Being the Sun

There is an Aesop Fable that my 3^rd grade teacher read to our class and it’s something I still think about today. It goes like this;

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

The message, of course, is that it’s easier to influence someone gently rather than by brute force. This concept comes in handy when it comes to this girl:

 

In preparation for her holiday program, she asked for an outfit with “pazzow!”. We found a dress that we agreed on; the shoes are another story. She insisted on buying heels. I tried to be the wind. I insisted that she wasn’t going to be comfortable, that heels weren’t appropriate for a second grader. I told her I would not buy them for her. But, in the end, I decided that sometimes being the sun means letting kids figure things out for themselves. So I bought the kitten heals with the bling for my girl because she wanted to be “GLAM-OR-OUS!”  Who was I to stand in her way?

She practiced walking around the house wobbling on her unsteady feet assuring me she was fine and that the shoes fit and were comfortable. The night of her program came. She ran into the school hallway to greet her teacher on her wobbly shoes mentioning something about how slippery they were. Luckily her teacher understands seconds graders–our second grader specifically, otherwise she might have shot me that “You didn’t really buy her heels, did you?!” look.

Dylan and I seated ourselves and watched the kids walk down the steep steps of the theater in a neat row. I cringed thinking about Taylor navigating the steps in those shoes—the shoes she just had to have. And then it happened. She went down. Dylan and I looked away quickly, not wanting her to see that we saw her fall. We try not to be “I told you so” parents. Plus, she gets embarrassed easily. She recovered quickly and looked around to make sure that none of the 300 people in the audience saw her.

She got on-stage and performed all 200 songs that her class had been practicing since September. As the show went on her facial expressions changed. Our smiling girl started grimacing and moving from one foot to the other and back. At the end of the show we met her in the child pick-up area as she was rubbing her poor feet.

She handed me her shoes and Dylan carried her out to the car. On the way home our conversation went a little like this:

T:            My legs and feet are still exhausted!

Me:        Heels are hard. They’re hard on your feet and hard on your legs.

T:            Yeah.

Me:        Next year we will make sure you have flats.

T:            Yeah. I’ll wear flats the next two years and then heels for my band concert when I’m in middle school. Oh, but wait! Heels aren’t allowed in band.

Me:        Right. Let’s hold off on the heels for a while. You’ll have plenty of time to wear them when you’re older.

T:            Okay. (rubbing her feet)

As parents, sometimes we have to brace for the storm and sometimes it’s best to be the sun.