This is my child and she needs and needs and needs. I can’t look at her. I can’t look at myself

I’m 6 years old.

My friend’s mother drops her at the school gate. Her mother kisses and hugs her before she walks in.

How pathetic, I think. How needy and nerdy. I can’t relate. Why does she need her mother to kiss her goodbye when she’s so grown up?

The days go on. I don’t talk much. School is my safe space, my happy place, where I’m seen. My teachers lavish attention on my eager mind. Still, I’m reserved.

Home isn’t a bad place, but it’s a lonely place. I do most things myself. I do projects on my own, homework on my own, go to sleep on my own. There are lots of siblings, but I’m alone. My mother is too busy to draw me out, too preoccupied to know who I played with that day and that I won a prize in sports.

I don’t understand those girls whose mothers kiss them goodbye.

I’m 11 years old.

The pay phones are surrounded by eager teenagers. It’s my first-ever school shabbaton, and the girls clamor to phone their parents before Shabbos.

How strange, I think. What could they possibly need to say to their parents whom they just saw in the morning?

I’m confused, but less judgmental this time because there are so many of them. My older sister lines up too; I assume she tells my parents that I’m as fine as I was hours before.

Over Shabbos, some of my classmates cry. They’re homesick and miss their parents. Weaklings, I think. Why should they miss their parents? I’m strong. I don’t miss my parents. I am used to doing things by myself.

I’m 14 years old.

I’m an outspoken, brash teenager. I have my close-knit group of friends and we don’t notice anyone else. I question everything.