Inside My Pre-teen’s Magical World
Weekly Skype calls and occasional WhatsApp messages with my children are not parenting. But, at their best, those calls and messages are communication, and sometimes that’s better than parenting.
“The Skype Sessions,” as I like to call them, often go like this:
“Erik isn’t here right now,” my youngest will yawn because, at noon, she’s just woken up.
“How are you, honey?” Not an original opener, I know.
“OK,” followed by a long, painful, teeth-pulling pause.
“Tell me what happened this week,” followed by another excruciating pause.
Some weeks, though, the Skype session turns into a jam session.
This week, I told Rose I had discovered an exciting new artist I wanted her to meet.
“Really?” I noted more perkiness than usual in the one-word response.
“Yes, and I think you’re going to love her as much as I do.”
A more interested, “Who is it?”
In a rare moment of technological housekeeping (or any other housekeeping for that matter), I vowed to organize the hundreds of photos I had transferred from my phone to my computer since I’ve been in Spain. What I found were hundreds more photos and files saved by my 12-year-old, who had spent a miserable and solitary three months in Madrid last fall, apparently mostly on my computer.
I had intended to give my daughter her privacy and place all of her images in a single folder. Instead, I spent days sorting through those files, one-by-one.
With each image I saw a new facet of the inner life of my preteen: Screenshots of instant messaging conversations with her pals, photos of her craft projects and art work, screen captures from Minecraft, other captures of actors or scenes from movies and television shows (appropriate movies and television shows, thankfully), and dozens of shots of Rose with her closest friends.
Of course, some of the content is revealing and intimate–some things should remain private. But what makes my eyes wet, sends my gut biome into sudden activity, and swells my heart with love and pride, are the selfies.
I got a view inside my youngest daughter’s digital bedroom and found a magical world documenting the angst, pain, joy, and silliness that are puberty, and I discovered a young artist making the crossing from childhood. That my child (because she is still my child) consented to let me publish some of those images is, I hope, a sign of her trust in me.
I’ve curated a few of my favorites here. The photos are moments in time, artistic expression, poetry to be interpreted through your own lens. They are only that: moments. They’ll never be a complete representation or reflection of my daughter. To know her, you’d have to meet her.
