club meeting #1

The first meeting of the mother-daughter book club finally happened yesterday. Five out of the seven girls/mothers were able of make it. M and I were very excited on the way. I asked her if she wanted me to lead the discussion with all moms and daughters or if she wanted to lead the girls in their own discussion. She readily agreed to lead the girls and said that I could have a chat with all my "mom" friends at the same time. I really wanted to be able to model a book discussion and show the girls how to go about taking turns, and sharing ideas without naming names, and looking beyond the basic knowledge level questions and get into some good application and personal discussions. But since I asked her, I had to follow through on letting her try this out herself. After all, this book club is for her more than me.

We read the book Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godsister by Liz Kessler. M and I decided to decorate wooden keepsake boxes with watered down glue and tissue paper squares for a decoupage look and then added glitter accents when the first layer was dry. In the story Philippa keeps her wish vouchers in a special box in her tree house. We also handed out envelopes with three index cards inside for each girl to write out her own three wishes. Then the girls led their discussion of the book off in one corner of our room. They were a little loud and tended toward off topic giggling and squealing. At one point my daughter was standing on a chair saying, "Party! Party!" Not sure what that had to do with our book so I tried to remind her about her task and my expectations for her behavior and let them loose again. Of course, I was not at all happy that M was not being the role model I had envisioned and not taking this project of ours seriously. The moms and I talked about our responses to the book, the questions, and our experiences (as we remember them) of our adolescence and our parents. I had a good time with the other moms, but I always do. I love these ladies!

When the girls started to get louder, we called them back over to the whole group. I asked every girl what they might wish for. That was interesting and everybody gave at least one answer, but they were much quieter with moms around. I hope it was just the novelty of the club and that eventually everyone will feel comfortable with each other. When K said she wished for a little sister, M offered her own sister up for free. Again, I was not very happy about her attitude toward her sister and the book club. We also talked a little about the 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter by Vicki Courtney. We will be using this book as a mothers only book club selection later on this summer and I just wanted to share it and see if that would be an acceptable choice.

On the ride home, M and I talked about her behavior. She was quiet and sulky and could not offer a good reason for being so silly and disrespectful. I told her that if she acted like that again at book club she wouldn't be allowed to go anymore. This will devastate me if I have to follow through, this was my idea after all. So I am hoping that M and I will make progress over this next month with my expectations and her manners. I know it could just be a phase. I know she was excited to have all her friends together in one place. I think she may have been drunk with power, being the first girl to choose a book and lead the discussion. I know she is only 8 years old, but she is rarely rude, disrespectful or loud. So for her to be all three in one 90 minute time frame, and in public, did not make me happy. I know that I am not a perfect mother, no one is. But I do think that my children are reasonably well behaved and have been taught manners and know our (mom and dad) expectations for how to behave when we are at home and out in public. I don't care so much that other people saw her being this way, not as much as I care that she knew I would not approve of that behavior and did it anyway. Believe me, we will be addressing this issue for M over the next few weeks.