There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the
middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was standing on a
Manhattan street corner trying to hail a cab. She was four; maybe
five, tops.
She wasn't really trying to hail a cab -- a good thing,
since she'd picked a deserted little boulevard next to a pocket park,
and the only vehicle in sight was a tour bus. Rather, she'd been posed
as though she were, right hand on her waist with her elbow bent at a
cocky angle, left arm shooting up and out from her shoulder, her
fingers waggling in the air. Mom squatted at the curb and pointed a
camera with a very long lens at the girl, while Dad stood in the
middle of the street to capture the pose from another perspective.
Each time that spindly left arm threatened to falter, each time that
power-woman posture began to flag, one of the photographers would yell
encouragement, at which point the tiny subject would stiffen as though
she'd plugged her finger into an electrical socket.
This was clearly not the first time the moppet had been
planted and posed by the grown-ups. She knew just how to toss those
ribboned ringlets to get the right bounce, and her shoulders-back
posture bore an eerie resemblance to an adult's, minus the curves. She
never complained, not once. It wasn't rebelliousness that made her arm
drop or her shoulders slump. She was just getting tired -- and like any
trouper, she seemed genuinely grateful when one of the adults reminded
her to shape up.
I bet we have thousands of photographs of our
almost-eighteen year old daughter, the dues she paid for being the
daughter of two journalists. Information had always served us well, so
information we sought; we wanted as extensive a chronicle of our life
as she could tolerate without feeling that she had paparazzi for
parents. The pace has slowed, as she gets older, but still there are
albums upon albums, and boxes of unsorted photos beyond that. They
serve the purpose I've always thought photos were meant to serve -- to
trigger memory, to revive a small moment that's filed behind the
bigger events that comprise our life together.
My husband walked into my office last week and handed me
one photo that had somehow gotten cut off from the herd -- of a
preschool Sarah about to take a proud bite out of a pizza as big as
her head, a pizza she had made herself. Her hair was a curly,
disheveled halo, and she was not smiling for the camera but focusing
her gaze on that pizza. Food is a major topic in our lives; other
themes include horses and dogs, family gatherings, and moments of
random happiness, which can be something as mundane as the sight of
Sarah reading a book in bed.
I would like to think that the most strenuous direction we ever gave
her was to stand closer to Grandma. Candids are supposed to be exactly
that, aren't they?
Which brings me back to the little girl hailing the cab, and the
simple question, Why? Why pose her doing something she won't do for at
least another decade -- or possibly ever, since at some point she will
develop free will and may decide to play the viola at Oberlin? The
benign answer would be, because it's cute in the same way that kids
playing dress-up is cute, and I wish I thought that were it. I don't.
There was a whiff of Little Miss Sunshine to the girl, who was skinny
and decked out and coiffed, while her photographer relatives were none
of those things.
So the little girl with the curl learns that she's valued most when
she's on, when she's selling it. What will she learn on the days when
she's horrid [no accusation here; everyone has their horrid days.]?
That she's not so worthy? That she doesn't get quite as much
attention?
The world throws parents far too many opportunities to
promote our children as part of the family brand -- the school they
attend, the mini-fashions they wear, the starlet the girls choose to
mimic and the hunk the boys emulate, and all of that is nothing
compared to the college sweepstakes, in which we are tempted to tailor
and merchandise our little darlings into the educational equivalent of
a luxury automobile. It's way too easy to get branding all mixed up
with good parenting. Even those of us with the best of intentions can
sometimes go wrong. We forget how good things are just as they are,
and end up thinking that a little girl ought to do something extra to
merit attention.
On an ordinary day, I might not have noticed the tableau,
but, having just sent our daughter to college, I'm in that suddenly
emptier season -- no carpool, no late-night information downloads over
a couple of dishes of vanilla ice cream, none of the activities that
might have saved me from so much reflection. I have time to stand at
the curb and watch the photo shoot through two changes from red to
green, through three, wondering what will happen once the little
cab-hailer gets tired, not just of holding up her arm but of the whole
darned show.