Goodbye, Omnipotence

It’s happened. I knew it would someday, and yet it’s come on so slowly I almost didn’t notice it. My child has developed a mind of her own.

I’ve bragged to friends and relatives about how sweet and obedient my daughter is, basically since she was born. Whenever I left her with others for a while, I came back invariably to reports of how good she’d been, how well she’d played with other children, how she knew the answers to all the questions.

But she’s had a lot of upheaval in her life this past year—a new home, new state, new friends, new nursery classes, new baby—and somehow amid these changes, my perfect little girl has turned into a terror. Or maybe she’s just become an average child.

I saw the change in her eyes a few days ago when I asked her to do something, I don’t even remember what it was, something trivial like put on her coat or turn off the TV. She looked straight at me and said, “No.” Now, I’m not claiming that she’d never said no before. She did, and fairly frequently. The difference, as I said, was in her eyes. Somehow mirrored back in those baby blues was her clear understanding that she really didn’t have to do what I asked. In that moment, she had gained power: I knew she had it; she knew she had it; she knew I knew she had it.

It’s unsettling—almost horrifying, really—to realize that she knows she has the power to choose. I guess choosing is what life’s all about, and I just must come to grips with it. But it opens up whole new, frightening possibilities I hadn’t really considered. She might choose to do things that hurt herself or her family or others. She might choose to run away or reject what we teach her. She might choose badly.

Up till now, it’s been easy for me to see her as an extension of myself. I’ve just assumed she’ll be like me and choose things that I would choose for her. My beliefs seem naïve and comical, looking back on them, but as she is my first child, they have existed unchallenged up to this point.

So now, I suppose she and I must negotiate the boundaries of this new relationship. We both know now that I’m not omnipotent. I sure miss the illusion.

Ellie