How I Forgave Myself For - Wait For It - Being a Three-Year-Old
35 years after the fact
The childhood memories we retain into adulthood are kind of a mystery! Why do I vividly remember, for instance, one rainy afternoon when I was a toddler, which I spent lying on a brown tweed couch, cuddled under a shaggy Mickey Mouse blanket while clutching my precious crocheted octopus (weird, yes, I know), but have almost no recollection of the many concerts, fairs, museums, and parks that I visited at that age? I’m sure those experiences shaped me in all kinds of ways, but do I remember the outings themselves? Nope. Show me a Flintstones jelly glass, though, and I’m transported right back to 1989, in all its brownish-orange glory.
So, yes - memories are weird! What's frustrating is that, of the few early-life events we remember, many are sequences of events we’d redo differently, if we could. I had the chance to reconsider one of those yesterday.
My parents were driving their granddaughter to Florida to visit Universal Studios. It’s a decent drive from Indiana, and the car was filled with fun stuff to keep Zoe occupied. My mom and stepdad have Big Opinions about screen time, though, and whenever Zoe stays with them, they spend lots of time reading and talking with her, and encouraging creative, non-electronic play.
Zoe is brilliant. (Of course she is, right? She is, after all, my niece! Wink, wink!) And such a happy, smart, verbal kid is putty in the hands of my mom, who’s a writer and former English teacher and professor. In fact, this kid is a lot like another little girl my mom raised, about thirty years ago. (cough cough)
Mom texted me yesterday as the trio was passing through South Carolina:
“Zoe reminding me of you with her Voices scenarios!”
Ahh, yes. Voices.
Voices was an acting game I created as a toddler. As a baby, I was an early talker (my mom claims I was speaking by nine months!); as a young child, I was an early reader. I’m sure both of these proclivities were born of the fact that I was an only child, with a stay-at-home mom who’d majored in English education! For my father’s part, as an English professor, he joined my mom in encouraging reading: lots and often.
As the first grandchild and a very girly girl, I’d been bitten hard by the Disney bug. I had book versions of each movie, and my mother even made me a wonderful Snow White costume for Halloween the year I was four! But the first Disney movie that really blew my mind was Peter Pan. Something about experiencing the combination of Edwardian London, a secret island, pirates, and fairies seemed endlessly captivating to me. At some point, having read the books and watched the movie, I realized I wanted to spend more time with my beloved characters. However, I was only three and couldn’t express that! So I created the Voices game.
In this exercise, my mom and I would each play characters from the story and would talk through different scenarios as I imagined those characters would experience them. No costumes were required, so it wasn’t quite a play - it was more like improvising dialogue in character.
No, as a matter of fact, it did not surprise anyone when, as a high-schooler, I went on to catapult into the deep end of the Civic Theatre scene! Why do you ask?
My mom and I would play Voices as my mom folded laundry, cooked dinner, or polished furniture, me toddling around unhelpfully, distracting her, as she gamely adopted whatever persona I’d directed.
And that was the thing: I always got to be Wendy. Or Cinderella. Or Snow White. My mom? She got to play Peter, the wicked stepmother, or, well, the wicked stepmother.
Here is where I should point out that there could scarcely be a less wicked mother than mine! My mom is lovely and always has been. It was just that I wanted to be the princess! Invariably, the princess got to wear some kind of cool dress - remember, enormous taffeta confections as formal wear were normal back then - and I loved flouncing around the house, imagining myself taking a regal stroll through my palace.
Mom was an enormously good sport about this. One time, though, I remember her saying, “I’m always Peter! You always get to be Wendy. Wouldn’t you like to switch just once?” But I didn’t budge. Mom quickly dropped it, and the game continued as it always did.
Not long after that, other facets of my life would teach me that others’ happiness and comfort mattered more than mine did. Perhaps I internalized the character of Wendy a little too much, the older sister of two rambunctious boys who is constantly prevailed upon to “mother" them (and a gaggle of Lost Boys, too)!
After my parents’ divorce, which was inarguably a net positive, I observed that the most helpful thing I could do in any situation was to sublimate any needs or wants that could possibly inconvenience someone - usually my father or brothers. Without my mom there on visit weekends to encourage me to stand up for myself, edging myself out was involuntary by the time I was ten:
Me? No, I have absolutely no opinion on where we should get dinner, even though I’m a vegetarian.
No, I don’t mind what we watch! I’m a girl, after all - why should my two younger brothers and father have to sit through something girly and boring? By all means, let’s watch a boy movie: better for one person to be bored than three.
No, I don’t need any one-on-one time. With three kids, that’s too much to ask of a noncustodial parent. Dad, you go ahead and focus on the boys.
I’ve spent most of my life unlearning that; untangling that dynamic. It’s not good for me, for my brothers, or for anyone else I love. I even went so far in my terror of disappointing, inconveniencing, or displeasing people that I had no idea until this year that I have ADD. As a high-achieving, extra-curricular-acing, trouble-fearing student, I managed to mask it through high school - until it all fell apart in the real world.
Still, I’m a people-pleaser. The memories of the few times in life when I’ve really let someone down are physically painful to me. And my toddlerhood Voices selfishness is one of those memories. But lately, when this stuff comes up, I’ve been trying to name what I feel, to forgive myself for feeling it, and then, finally, to let it go.
I texted my mom back:
“Haha! I still remember you once telling me you were tired of being Peter, and me feeling guilty that I inconvenienced you! But … sometimes three-year-olds are inconvenient? I perhaps should not be beating myself up about this 35 years later?”
“Yeah,” my mom responded. “Time to release the Wendy guilt. Take that on to write about!”
It was good advice.
So, dear three-year-old Sally, to you I say the following:
As bright as you are, kiddo, you only have three years of life experience. You are still figuring out how other people and the world itself work. It’s OK to be a little bit selfish sometimes. Your mom is not actually mad at you! But do remember the satisfaction of getting exactly what you want, and spread it around when you can! Other people deserve it, just like you do.
Oh, and hey, appreciate those blonde curls while you’ve got them! In thirty years, you’ll spend hundreds of dollars trying to get back to that shade!
Love, your 38-year-old self
Thanks, Mom. I needed that.