A Time and a Place

by Cathy

I have a confession to make; I have mom guilt.
Surprise!
Yes, I know, it happens so often to us moms that it becomes interlaced within our psyche, but allow me to share with you one of my most recent guilty conscience-abusers.

This past weekend, as you may have read, we had our third annual trip to Michigan with our daughters. We moms, (Patti, Michelle and I) each bring our daughters  for a slumber party-esque, marshmallow-roasting, game-playing, shopping, movie-watching, pretend-playing, sledding (weather permitting) good time.

I bring Bella, my 10-year old, who is the same age as the other girls, therefore, technically making these other girls HER friends. She met them through ballet and they have been friends for several years now. It's a given that they have much in common.

However, I am the only mom in this scenario that has TWO girls; my younger one, Ari, is five years younger than Bella. Over the last several years, we've become so tight with these girls and their families that Ari basically grew up viewing them as her "older sisters". Herewithin, lies my dilemma.

Ari was three years old when we started our Michigan excursion tradition - the older girls were eight. At those ages, there are some definite disparities in social development, behavior and maturity. Now, they are almost six and 11 years of age. Ari has matured into a thoughtful, playful, wise, fun and funny little GIRL (not baby) old enough to grasp what's going on and intuit when she is being fibbed to and because of this, I struggled deeply with not bringing her on this annual girls trip with us this time around. If I told her where we were going (she has heard us talking about the Michigan trips in the past) she would have been upset if I didn't include her. And how do I explain all of this to a five-year old? So I had to lie.

I had a separate talk with Bella on this before the trip, during which she quickly pointed out her feelings on the possibility of bringing Ari: she wants her own thing with her friends; Ari would just annoy them; they couldn't share any of their big girl secrets; she wouldn't let them play their own games; she would whine and spoil their fun. I get all of this and completely understand where she is coming from. After all, her little sister has put a wrench in the lifestyle she was accustomed to having for five years before Ari was born and now she has had to endure five long years of sharing EVERYTHING with her -including her friends - and even sometimes letting her get her way because, "She's little." I get that she still wants some things just for herself. That's how she sees it.

How do I see it? I see it as a girls getaway where the moms can connect and the girls can play. The games concocted by the girls this weekend consisted of iCarly spoofs, karaoke, fashion shows and parachuting Barbies off the loft balcony - hardly a secretive, big-girls-only, private-time needed weekend on their part.
Ari would have easily been able to partake in all of that without any drama - unless the drama was specifically targeted and sought out by the older girls, "just because we're older and she's little". Come bedtime, Ari would sleep with me in the guest room on the first floor as the girls whispered and gossiped the night away amongst themselves and their secretive little worlds upstairs all alone and just fine.

What will happen for the next trip, I can't say for sure but I do know that I can't and won't fib to Ari anymore, or deny her an experience that is meant to be shared by us GIRLS. I hope I can also make Bella understand that if the tables were turned, she wouldn't want to be left out of all the fun. And the bottom line is, if she really needed to have her big girl time with her own friends on her own time, then that is something that can be arranged separately, at any other time of the year and within the intimate confines of her own circumstances. There can be a time and a place for that, which will make it all the more special.

But this trip? It's not the time or the place for a one-on-one on any level. It's a big, fun, slumber party that all the girls in our families can experience together - regardless of our age.