Rachel the grownup

Sometimes I think I'm not being a good mom because I occasionally share things with Rachel that she doesn't necessarily need to know, or I talk to her like a semi-adult. My friend Charon and I were talking over drinks last week about how we were raised, and she said, "I don't remember having any fun. The parents made ALL the decisions, and the children didn't get a say." She was referring to a friend of ours who we believe coddles her children way too much. On a recent visit to this friend's house, Charon and I were aghast at how much say the 13-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl had when making decisions; it really should have been the grownups doing that, and she and I were highly annoyed that the kids wouldn't listen when we told them to leave the room and the talking to the adults.

Anyway...on Thursday night Drew called me upstairs to Rachel's room. She was curled up on her bed, upset, and when we asked her what was wrong she said, "I know you're going to be mad at me but during dinner tonight, I felt...excluded." That was because I had to talk to Drew about a situation that had upset me at work and it had been on my mind the last two days. He and I had planned to have lunch Thursday downtown before the snow and the fact that the meeting I thought I had to attend is this coming week instead, so we ended up not being able to talk.

I told Rachel that there was a work situation I'd been upset about, and she got very upset when I wouldn't tell her, even when Drew explained that we didn't want her to worry. I ended up explaining what was going on in terms she could understand, and she became quite indignant, telling me that I needed to protest, and write a letter to management, and gather other workers with me to protest, too. I tried to explain to her that when you work for other people you have to follow their rules, but she was hearing none of it. It ended up with her saying about my fellow workers that "they don't have your courage, Mom," insinuating that I really needed to organize them. Then I bent down, kissed her and said, "I can tell you're going to fight for social justice when you grow up." I was very impressed.

Drew chuckled when I told him what had happened. "Well, you can't blame her for saying that -- she's reading all these books about the [American] Revolution," he noted. (I had thought she got it from an American Girl doll book about a Jewish girl living in the early 1900s in New York City who got involved with the garment workers' protests.)

This child...