Resilient. The ability to “bounce back”. *SIGH* For the second weekend in a row, my plans have evaporated right before my eyes and so, I find myself having to ‘improvise’. Oh well. Such is life, right?

I started this post on resilience last week after a conversation I had with someone about a child who’d been through a pretty rough situation. She spoke the words that many of us have said, that many of us think: “Kids are resilient.”

Have you heard that before? Ever said it? I’ve heard it. I’ve probably said it too, though maybe not in those exact words. Here’s my question for you: are kids really “resilient”?

Resilient is defined as
1. springing back, rebounding
2. returning to the original form or position after being bent, compressed, or stretched
3. recovering readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyant

We say things like, “Kids are resilient”, “Kids don’t get caught up in XYZ” but is that true?

Years ago, a small child climbed into my lap, rested his head against my chest, and sighed like an old man. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I got the wrong parents.” All I could do was cry and hum around that lump in my throat. I see that kid today, I look at what’s going on in his life, and I know for a fact that he is not necessarily “resilient”. I don’t know if he remembers saying those words to me but I’m sure he still believes it. Some days, so do I. I know he carries all that early pain with him and that, while he’s doing well, it’s still there. Every now and then, it rises to the surface and you can hear it in his voice, see it in his posture. And all you can do is hug him, tell him that it serves a purpose – even if none of you can see it at the moment. And pray that he hears you. That he heeds you.

Not long ago, another small child climbed into my lap, rested his head against my chest, and said, “My daddy’s in jail”. He’s too young to even know what jail is. He doesn’t know. What he knows is that his daddy, who was raising him, isn’t here. He’s too young to even have you explain what that means. Like the other child, he’s doing well. He’s learning to count, to write his name, to say his alphabets, learning his address, phone number. He gets lost outside playing silly games and still jumps for joy when he sees an airplane overhead. But…still I wonder…what this will mean for him later.

Another small child climbs into my lap, rests her head against my chest, and murmurs “Mama”. I correct her gently and sing silly songs into her hair. Minutes later, she’s ready to chase butterflies. She touches everything in her reach, naming them, and clapping for herself when she gets them right. Sometimes she cries in her sleep, reaching out for her mother. She touches nothing but air.

Is this where we first learn to mask our pain, when as kids people tell us that we’re resilient? I know more kids that I can count who were pronounced “resilient” who have grown up and struggle with relationships – with their parents, with their larger family, intimate relationships.

Sometimes I think that adults try so hard to smooth things over…or in some cases to run from them…that we don’t stop long enough to really ask the CHILD how THEY feel. Sometimes we ask but because the child can’t articulate it quickly, that becomes our “out”, our way to sweep that conversation under the rug. Sometimes we TELL the child how they feel and they sense that WE as adults need them to say they feel the way we say they do.

I can tell you from personal experience that what people sometimes take as resilience really isn’t. It’s confusion – you don’t know exactly what it is you feel, you can’t put it in words, and even if you could, nobody appears to be listening. I can also tell you that the things we think have been smoothed over, the things that kids have bounced back from are like boomerangs that come back years later and smack that now-grown child in the back of the head. Instant baggage. I mean, if kids are so resilient, how come so many of us have all these emotional walls built up, wear so many different masks, run from the very things we say we want? Seriously.

I have no idea how to combat this. Other than to hug those kids tight. Sing silly songs. Let them tell me how they feel. Let them cry when they need to. To just be there with them. To love them, to listen to them so that they feel it.

Well…I’m off to hug some babies this weekend. Off to hang with Princess So Fabulous, my nephew “Peanut” and his baby sister “Punkin”.

Ahhh, the duties of a Favorite Auntie are never done. Me lub it.

Enjoy your weekend. Be safe!