Anger Sandwich

The daughter has been stomping around a lot lately. I yelled down the hall this morning, "Don't forget your breakfast!" Then I heard her bare feet slamming into the hardwood in the living room, across the dining room, into the kitchen expounding her indigence against being TOLD WHAT TO DO with the slap of her weight.  She knocked over the cereal, then slammed a cupboard. This part wasn't intentional. She was just in a tizzy from being TOLD WHAT TO DO.

Welcome to the early stages of puberty. Or, as I like to remember it, the winds shifting before the storm. Lots of unwarranted tears, overreacting and zits. We haven't gotten to the menses part of the show. Honestly, that's the part that bothers me the least. It's pretty cut and dry. "Here, put this here thing in this place and make sure you time it so there isn't a mess." I will refrain from saying things like, "Today you are a woman," because a) its creepy and b) its not true. She would still be a kid who got a period, not a woman. A kid with a 90 pound gorilla of estrogen shoved into a 70 pound body.

I don't think the period part is knocking at the door just yet anyway. Like I was, she is super skinny which tends to deter the onset of early menstruation. I didn't hit that part of the show till way later than most kids. But the temper? The arguing like a divorce lawyer with a huge chunk of a billion dollar estate at stake? The feet stomping, door slamming, arrggghhh yelling drama? Oh yeah. Don't need a full case of the hormones to get a little overly accentuated drunk. It isn't mean. It is frustration and she hasn't developed the maturity to recognize the reactions as biological so she just HATES EVERYTHING for short stretches at a time.  With gusto.

One of the advantages of being female, especially a  closely genetically linked one, is that I've been there. Culture and society issues are much different but the feelings have not changed. My circumstances involved more complicated parental communication issues so I actually think that a lot of times the drama was exacerbated with a legitimate base for frustration.  It wasn't just me kicking up the emotions. There was  helplessness and rage against everything that were making all of the emotions dance ten times faster.  I remember this and may be able to disengage from the girl drama  from the actual issues a little easier then the men folks who haven't been there before.  And when I find the my sanity slipping, I can call the other females to remind me that I was once the cause of this frustration for my parents. Remember, remember, remember to be there when she comes home from school distressed over, in our eyes, nothing and hug her like it really is something anyway, looking for the real reasons that may be in there too even if they aren't the ones that are obvious.

I am hoping that I will  be able to produce calm or at least navigate the rapids when we hit them intelligently with empathy.  I suspect it will be like living with a sporadic mental patient, especially with my genetic code bouncing around in there. We are living in a less innocent time when there is also easier acceptance for sexual activity at an early age in schools, youtube videos on how to cut yourself, constant reminders of what you don't have and the always universal mean girls judging the drum that your are beating to except they have more access to different ways to make you feel bad.   I've watched puberty ridden people close to me run away from home, go into rehab, abuse themselves with eating disorders and cutting, and die because they just couldn't handle it. It is a scary scary world to have a girl child growing into a new vulnerable body. But I know it will have wonderful moments too. And at least I know, to her, her moment of insanity is real and rational  although it looks nuts from the outside.

There is a good child with a kind heart born with wonderful creative gifts. I will hold her hands to comfort her and remind her of this. Whether she likes it or not.