Dichotomy

Mabel got into a little bit of trouble at school yesterday. It was an unfortunate snowballing of incidents that led to her being brought inside from the classroom and culminated in her "writing" a note of apology to the (not very) injured party. (I think the teacher did the writing and Mabel signed her name, which she's very good at doing.)

I was pleased when I heard about the note, actually, because I know that asking Mabel, or ordering Mabel, to say sorry when something has gone wrong, is hardly ever going to end well. Once she's mad, she just gets madder and madder and more intransigent and more upset. Writing her Sorry sounds like it was a good way to redirect and refocus, give her a chance to cool down and save face, and enable her to say something that quite likely through heaving sobs she literally wasn't able to do otherwise.

But that's not my point.

The point of this long and winding story, the punchline, shall we say, is what she told me this morning when we were talking about it a little more and I was extolling the virtue that is forgiveness, because she was holding a grudge that was the main reason she wouldn't apologize. She told me, slightly sheepishly,

- Well, also, I didn't say sorry for a while because Miss B's lap was nice and warm and I liked sitting there.
- Even though she was being angry with you?
She shrugs.
- Ya-hah.

Right. Well. I see.

I don't know where to go from here. I was never that child. Any hint of disapproval from an adult and I'd be all over the saying sorry. I need people to think I'm good. I need them to think I'm nice. Maybe it's a failing, but I've always been that way. My daughter, not so much.

She doesn't care what people think of her. That's an amazing quality to have, so long as we can harness it for good. She does what suits her, and bends us all to her will, and as I watched the other children ask her what they should do this morning in the game of dolls that she was playing at school, I thought that she'll make one heck of a managing director.

Parenting, huh? We have to be their biggest cheerleaders and their harshest critics, and sometimes I'm just not sure which one I'm supposed to be doing when.