What Children Hide

I walked into my 8-year-old daughter's room with clean socks in one hand and a stack of neatly folded day-of-the-week underwear in the other. I had barely crossed the door threshold when, all flustered and nervous, my daughter ditched her iPad the way I remember ditching my cigarette when I got caught smoking in the bathroom at sixteen. I had walked in on something- something so wrong even my innocent eight-year-old felt the need to hide it from her very own open-minded and easygoing mother (the self-praise might be a bit much, but who is to say). 

If you know me, you know I jump to conclusions. So, of course, the first thing that came to mind was the devastating thoughts of children getting sucked into the dark corners of the internet, exposed to harmful and manipulative media, then growing up to become suicidal teens or serial killers. What was my daughter hiding from me? Was it porn? Dora the explorer exploring things she shouldn't? Was it some morbid video with animal cruelty? Or was it a teenage trend that might scar her for life? What was my eight-year-old daughter doing that she knew she shouldn't do?

Trying not to overreact, I reminded myself of the parental controls my husband and I have to prevent our nightmares from ever happening. We have all the Apps, the one that limits the time one spends on the iPad, the one that determines what websites one can visit, and the one that prevents anyone but approved relatives from texting. So, who infiltrated our safe space and exposed my child to something she needed to hide from me?

At forty-two years old, labor, parenting, and the occasional yoga class have taught me to breathe through stress. So, before yelling, I put down the laundry and sat next to my little girl. 'Baby,' I asked. 'What were you watching?' With a guilty head twitch, she quickly said, 'Nothing.' Then, her face turned red, and her eyebrows arched. I asked her why she dropped her iPad, and she thought about it long enough to find the lamest answer. 'Just slippery hands,' she said, looking away from me. I rolled my eyes and saw her little fingers creeping toward the iPad like a spider on the hunt. It took less than ten seconds for her to tuck the device under her leg and pretend nothing was happening. 

I grew frustrated and wanted to yell again, maybe even snatch the screen from under her and expose her lie because that would have been done to me as a young girl. But I want to respect my daughter, give her space, and honor her choices, even at this young age. So, instead of being forceful and imposing, I calmly said,' Please don’t lie to me. It’s very, very important that you tell me the truth because it involves your safety.' My child's eyes opened wide with anxiety and denial while tears began to swell. 'Nothing, Mommy, it was nothing.'

I couldn’t drop it, though. The pressure of parental responsibility weighed on me like a lead coat, and I was scared of losing control of my child, not to mention terrified of what she would learn when I'm not there, so I pushed harder. Our back and forth escalated quickly, and pretty soon, I had forgotten all about not being imposing and forceful. Instead, I acted like the bad cop in the interrogation room, saying things like 'This is for your own good' and 'I can't help you if you don't help me.' All the while, my daughter sobbed inconsolably while not wanting to come clean. 

It was awful, and seeing my baby cry that way broke my heart- but what is a mother to do?

Eventually, my husband came home and ended the spiraling role-playing immediately. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and said, 'If you don't tell us, we can look it up.' After all, our parental controls provide a detailed log of anything viewed, searched for, or stumbled upon. So, even when we are not, we are always watching.

Our daughter was distraught- but so were we. Our world is saturated by content- some wonderful, funny, interesting, and educational, some hurtful and dangerous, and some just strange and banal. All we want to do is keep our baby safe from harm. So, with the mighty power of his index finger, my husband scrolled through his phone and found what our eight-year-old was hiding.

Sponge Bob Square Pants. My daughter hid a cartoon about a sponge living under the sea. 'Is this what you were hiding from us?' we asked. Our daughter shook her head. 'Yes,' she said as she looked away in shame. 'Why?' I wondered aloud. 'Why do you feel the need to hide this from us?' Her answer made me sad. She told me someone at school told her Sponge Bob was not funny, except she thought it was- or at least it was 'kind of funny- sometimes.' She was watching in secret, so no one would know that she found something unfunny funny… sometimes. 

My worry about teen suicide and mass murder lifted like silk in the breeze, but as my baby sat in a corner, covering her crying eyes in shame over something she should never feel ashamed of, my heart broke all over again.

I was raised in a culture and household of social norms enforced with shame. Different was bad, unique was strange, and anything other than whatever was socially acceptable at the time was mocked, ridiculed, or humiliated. I followed society’s rules because I was ashamed of who I would be if I didn’t. These days I work daily to offer my daughter a different experience, one where she can be confident to be who she is, no matter what that looks like. Who my daughter is might not align with the vision I might have of her in my head, and that is perfectly alright. I want her to express herself in ways that feel authentic to her, even if some people don't agree or approve.

Raising our children with this kind of self-confidence starts with how we approach the details of everyday occurrences like the one I was living. I realized it's not about trying to keep my daughter away from the influence of the big bad world because, eventually, whether I like it or not, she will see it, be exposed to it, or hear about it from friends.

So, more than spending time preventing my daughter from seeing the darkness that is sometimes out there, I realize I need to teach her to navigate through it and make it to the other side whole. I have to mold her into feeling good about who she is. It is my duty, as a mother, to raise a daughter that can feel proud and strong about her identity- even under pressure. I need to teach her to be steadfast and not to waver, no matter what comes her way. As a parent, our job is to guide our children and make sure they become the best version of themselves, whatever that means, and no matter what that looks like to others, because no one deserves to be ashamed of who they are or who they might want to become.

With all that in mind, I joined my baby girl in the corner of her room and wiped her tears with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I tried to explain to her, in a way an eight-year-old can understand, what was going through my mind when I saw her drop her iPad and why I got so freaked out. I apologized for my reaction. I apologized for my behavior. And instead of talking to her about social rules, I talked to her about individuality, humor, differences of opinion, acceptance, and kindness to herself and others. I told her humor can be complicated and offered to watch the show with her. I told her that if she had any questions, we could talk about them and help her find her answers.

I am not sure the entire conversation registered with my eight-year-old as much as I would have liked, but it was a start, and that’s all I can ask for. If there is a start, there is potential for growth on either side, and we can keep moving through life together, shaping who we are- her as a young girl and me as a mother.