little girls are mean

When I say "little girls are mean," I am not referring to the blunt comments made by Eliza. (She used to poke me and inform me that my ass is "squishy").

Little girls are mean to each other. They create and revel in drama. As long as they are on the giving end, that is. Eliza has relayed "mean girl" instances as early as pre-school. At 4-years-old, Eliza had a friend who informed her that she won't play with Eliza if she (Eliza) has other friends. Little grown-up Eliza informed her, very practically, that she (Eliza) can have however many friends as she wants, and that they can all be friends together. In kindergarten similar issues arose, but not too frequently. First grade, not much drama. One particularly nasty incidence occurred where the group of 5 girls temporarily split apart after one called another fat. (IN FIRST GRADE).

Second grade… much worse. I would pick Eliza up from school and notice that she was quite grumpy. One day in particular, I suggested going out for a treat. The mere thought of this brought on some frustrated replies of "Well, I wouldn't even know where to go," and "I can't even think of a treat I would want because it's rainy and I would have wanted ice-cream." Tears obviously followed such statements. It took the rest of the day to pry the real source of upset out of her little lips. During dinner, she finally exploded—her best friend told her she couldn't play with them at recess. I was heart-broken. I wanted to call that bitch's mother and tell her what a little bitch her daughter was. I wanted to go to class with Eliza and beat up any bullies. I wanted to fix it.

Third grade, at a new school. Eliza has always been social and makes friends easily. Since she started school, she's made new friends every day. Today she seemed fine when I picked her up. She seemed happy. She didn't explode at the thought of choosing an after-school snack. Then we started working on her project. She was suddenly in tears at every question that she had about the assignment. I asked her a couple of times what was really wrong with no success. After it had become completely ridiculous I told her to just get ready for bed. That did it. She finally told me that the homework was not the real problem. "I really didn't have a good day." This led to the confession that one of her new friends that she plays with during after school care has been mean for the past few days. Again, I want to call that mom. I want to hold her hand all day at school. I want to tell that girl to be nice. I want to fix it.

The difficult thing about this parenting thing is that I can't fix it. All I can do is hold this little girl in my arms while she cries and tell her that it will get better. That it always gets better. I remind her that sometimes things in life get worse, but they do get better at some point. Either she'll make other friends or this girl will get over it and they'll be friends again. But that just doesn't feel like enough. Maybe tomorrow I'll escort her to class and tell that girl to tell her mom to meet me on the playground after class…