Turning Five

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 Recently I found myself seated across a distressed mother asking for my advice.  We were discussing her resilient daughter's most recent birthday.  She turned five earlier this year, and though she was a bit eccentric this girl was particularly normal.  Yet, because of my career path and educational background this mom, like many other parents in my social circle, felt the need to seek out my knowledge.  ̶ This is beginning to happen at increasing intervals.  It's as though my job reminds people that they could mess up their children, and they need to confirm whether or not they have as soon as they are aware it's a possibility.  Fortunately, this has come largely from the well-intended and, albeit neurotic, healthy members of my community.  So, I get to smile and listen to cute stories, and reassure people that their child is alright and any screw-ups made obvious are what I like to call "normal."


On this particular occasion, this nervous mother comes to me to ask my opinion of an apparently odd behavior her child had engaged in the night before her fifth birthday.  She explains that their family tradition mandated that she read each child a birthday story and tuck them in the night before their birthday. However, on this particular birthday, this woman's daughter struggled with her nightly routine.  She power struggled over tooth-brushing, and dawdled in picking out her jammies.  This was, evidently, atypical for this little girl.  She, unlike most children, had no issue with getting ready for bed, and in fact seemed to enjoy the daily routine.  So, my friend was understandably confused when this particularly special nightly routine took upwards of an hour.

But she muscled through it, as all good parents do.  She summoned the patience to apply and reapply toothpaste in just the right quantity.  She tolerated being targeted with whining words as she calmly brushed her daughter's hair, and she maintained composure as the young girl tried on every single set of pajamas in her dresser. After all, this was tradition.  It was the eve of her baby girl's fifth birthday, and she couldn't be more proud of this bossy little girl in front of her.

Eventually, they got everything all settled.  She tucked her daughter in, and read her the birthday story.  When she was all done, she closed the book and repositioned to look directly at her daughter.

"Tomorrow morning," she whispered lovingly, "you're going to wake up, and you'll be five years old."

She intended to go on further, explaining the excitement and pageantry planned for the day, but she didn't get to.  This tireless mother paused because something did not seem quite right.  She looked at her little girl, and saw that her widened eyes were full to the brim with tears.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

All at once, this soon-to-be kindergartener wailed out "I don't want to be five!"  Before she could even respond, the little girl threw herself in her mother's arms sobbing and heaving.  Streams poured out of her eyes, and she repeated in gasping breaths, "I- don't- want - to - be fi-ive!"

Just like any good mother does, she wrapped her arms around her daughter, perplexed by her reaction but modeling self-soothing through tacit and rhythmic shhhushh-ing.  After some time, the little girl began to calm.  Her tears slowed, and her breathing regulated.  The mother waited another minute or so, and then quietly asked "why don't you want to be five?"

And the little girl responded with the answer that would make this mother later wonder what she had done wrong. "Because," she answered, "when you're five, you're a big girl, and I don't want to be a big girl.  I like being four.  I like all my toys, and I like being at home with you.  I don't want to be five."



"What do you make of that?  What does that mean?"  This mother asked me not too long ago, looking for my diagnostic impression of her child.

"It means you've got a smart kid," I said, and I really meant it.