Rhymes with Dolores

Last night, as my 3-year-old daughter was changing into her jammies, post-bath, she ended up with her hands in her underpants, feeling all around down there. While you might find this a little jarring, this actually isn’t the point of my story. She does this all the time, lately. Like, a lot. It’s not even remarkable enough for me to comment on anymore, in and of itself, and as long as she doesn’t do it waiting in line at Whole Foods, I’ve gotten past the shock. If we’re being honest, once I confirmed this as a normal phase, I actually began to admire her dedication and loyalty to the task. I usually have a hard time following through with hobbies, myself. But I digress. The point of all this is that last night, in the middle of her foray, she paused. She looked up at me.  She tilted her head to one side, and then she upped the ante.

“Hey, Mommy – what’s this little guy?”

“Wha…uh, what little guy?”

“This little guy right in here. Like a button. What’s that guy do?”

Crap.

I mean, really? Three years old and we’re already here? I had the most open-minded, liberated mother on the face of the planet who lived to buy me books with titles like “All About Your Body” and then sit down and discuss each chapter over dinner, and even she didn’t broach this subject with me until I was 7. Six, at the very youngest.  But my daughter would not relent. She was not going to let me get away with cursory answers. It’s like she sensed there was a wealth of information to be had here, and that it would come into critical play at some stage of the game. She demanded to know what exact purpose it served, and what it was called.

So, seeing as how I swore to myself that I would never use cutesy made-up words for normal healthy, nothing-to-be-ashamed-of body parts, I supplied the correct, clinical term, assuming we’d then move on. But this discovery of a new word prompted a 10-minute back-and-forth of her trying it out, mispronouncing, and then demanding I say it again so she could try again to get it right. A solid 10 minutes of no dialogue, save that one word, being volleyed between the two of us while I tried desperately to keep a straight face each time I passed it back to her like a hot potato.

And here’s the thing: looking back on the moment, as silly as it might sound, I feel kind of proud of her. Even though she doesn’t realize the significance of her curiosity, in some way I feel like she’s called out her body as her own, taken charge of it, named it out loud and claimed stake. I think all moms of daughters understand how fragile this possession is. How, at some point, when they near 10, 11, 12, that claim can become tenuous and scary and slippery. On some level, I think we moms all fear that moment when our daughters hold out their hands in forfeit because someone else has told them what they have is not worth that much anyway. We know too well, because we have all been there. I know there will be a day when my daughter looks in the mirror and sees a reflection of none of the things I love about her and can plainly see with my own two eyes. Instead, uncertain and apologetic, she will see a fun-house reflection distorted by the slings and arrows of adolescence. All I can hope, as her mom, is that her time of discontent will be short, relenting to a fundamental self-esteem that her father and I are trying in earnest to nurture today. Because in most and in the best circumstances, they will come back around, these daughters of ours, as they grow older and relearn self-possession, remember that they create their own definitions of the world. And until I have to live through that struggle again, this time with the heavy love of a mother who understands that her child needs to learn her own life lessons, I will revel in watching my daughter dance in front of her mirror in unabashed self-adoration, and hearing her name her body out loud.