Lily: An Essay

People tell me all the time that my daughter is a tiny Me. They say she looks like me and acts like me and is shockingly my twin in almost all the ways.

This, I believe, is deeply incorrect.

Today, my daughter decided to try to learn to dive. I noticed a friend on the side of the pool, coaching her to dive off the steps and not having much success.

Willing to go on an obvious fool's errand, I saw this opportunity and thought "Hey, while she's interested I'll pitch in and help." Because heaven forbid we parents let a kid sort through a thing on their own and learn by doing or worse - from someone besides US.

So I popped over all casual-like and said "Hey, if you want me to help I'm happy to."

I know Lily. She's allergic to the word help. Raising her takes extra time because SHE ALREADY KNOWS how to tie her shoes make her bed do her hair cook a roasted chicken split the atom.

So while she figures out either how to *actually* do these things, I have to sit patiently by. Except I am not patient nor do I have extra time and this, it turns out, is a major flaw in our relationship. Also, when she figures out that indeed she does NOT know how to put a ponytail in her doll's hair she obviously cannot come to me for help having already scorned said help so mightily, so now she has to DESTROY EVERYTHING because what else is there to do in such a quandary? Burn it down.

Anyway, I foolishly offered help. Strangely, she seemed cautiously amenable to it and we had some success with some baby steps while she dove from a sitting position off the side of the pool to get the hang of the idea that the head has to go in before the feet for it to actually be a dive.

Lily, armed with some cheers from friends and neighbors, rapidly ascended to an attempt to dive fully off of the diving board, and that is where the successes ended. She wasn't ready for that step, but you try telling her that. I had to sit back and let her do the thing.

She tried no fewer than 37 times. 36 times she went in looking like she was crawling or she full on belly flopped. Once - ONCE - she got it pretty well and that one success was enough to keep her climbing back on the board, shivering, red-chested, and with increasing ire, determined to perfect the dive. She marched from the ladder to the board, fists tightly clenched and jaw bulging. She would emerge from another failed attempt in the deep end with her mouth open, shouting her frustration to the heavens. She was soaked to the bone. She could not hear us. Any support or advice was met with fury.

I slipped into the pool, knowing the end was near. She swam a lap around the outer edge, artfully dodging what I was hoping would be an earnest conversation about being tired, cold, and hungry and how that doesn't help us when we are trying to learn new things.

Eventually we came to the place I knew we would. She melted down. She came, full stop, to the end of her rope and announced to the gaping friends at the patio table that IF SHE CANNOT DIVE SHE MAY AS WELL KILL HERSELF. Friends, in that moment, she meant it.

And this is the difference between Lily and me.

We may look a bit alike and be similarly forceful; some might call it bossy -  I like to say we are strong-willed.

But Lily is determined. I am not. Make no mistake, I want things to be my way. But Lily WILL NOT QUIT. I will ask for help (sometimes). Or I will stop doing something I am not naturally gifted at. If it doesn't come to me? Meh, I'm moving on. I hated that job task sport craft idea anyway. Not Lily. Failure fuels her. It also ruins her.

I am a believer in capitalizing on one's strengths. But I am also sure that quitting everything that isn't on the tip of our tongues is not the answer, though it is undoubtedly my M.O. Lily will find her strengths and use them to the benefit of herself and all of society I have no doubt. But she will work harder, take more pride, and suffer more for all of it. And because of that, she will be truly exceptional.

Meanwhile, it is my job to find some magical way to harness that determination because next time she might just *actually* hold her breath until she passes out. And diving lessons are over until next year.