About Rebecca Eckler
Since becoming pregnant with her daughter Rowan, Canadian journalist and author Rebecca Eckler has penned three hilarious books, including the best-selling Knocked Up. Catch Rebecca’s weekly unique perspective on motherhood and single parenthood.
“Girls can be such bitches,” my best friend ranted.
I didn’t exactly like the word, to describe five year-old girls, but it was kind of true.
“I know,” I sighed. “I didn’t expect this to happen so early.”
My daughter had come home from day camp and started bawling in my arms. Two things happened.
A girl had poked my daughter in the leg and told her she had “big, fat thighs.”
I was upset for many reasons. The first being, objectively, my daughter’s legs look like popsicle sticks. Second, I had spent five years not using the word “fat” around her. Now I had to explain what “fat” meant. Darn that camp! (And, this, to a five year-old, who can’t even pronounce the word “thigh!”)
The second incident was more something I could wrap my head around. Two girls told my daughter that they “didn’t want to play with her.” It was super upsetting because the girls who said this were her best friends.
Anyone who is FEMALE will know how hard this can be. How to explain to a five year-old that the girls who told her they didn’t want to play with her, would be back to being her best friends the next day?
I tried to explain that girls can be moody, and she should go find other girls to play with, if it happened again, which, of course, it will. Oh, how we’ve all been there.
I realized that the one thing more painful than being a girl who has been ditched by her best friends is being THE MOTHER of a girl who was ditched by her best friends.
Not only did I feel my daughter’s emotional pain, my protective guard was up. I was angry. (Come on! There’s a ratio of three counsellors to one child. Pay attention!)
It took me into my mid-twenties to really understand that girls who made me feel bad were toxic. Now, in my thirties, I have no toxic female friendships.
I called the counsellor to ask if she could please introduce my daughter to some non-mean girls. The counsellor didn’t seem to understand why I was calling. Of course not! She is probably fifteen years old and needs another decade before she figures out her own warped friendships.
My daughter came home from camp the following day, happy as a clam. Her Best Friends were back to being her best friends. Meanwhile, I wait for the camp bus each day, feeling as anxious as I did in fourth grade, wondering why my two best friends had turned on me overnight.