Baby sitter blues...

Yup, me.  A fifty something proto-geezer in charge of three girls, none of whom have seen their fifteenth birthday.  I got drafted to give the brother a break from their weekend long sleepover.   Both by their words and their actions between them pretty well cover the full spectrum of the modern feminine: my niece (S.) who adamantly calls herself strait, one a sweetheart of a bi (D.), and one (R.) seeming pretty solidly lesbian.  Right.  And me.  Needless to say, it were an interesting night. 

Of course the dvd player got in the game while I fixed the kids something to eat, none of them are eating particularly well.  It was a double feature: Mel Gibson's "Signs" (by their request from the library) followed by "GI Jane" as my pick.   Signs is a good flick, but it was their response to GI Jane I was interested in.  I wanted to see how the girls responded to Demi Moore's portrayal of an awesomely strong sister.

I'd shown the niece GI Jane way back when we first really met, in those days she was a terribly beat up eight year old suffering deep to her parent's divorce, retreating into the animals, the wild creatures as refuge from the insanity of the adults, she was in desperate need of what Master Chief Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen's part) said to each new class brought before him: "I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself…"   She needed to see what true tough really looks like.  Those were hard, terribly hard years for her, she needed some genuine tough in her heart.  She does, she made it, I'm proud of her.  She does have some genuine tough, and of course does her best to hide it with every adolescent attitude within reach as long as any of the grown-ups are looking. 

I got what I wanted, but it wasn't in the way I'd expected.  While a stock-pot of throw together was simmering one of the two received a text that dropped her, dropped her hard out of their play.  I have no idea what the message was, but it hurt.  She retreated into the kitchen to sit on the little stool, my hobbit hound Lucky (half golden retriever, half Corgy or something) broke off from playing with the kids to go with her and do the doggy love thing, head on her knee and soft sad eyes to share the burden.  He's a total shedding machine nuisance, and a damn good dog.  Anyway, when R. returned to the living room she was faking her play, she was still deeply troubled about whatever it was, a fact both of the other girls picked up on almost instantly.

In a moment of privacy earlier in the evening I'd asked S. if D. and R. were an item, a couple, and been told that no, not anymore, that some time back they'd agreed to end what was implied as a rather steamy affair.  Not yet fifteen, and they'd agreed to end an affair.  OooKkkk... I let that ride (did a lot of that).  So when S. harrumphed at them getting cozy as R. sought comfort from her one time lover I, wanting my guests to be comfortable and not wanting to compromise the trust they'd offered with their honesty said that as long as everyone stayed dressed cuddles were permitted in my house.  Not five minutes later R. was curled up in D's lap in the recliner with her thumb all but in her mouth.

If they'd been blood kin to me what I saw for the next hour would have broken my heart, as it was they rang the armor, rang it hard.  That's what gave me a case of the baby sitter blues, the laughter and play and teasing innuendo jokes were no problem, just loud.  But folks, to keep a straight face and watch the one girl mother the other because she had no one else to do it?  That, that hurt. They may (or may not) have ended the sex play part of their friendship, but the intimacy and the love between them lives on.  It was a beautiful and a terrible thing to watch it work. D. is fighting her way up out of a hellish situation in her own right, and what I saw on her face shouldn't ever have to be on the face of one so young.  If she'd been three times her age it would have registered as an effort, a pull, but on her it was solidly into the noble ranges.  Like I said, she's a sweetheart.

Gentle reader, those kids are not exceptions, not so uncommon.  Expand your Sphere of Empathy, don't blind your eyes to what you see, don't abandon them into the system's psycho-babble bullshit designed to insulate and protect you, not them.  Reach out to them with honesty and good advice that isn't accommodated to what society wants to believe, see them as they are for what they are fighting to survive in the world as it is. Where can as can give them a fighting chance by sharing your years with them without sharing the bigotries and prejudices (from ANY of the politically accepted factions of humanity!), because they are children who got their childhood stolen from them, they have no choice but to go forward.  Give them that much respect, they've earned it.