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I have spent hours going over the things I did wrong. I should have fired that one babysitter we had two afternoons a week – the one that favored her sister. I should have spent more time playing on the floor with her. I shouldn’t have focused on teaching my kids the Broadway musicals I loved so much when the rest of the third graders were focused on the Spice Girls. The list goes on. Why didn’t I force her to stay with swimming lessons? Maybe I should have chosen a different nursery school… I used to forgive her shyness and speak for her on occasions when she seemed too quiet to talk. Maybe I should have practiced more “tough love” and forced her to handle certain things on her own.
Or maybe not. The irony of her crisi of confidence is that it has become my own crisis. I was once a very confident parent, but I’ve now begun to question every decision I’ve ever made. Worse than that, I’ve begun to question my own daughter! I notice that I’m not only blaming myself, but I’m becoming her critic. What is she doing, I wonder, that would make people reject her? How has she behaved that has caused former friends to turn away? Maybe she’d too self-involved. Maybe she’d too desperate for friendship. Maybe she’s kind of boring. Maybe she – What am I doing, for goodness’ sake? She’s my daughter and I love her. No, she’s not perfect, and she never will be. Am I one of those thirteen-year-old girls myself?
-Pamela, middle school mom


From the book Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads by Rosalind Wiseman