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The Family Room by Michelle Martin

January 6, 2008

Big Sisters Rock

It was 10:26 p.m. on a night during Christmas vacation, and Frank was finally going to bed.

“This is the worst moment of my life,” he told me, his face buried in his pillow.

“I’m sorry you’re feeling sad,” I told him. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“I won’t feel better for five hours,” he said.

Well, I thought, at least he’d be better by morning.

The problem, according to Frank, was that I wouldn’t let him use my new digital camera to take pictures of one of the dogs so he could make a newspaper about her. I would have taken the pictures, or helped him take the pictures, but if he couldn’t do it all by himself, he didn’t want to do it. If it meant handing a new camera over to a seven-year-old boy in the company of a rambunctious young dog, I didn’t want to do it. So I said no, creating the worst moment of his life.

The problem, according to me, was that Frank was overtired and cranky, after being allowed to stay up late and watch a movie (the movie coming after he abandoned the newspaper idea), after several long and busy days of Christmas celebrations. While he had enjoyed the movie, when it was over and time to settle down, he went back to the cause of his earlier discontent, if only to explain to himself why he was feeling out-ofsorts.

Never mind that I was a little tired and cranky myself, and really wanted the kids to go to bed so I could turn in, too.

So we finished bedtime prayers and I kissed Frank and Caroline goodnight and left the room.

But it wasn’t long before I heard voices, and stepped close to the door to listen. What I heard was Caroline reading the next chapter, after we had left off the night before, of “Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing.” Frank loves to listen to the trouble 3-year-old Fudge gets into; he identifies with the more mature, 9-year-old Peter. Caroline, a fourthgrader herself, sees Frank more in the role of Fudge. But both of them like the stories.

When Frank was a baby and Caroline a preschooler, she used to act the little mother, telling us how to take care of him. As they both grew older, and he got better at pushing her buttons, she tried to avoid him more.

But lately, she’s moved into a new big sister role, comforting him when he’s in trouble, forming alliances with him against us mean parents, inviting him to join her in games.

Both kids have told me that grown-ups just don’t know what it’s like to be a kid, and sometimes I think they’re right. We can remember, if we want to, but we don’t usually take the time or the trouble.

That’s why it’s so important for the kids to have each other, and especially for Frank to have Caroline. She knows what it’s like to be told no, and what it’s like to just be in a grumpy mood, and she knows what helps her. She can offer comfort that’s easier to take, if only because it’s not coming from the person who upset him in the first place.

Frank still pushes her buttons, and she still gets mad at him, but more and more, I find them playing and working together. That’s the best Christmas present I could get.

Martin is assistant editor of the Catholic New World. Contact her at [email protected].