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The Fledgling
by Keri Wyatt Kent
"Mrs. Kent? Can Melanie sleep over?"
One of my daughter's friends, who had been among the
crowd of first-graders playing in our basement for most
of Sunday afternoon, had phoned her mother to be sure it
was all right before asking me. The kids had the next
day off from school.
I have to fight my tendency to say "no" automatically,
especially when it comes to my daughter becoming more
independent, straying farther from my nest. But I know
she needs to stretch her little wings now and then.
Feeling torn, I resorted to that famous non-committal
line that mothers for generations have used: "Well..."
Melanie had done one-and-a-half sleepovers in her short
lifetime. One, a birthday party, she handled
successfully. Another, with a friend, resulted in a 10
p.m. phone call from a quivery-voiced little girl and a
trip down the block in the mini-van to pick her up. It
was the stuff MasterCard commercials are made of.
"Their TV was too loud and I couldn't sleep," she had
announced as she buckled her seat belt.
"Couldn't you ask them to turn it down?" I had asked.
"No, I want to go home."
"Okay."
I gently reminded my daughter of that episode, and asked
her if she was ready to try again. "Well, I might get
scared," she said. "But maybe I could try."
"I have a nightlight," her friend offered.
"Well... I guess so," Melanie said.
"If you decide that you want to come home, you can just
call me," I told her.
But, she didn't call. Well, actually, she did. But only
to ask us to drive her teddy bear over. My husband, who
was not expecting her to make it the whole night, was so
surprised that he was more than willing to bring the
bear.
The next morning I picked her up and not long after she
got home, she was off again to spend the entire
afternoon with another friend.
I know that she is her daddy's girl: social to a fault,
thriving on interaction with others. Her favorite saying
is, "Can I have a friend over?" But more than just being
genetically disposed to being extroverted, she is nearly
seven and making her own way, testing her wings.
I know that parenthood, if you do it right, is a job you
work yourself out of. But it's not easy watching her
take these fledgling flights. She has been gradually
letting go, separating from me, from the moment she was
born and no longer contained in the safety of my body.
But certain milestones -- the first time she said "NO!;"
the first day of kindergarten; and now, these first
occasional nights away from home, and entire days spent
with friends -- remind me of the fact that, although she
occasionally flits back, she is gradually moving away
from me. And that is as it should be. It doesn't make it
easy, and I battle the urge to reel her in, confine her,
shelter her from growing up too fast.
So the next night, as I tucked her in, I was deeply
comforted by the fact that she told me, "I don't really
like sleepovers."
"Really?" I said, trying to keep the enthusiastic relief
from my voice. "You know, honey, you don't have to say
yes if you don't want to go."
"I know, but I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings,"
she said.
"Honey, if you don't want to go, you can just say no
thank you. That's okay." I reminded her that some of her
other friends, who are even older, simply don't do
sleepovers because they don't feel comfortable with it
yet.
And tonight, a day later, she climbed on my lap after
dinner and said, "I love you, Mommy" and snuggled for
more than a few minutes. When I tucked her in, she
wanted me to lay beside her and whisper reassuring words
and rub her back while she hugged the ragged blanket
that has been her comfort since she was a baby. After
these bouts of independence, she circles back to the
nest.
Reflecting on my little bird, one word keeps coming to
my mind: fledgling. So I look it up. The dictionary says
it means "a young bird just fledged." So I move up the
column to read the entry for fledge: "to rear until
ready for flight or independent activity."
That's my job, in a nutshell. To fledge my children. It
takes a lot of prayer, a lot of faith, and more courage
than I think I have. But it doesn't happen all at once.
She is not fledged yet, and thankfully, in the human
species the process takes almost 20 years.
At my small group meeting this morning, we read the
passage from I Corinthians 13 about love. We listened to
the familiar words, then each person said which verse
stood out in their minds.
"Love protects," was what God impressed upon me. That's
my job, to protect this little one that I love. The hard
part is figuring out how to do that. Because if I
isolate or shelter her too much, it may protect her in
the short run, but it won't help her develop the
survival skills she needs to protect her own self in the
long run.
So what does it mean, to protect her? I don't have all
the answers. I'm just glad that I have a Heavenly Father
who loves me perfectly, protects me perfectly, and does
the same for my little girl, even when I have to let her
fly away.
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