Let’s be honest: it’s been a long time since I turned 10.
But this is my oldest now and I want to make sure that I do everything I can to stay connected with him as he gets older.
Around his tenth birthday, he began to experience what my husband and I called “boredom.” Every once in a while, usually when he was overtired, he would burst into tears and say he felt sad or lonely, or just not feeling well.
I didn’t know what to do with my normally easy-going, calm kid, so I turned to another kid I knew: myself. I faithfully documented my adolescence in a series of diaries from the age of 9 through my college years, and I have kept them all.
So I opened my first diary, and there was the Berenstain Bear on the cover, and inside there was a note that said: “Keep out! This means you!”
Early entries chronicling my viewing experience Titanic in the cinema (“It was so good I was shaking,” I wrote) and the list of the cutest boys once (Aladdin ranked third). But others actually pointed out the emotions a fairly typical teenager would feel.
I wrote that I felt sad when my goldfish died. I vented about how frustrating it was to see the orthodontist again. I wrote a big speech that everyone had to give in health class, and one of them was so funny that no one forgot their lines.
I wrote an article about being at odds with my parents. I’m afraid to tell them if I forget to read at school the night before a big test or if I get a bad grade. I was angry that they wouldn’t let me call the boy.
I noticed that any negative interaction with my parents that I described was a big deal. I was a very sensitive child, but when I see how I treat my own children, I wish I was a sensitive parent too. These little people are dealing with their own problems, whether it’s exams or drama on the school playground, and they need me as a safe place but another source of stress. I want to be a stabilizing force in children’s lives.
But I was shocked that my parents didn’t actually appear in the book as often as I thought. My life would fill a book, and both my parents were background actors. I look at my children and think that their dad and I and their siblings are their world—but we don’t have to be.
There was a lot I didn’t understand about what was going on while they were at school, at play, or on the bus—especially on the bus. (Does riding the bus spark anarchy?) My journals focused on who had a crush on whom, who was on my basketball team that season, how many books I read for extra credit, determined to beat the other avid readers in my class. I take notes every time I receive a new beanie baby.
When my children were little, I saw a quote that has stuck with me: “If you don’t listen eagerly to the little things when they are little, they won’t tell you the big things when they grow up, because it won’t matter to them. Saying that is a big deal all the time. This is what reading my journal reminds me to do, to pay attention to my kids and care about the things they care about, and to listen when they tell me something important to them.
At one point I wrote, “My mother’s brochure about ‘helping’ me with a school project made me nervous and I got angry.” I don’t remember exactly which project I was referring to, but I do remember my mother constantly taking the initiative Offering advice because she said she knew what was best for me. I remember wanting to show her that I was capable of getting things done, even if they weren’t the way she did them.
In some way, my son often needs my help with school projects. When I make a suggestion and he replies, “I got it,” I try to back off (usually I try again, but by the second “I got it,” I know he means it ). And almost always, he does have it. I have always been impressed by his originality and creativity. If one day he writes in a diary, I hope he writes that his mother is proud of him. His mother believed him.
I guess that’s what 10-year-old me wanted.
Lauren Davidson is a writer and editor from Pittsburgh who focuses on parenting, arts and culture, and weddings. She worked for newspapers and magazines in New England and western Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with degrees in English and French. She lives with her editor husband, four energetic children, and an affectionate cat. Follow her on Twitter @laurenmylo.
