“I DON’T HAVE A boyfriend anymore,” I heard my seven-year-old daughter say as I hung my clothes in my closet.
It was the end of a long day, and in my exhaustion I was inclined to chuckle, then send her off to bed, when something inside whispered the importance of not brushing her off. I asked her what had happened. She said they broke up. (The names and couples changing daily, I had no idea who the other half of “they” was.) I asked her who had done the breaking up, and she said that he had. She seemed a bit embarrassed as it all came pouring out: she had originally had seven boyfriends but they had all broken up with her. All seven. And she was heartbroken.
I knew my inward reaction should be, She’s a first grader! No big deal! But instead my mind raced with memories of my love-thwarted adolescence and early adulthood. Growing up I just wasn’t very popular. In kindergarten my mom dressed me in my brother’s hand-me-downs to help with the family budget. I’m all for being fiscally responsible, but brown and orange striped shirts with brown corduroys on your daughter? I don’t think you ever socially recover from being the girl who wore boys’ clothes. One morning in class two boys argued over whose jacket was cooler. In a moment of heated gridlock they turned to me and asked for my vote. Excited to be included, I hurriedly pointed to the boy on my right. The miffed runner-up looked at me and spat, “Who cares what you think? Look at what you’re wearing!”
My own feelings of inadequacy came rushing back as Taylor said, “Now everyone has a boyfriend in my class except me and three other girls. I guess I’m just going to be by myself.” Yes, I knew what that felt like.
I began searching for ways to solve Taylor’s problem. It wasn’t a boyfriend I wanted for my child, but acceptance— that elusive golden treasure of my childhood.
Her outfits don’t always perfectly match, I thought, and her shoes could be cuter. Maybe I should spend more time on her hair and make sure her hands aren’t always chapped. These thoughts raced through my mind as I groped for the right words of comfort: “Well, you don’t need a boyfriend, anyway.” And, “Girlfriends are so much more fun to be around.” This was all I could muster.
I found the words incredibly rote as they left my mouth and eerily similar to the cookie-cutter advice my parents gave me during my childhood. They were good parents, but generations of Japanese influence, in which suppressing emotions is an integral part of the culture, made empathetic parenting difficult. I don’t remember having conversations with them as I was growing up. Questions were asked, direction given, along with homework help and synchronizing of schedules, but we rarely sat around to chat. Our relationship didn’t work that way. So, when it came time for guidance, there was a distance born of unfamiliarity. I think they figured that when in doubt, the “right” answers were always right. Perhaps they hoped to be comforting in their counsel, but our interactions often left me a little empty and disappointed. When I was in college it became a joke that no matter what my problem, the standard answer from Mom and Dad was, “Well, study hard.”
During my freshman year it seemed like my entire floor was asked to homecoming, while I was not. I felt lonely and a bit dejected as I helped my friends plan what they’d wear, and during a weekly call to my parents I poured my heart out.
“All of my friends got invited to homecoming, and even though I didn’t want to go at first, now I really do, but I don’t think anyone is going to ask me. I’m pretty bummed.”
“Well, study hard.”
I laughed inside at the incongruence of the counsel, and though I continued for a while longer to seek their advice in the matters of my life, eventually I stopped, knowing the effort would be met with fruitless, though well-intended, instruction.
I’ve spent a lot of time through the years contemplating the relationships between my friends and their parents. It has always fascinated me to see a daughter spend hours on the phone every week with her mother or father, calling them for trusted advice and cherished company. It is foreign to me, this type of closeness. Something that seems natural to families around me has always felt like an impassible bridge between me and my parents. I suppose they did the best they could, I tell myself. But I want to share more than this with my daughter, especially on nights like this when she comes to me seeking comfort and help navigating her way.
But looking at my daughter, I felt like a deer in the headlights. The mere desire (no matter how fervent) to possess good advice often isn’t enough to produce it, and sadly, it looked like history was about to repeat itself. Recalling a scripture I had read many times before in the Doctrine and Covenants, “It shall be given you … in the very moment, what ye shall say,” I prayed with sheer panic to know the right words to offer my daughter.
After a few minutes, my mind calmed as the fear of not being able to adequately comfort my child gave way to faith in a compassionate Heavenly Father’s ability to justify my shortcomings. As that happened the Spirit came, bringing answers I had been seeking.
I began to tell Taylor that I loved her and that she is filled with gifts and beauty. I talked about the many talents I could see in her, like her skill with little children, always being so kind and loving toward them, especially her little brothers. I told her that her daddy thinks she is a very special little girl and that he loves her very much. Tay stopped me between sentences to ask, “Really?” To which I answered, “Absolutely.” Now cuddled up with me on the bed, she smiled as I stroked her face and hair. I told her that when she was a tiny baby and wouldn’t stop crying her daddy gave her a priesthood blessing. I explained to her that in these blessings our Father in Heaven speaks to us. At that time He told us what an amazing person she was, that we knew her when we were all in heaven together, and that we admired her choice spirit. He told us that if we could remember who she was, we would be humbled at being lucky enough to be the family she joined.
She smiled as I spoke, her joy apparent in hearing these things.
And then I told her that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought because the most important people in her life—her mommy, daddy, and Heavenly Father—love her so much and think she couldn’t be more perfect. I said that her daddy and I know she is wonderful, but perhaps even more importantly, Heavenly Father sees her as extraordinary. “No matter what happens at school,” I gently emphasized, “you can always come home to us.”
The elusive comfort materialized, and I could see her becoming more peaceful.
It occurred to me that she truly believed the things I was saying; she had faith in Heavenly Father’s love and adoration, because I told her it was so. In that moment, I felt the true power of parenthood: as I strive to parent with God’s help, the Spirit abides in the teaching moments to testify of the truth of my words to my child; thus her faith becomes strengthened, drawing her closer to her Heavenly Father.
And something else occurred to me: just as He does in Taylor, Heavenly Father sees much worth in me. Even in the midst of the self-indicted imperfection of my youth, He saw greatness in me. He loves me enough to send help in the moments it is needed, and in that realization another epiphany occurred: there are few parents who don’t need help from above, because coming up with the right answers on our own is hard! Perhaps in those moments when a simple, “Study hard!” was all they could muster, my parents had felt like deer in the headlights too. My adolescent arrogance—knowing that when I had children I would do better than they had done—began to give way to humility, and I could feel my heart clearing space where the seeds of forgiveness could be nurtured. I always said they had tried their best, but for the first time I really started to believe my own words.
Lying there with my daughter I contemplated the Lord’s promise being fulfilled to us. I had been given wisdom from a loving Heavenly Father in the very moment required— given more than I asked for, though exactly what we both needed.
Laurie Andrews earned a bachelor’s degree from BYU in marriage, family, and human development. A recent transplant to Butte, Montana, she returned to the Mountain West by way of Iowa City, Iowa, and Columbus, Ohio. Having grown up in Hawaii, she spends her time seeking out sunshine, often in the form of loving her sweet husband and four little “bugs,” making pictures, riding her horse Ty, nurturing friends, and finding new things to do with Italian cheese and vanilla beans.
