monday Naomi got in trouble for passing a note. The note, written by Naomi, is signed by friend Z and written to friend X about how X shouldn’t come to Naomi’s birthday party, even though she’s invited (if you can't follow, it hardly matters--it took several conversations and a couple of phone calls to make sense of it all). Z gets mad, gives the letter to X (explaining that it’s written by Naomi), and X tells the teacher. Phones ring all over the village with parents trying to figure out what happened and why. And, in our kitchen, Naomi is in tears because I’m ruining her birthday party. I chop onions and she wails at me. I slice carrots and she storms off. I stir fry tofu and she’s back again, trying again, tearing up again. And so it goes, all through the preparations for dinner. We are at an impasse.

Sometimes I feel crystal clear in my views. I cannot condone meanness. I cannot support Naomi’s move which will hurt other girls in this very small village. But how much of my firm-line drawing is about my own sense of isolation here, my own worry about how few people I know here and how hard it is to build friendships? How much of this is projection to those times when I am the “desperation friend” myself? How much is it appropriate for me to pick the guest list? Naomi rails that I am trying to micromanage her life (no, she doesn't use the world "micromanage"), that this isn’t kindergarten where your mom makes you invite everyone in the whole class so no one will be left out. She’s got point, and still I don’t bend. I suggest a weekend birthday trip where she can bring a friend. She hates that idea. I suggest inviting them all and having games and activities be so constant that the girls don’t have time to fight. We both hate that idea.

Naomi and I dance around each other, each of us trying to figure out where to give in, where to hold firm. I tell her, “I have no idea how this will work out. I just know you can’t have a party that is based in being mean.” She tells me (in different words) that it’s kind to be cruel in this circumstance, that inviting the wrong crowd will ruin everything for everyone. We both know she’s right. I'm the only one who knows that I am right, too. Neither of us knows what to do next.

One of the times when Naomi storms out of the room in tears, I turn to Michael for a rushed conversation. “Am I holding the right line?” I ask. Shrugging, he admits he doesn’t know either. For the first time since she was out of diapers, I crave a parenting book. I want to know The Right Answer to this one. I even google it. (From google I learn that it’s not a good idea to invite boys and girls to the same sleepover party, and that I mustn’t molest the party guests. Helpful advice.)

Finally one of my lousy ideas sparks a decent one in her and we build and merge until we’ve got something good. Two parties in one day: first a daytime party where everyone is invited and all are kept busy and then all leave. Two hours later a small subset are picked up to have the sleepover portion of the party. There is a robust tradition of parties like this, two guest lists, two functions, same celebration. This allows both inclusion and also choice. This meets my requirements and hers. No parenting book needed. (Well, perhaps this statement should wait until after the parties are over.)

Still, this feels like the first round of a new dance, and I don’t know the steps. Put this into a small village and a cultural context that is still foreign to me, and I can’t even hear the rhythm of the music. Things which themselves would feel foreign to me because of Naomi's life stage feel impossible because of her life-stage plus our life-context. It takes a village to raise a child, but how do I go about raising my American children in this New Zealand village?

*****

Pictures today are to celebrate the lovely weather this afternoon when it warmed up enough to go for a walk on the beach in the slanting evening sun. These are of our walk on the beach after dropping Naomi off at soccer practice. And the last is of a tiny sliver of new moon. Here the tiny sliver is the bottom left corner of the moon. What does your sliver of moon look like where you are?