20190815.0430

Later on today, my wife and I will be taking Ms. 8 to the school she will start attending next week. Our daughter will be heading to Kindergarten, and she seems to have been changing herself somewhat to prepare for it; the details are important to her parents, and they speak to a certain step of growing up and becoming more independent. My wife's reactions and mine to both the coming schooling and the changes in Ms. 8's behavior differ.
The Mrs. is in some ways saddened to have Ms. 8 growing up. Our daughter knows more and is learning more, and she will doubtlessly learn some lessons other than those her teachers mean to offer, both in the classroom to come and outside it. She is becoming more and more her own person and independent--and my wife feels that she is less and less important to our daughter therefore. She feels, too, that the lessening innocence that comes with living longer in the world is beginning to have an effect on our daughter that might not be to the best, and she fears for things that may come.
I understand the concerns, and I share some of them. I attended the school where my daughter will go; it was not necessarily the best experience I had. I also know that no few of the problems were my own fault; I was mouthy and arrogant, determined that they would know I was better. Ms. 8 does not seem to have quite that same set of hangups, and she is already better integrated into the broader community than I was (and, it could be argued, better than I still am). And I have long viewed it as my duty to Ms. 8 to get her to a point where she does not need me anymore; her moving ahead in school is a mark of her needing me just that much less, just that much more success for me.
And there is this, too: however old Ms. 8 gets, however big she grows, however accomplished she may become--and I have every expectation that she will do well--she will still be my child. I will still love her. And when she does not need me, I can hope that she will still want to have me in her life; it is one thing for a dependent child to cling to a person, and it is quite another to have the adult stand beside that person as a peer. I look forward to the day when Ms. 8 does that with me, and I continue to work to be a person she would want to stand beside in the years to come.