Payback

The Poo went to a soccer camp two weeks ago—every morning from 9 to 10:30 for a week. The clinic was part of a program that brings coaches over from the UK and travels the nation, putting on these five-day events all over the country.

We started talking in the spring about signing her up for something sports-related this summer. The Poo is an active kid, and she seems to have some athletic inclinations, despite her inherited clumsiness and some distinctly un-athletic DNA from her mother.

The Poo doesn’t dive into new things. It takes time for her to warm up, and despite her excitement over soccer camp, I knew the first day would be touch-and-go. Upon their return home that morning, Mr. C’s report was about what I expected.

She was anxious at first, but managed to get in there and play, too. The next day she struggled a little, balking at the rules, but she was also the high-scoring participant that day, kicking two goals.

I was proud; she was, too. But I had to pry the good stuff out—when I asked her how her morning was, she poured out all her complaints: It was too hot, she didn’t want to yell when she was told to, she got wet.

My girl, she leads with the negative.

As an adolescent, my parents loved to regale me with tales of my obstinate, glass-half-full escapades. “We called you the ‘I Can’t Kid,’” my father would say, my mother echoing his sentiments.

I quit baseball before I ever joined Little League, I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 8 years old, I hated math because I didn’t just “get it” the first time.

I gave up. A lot.

On the last day of soccer camp, The Poo and her father arrived home earlier than I expected. “How was it?” I asked, looking up from my spot on the floor with The Babyman.

My husband’s face was stony, the girl’s was streaked with tears. She stood before me, cheeks flushed, and announced: “I had a temper tantrum.”

The real story is that she refused to play. She got wet, she got dirty, she got pushed down by a boy. The final indignity was that she was assigned to a scrimmage squad that didn’t get to wear pinnies.

Her father was disgusted with her, and issued a consequence for her behavior. No TV for 24 hours. She stormed to her room, weeping all the while. My husband sat and wiped off his forehead.

He told me how he wanted to have a good time, and that he had high hopes. But that the girl would not cooperate. She could not be flexible. She hated everything.

“She could be really good at this,” he said. “But she just won’t try. She just wants to complain.”

His words hit me as hard as any blow. They are words that have been applied to me throughout my life, words that I dismissed as unfair criticism.

Words that are, if I am honest, accurate.

Later, after my husband left for work, I sat with my daughter on the couch and tried to coax out of her why she wouldn’t play, why she wasted the last day of her special camp crying and fussing.

“I just get so upset, and then I can’t calm down,” she whispered, burying her face in my armpit.

I held her, and tried to find the words to lead her down a different path. To tell her that she’ll taste bitterness, but it’s the sweet that matters. I tried to tell her these things, the sound of it ringing false in my ears as I thought of all the times I stood on a metaphorical field, refusing to step on the pitch for fear of failing.

Raising a child throws your own flaws into such stark relief. I do not want my daughter to see the dark instead of the light. I want her life to be mostly sunny, with just a chance of passing clouds. How do I do that when my own perspective is so often one that denies any silver lining?

All I can do is keep trying. All I can do is point out to her that if she never tries, she can’t succeed. This I know, first-hand. And now I know what it must have been like for my own parents. If my parents had said “I can’t,” I wouldn’t be here now, putting words on a page.

They worked their fingers to the bone to give me baseball bats and bicycles, and I accepted these gifts believing that I could never use them well enough to make up for the effort that went into bestowing them.

Now, I work so hard to give our children every opportunity to shine. But how can I expect my sensitive, empathetic daughter to walk lightly into the world with the heavy weight of my past on her shoulders?

I think this is what you call “payback.”