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.
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