Sanity Check: A Black Eye of Pride

My fourteen-year-old daughter came home from a basketball scrimmage a few weeks ago with a black eye.

My initial reaction: get her an ice pack; hover and coo, “oh, you poor baby! Why didn’t you call me right away?”; and suggest signing her up for a more relaxing, and less bruising, activity such as knitting…

Her reaction: point out that her coach had provided an ice pack; explain that she didn’t call because doing so wasn’t necessary; and remind me that once-upon-a-time I did give her knitting needles and then almost immediately took them away, because she hated trying to knit and instead started chasing her sister with the needles.

After my daughter calmed me down, she explained how she got her black eye. It had something to do with her going for the ball, and an opposing player also going for the ball, and an accidental meeting of hand-and-eye.

Truthfully, I didn’t follow the details, because I was busy worrying about her black eye and, at the same time, thinking how when I was her age, my only experience with basketball was conniving my way out of a gym class tournament by convincing the teacher that I really needed to do an article on it for the school newspaper.

After my daughter finished her story, I ran off to the bathroom and emerged a few seconds later with tubes of cover-up and bottles of makeup.

My daughter looked appalled. “Are you kidding? I’m not covering this up!” she said, pointing proudly at her black eye.

But, I said, you’ll be teased. Kids will ask you about your black eye! I would have been mortified!

She rolled her eyes at me, proving that getting a black eye doesn’t have a negative impact on this absolutely essential teenage-girl communication technique.

However, after Saturday morning’s basketball practice, she tried to reassure me by reporting that one of her teammates stared at her black eye and sighed: “I’ve always wanted a black eye,” then closed her eyes, leaned forward and said, “Pop me one. C’mon, just pop me one!” (Of course, none of her teammates complied.)

That story made me laugh, I admit. But then I started worrying about how kids outside the team would react, and how my daughter would feel about that.

So, after school the next Monday, my daughter reported the following conversation between herself and a male classmate:

Him—basketball?

Her—Yeah.

Him (appreciatively)—Yeaahhhh!

She thought that was hilarious.

Now, I’ve never wanted my daughters to be mini-mes. But every now and then something happens—like the Great-Eighth-Grade-Basketball-Black-Eye-Incident, as we’ve now tagged the story for family lore—that really demonstrates how different my daughters are from me.

That’s not just based on my reaction as a mother--of course a mom is likely to be fussier over their kids' injuries than the kids are. It’s based on knowing how completely differently I would have reacted to the event, had I been in her basketball shoes.

Which, of course, I also can’t imagine.

What’s a mother to do? Just smile. And maybe look for those knitting needles. Some days, I could use a more relaxing, and less bruising, activity than parenting…