Townie Girl has an eight year old daughter. She's a big girl, tall for her age, solid, but overweight by the percentiles, such that her pediatrician is on their case. She's been to the nutritionist and some kind of exercise program for, let's be plain, fat kids, and Townie Girl is always restricting what snacks she can have and so forth. (M1 and I always look at each other when this is being discussed. They're gonna give that girl an eating disorder. Oh, for sure, she'll be throwing up by middle school.) But she's naturally a big girl. She's never going to be a delicate little sylph. She'll grow up and not be able to wear sundresses. [<--self-indulgent private joke, just ignore, thx]
Well, she has this other little girl she goes to school with who is her nemesis. They do not get along at all, and the other little girl has at times been gratuitously mean, telling her she's too fat to wear a bathing suit and so forth. Despite their apparent enmity, Townie Girl's daughter was invited to the other girl's birthday party. She and Townie Girl were out shopping prior to the party and came across a Justin Bieber t-shirt, which is apparently the Birkin bag of the 8 y.o. girl set, and the begging started. Please, mom, please, mom, please, mom. "I want to wear it to [mean girl's] birthday, so she'll be jealous of me at her own party." Bwah. Never underestimate how early women learn to be cunts.
But this is a tough one for a parent, y'know? You really do not want to encourage retaliatory cruelty, but when someone has hurt your child, it is really really really difficult to take the high road and feel sympathy or empathy. Your protective instincts kick in and teaching your child to take the high road is much more difficult than it otherwise would be. (I don't know if it gets easier or even harder when you're the grandmother. But I'd like to find out. Someone get working on that! I do know this: when I'm the (step)grandmother there ain't gonna be any snack restricting at my house. Everyone will just have to deal.)
xoxo
3 comments:
Hey, if it makes her feel good/powerful in an otherwise awkward situation, I'd say buy her the t-shirt. and matching Justin Beiber underpants to go with it. Better than comfort eating to deal with the pain afterwards (a loose experience based conjecture here).
Seriously, what is the deal with Justin Bieber anyway? He's like 7.
Apparently he's "sooooooooooooooo cute!" :-)
yeah, in a "aww, his voice hasn't even changed yet" kind of way!
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