17 Jul Letting Go of My Own School Scars: A Parent’s Lesson in Projection
Lisa Johnson comes to the realisation that she is reliving her own past disappointments through her son.
The Dance, the Awards, and the Quiet Fury
Every second year at my son’s school, there is a dance. Each child attends a series of lessons to learn dances such as the Pride of Erin, waltzes and polkas, which are then performed for the parents at the dance. The children all get quite excited about the event; boys in suits and ties and girls all frocked up to the hilt, some more reminiscent of brides about to walk down the aisle than seven-year-olds about to jitterbug with a boy five centimetres shorter than them.
This year, the dance was held at the local town hall and was a roaring success. Following the dance, I attended my son’s school assembly, when the principal announced that the dance instructor had given encouragement awards to some of the students. I wasn’t expecting my son to be the recipient of one of these awards, as dancing and performing in front of others are very low on his list of favourite pastimes. Nor was I expecting that almost half the students in the school would win one of these awards and be presented with a certificate, with the remainder of the students being left to wonder why they didn’t receive one for their efforts.
I was indignant. How unfair! It makes sense to give out a few awards to those children with twinkle toes, but so many? And excluding my son! To add fuel to my fury, the slide presentation of the dance that followed did not feature one single, itsy bitsy view of – you guessed it – my son. By the end of the assembly, I was quietly fuming and ready to offer my comforting arms to my son, as he would no doubt be devastated at missing out on both an award and on featuring in the slide show. Instead, he bounded over to me, gave me a hug, gave our baby a sloppy kiss, said bye to his sister and merrily raced off to class. He looked happy enough, but as his astute mother, I just knew he was putting on a brave face and was really acutely devastated. In any case, even if he wasn’t upset about being overlooked, I certainly was.
Is This About Him – or Me?
All morning I stewed over the injustices of the assembly and marvelled at my stoic little boy. I decided that a phone call to the principal was in order, sure that other parents whose children had been overlooked would feel the same. I would be representing all of them with this phone call, and surely they would be grateful. Each time I went to make that call during the day, something stopped me – a niggling doubt that perhaps this was more about me than my son. He hadn’t appeared too perturbed after the assembly. If I thought about it logically, we did have to leave the dance early as we had the baby with us, so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for my son to be photographed at the festivities. Plus, he spent much of the time we were there zooming around the dance floor with his friends, rather than posing for the camera. As the day progressed, it slowly began to sink in that this whole thing was indeed my problem – a classic case of projection. I felt as if I hadn’t won an encouragement award, as if I hadn’t been included in the slide show. I felt excluded from the school community.
A Lesson in Letting Go
The penny dropped. I was reliving my own past disappointments: not receiving that gold certificate in Year 12, not getting the lead in the school play, and a whole range of other frustrations that are part and parcel of growing up. My son also had to experience such moments of disillusionment, but so far, he has shown signs of being much more resilient than I ever was. He wasn’t going to be fussed about missing out on something that wasn’t important to him, and I didn’t want to push my own sense of regret onto him. It was my son who was at school now, not me!
By the time school pick-up rolled around, I realised it wasn’t necessary to make that call to the principal. Leo was genuinely happy for those who did receive an award, and if he could be that charitable, well, surely his mother could too. I felt as if I had gone back to school and been taught a very valuable lesson by a wise, seven-year-old boy. My son will inevitably have disappointments in his life, but you can bet they won’t be the same as mine, and I have a feeling he will bounce back a lot quicker. I just need to let him do it on his own.
Illustration by Gregory Myers
