Right Mothering

Well, if you knew me, you would know that I never brag.  I believe it tempts fate; plus, I don’t need to.  My daughter is just wonderful, and it is clear to anyone who meets her.  But since you never will (or at least, wouldn’t know it if you did), I will write a few words.

This past month, my husband and I attended our fifth parent teacher conference, and, it is becoming a bit repetitive.  But it feels good to be told how special our daughter is – brilliant, respectful of the teachers, a favorite of the staff and of other children.  This year’s teacher, a mother herself, has great insight.  She began our meeting by describing our daughter’s two defining traits:  her perfectionism and her strong sense of justice.  This meant the world to me, in truth, because those are my defining traits, and I believe them to be my greatest strengths.  But I don’t think that I embodied them when I was only five years old!  So, our daughter excels at school.  She has played the piano for almost two years, and the violin for one and one half.  She takes ballet at the school of the professional ballet company in town.  When she swims every Sunday with her father, she swims laps – backstroke, freestyle, and breaststroke – and can dive into the pool.  She is fluent in three languages – one from me, one from her father, and one from school and her grandmother.  I will write more on all of these things later.  And, as far as I know (and I always ask the teachers in the parent-teacher conferences), she never misbehaves or inflicts any sort of harm on other children.

This is all not to say that parenting her is easy.  At home, she can be a handful.  But at school, she always makes us proud.  Indeed, I know that the efforts we make at home pay off in the world.