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Alamb

Author/Television Reporter

Amanda Lamb is a professional television journalist and author. She covers murder trials by day and reads Dora the Explorer to her children at night. Somewhere in between all of that she writes about those parenting moments that catch each us off-guard in a crazy, chaotic, and wonderful way. Aman...

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The Littlest One

Amanda Lamb

Being the youngest one in the group is never easy when you’re a child.  My four-year-old likes to run with the big dogs on the cul-de-sac.  This includes her older sister and anywhere from two to six other children at one time.  But let’s face it, when we were growing up we didn’t want to play with younger children either.

“Mommy!”  She screams from the front door.  Instinctively thinking she may be hurt I run from the kitchen where I have been unloading the dishwasher to see her red-faced and tear-stained standing in the front hallway.  “They’re not playing with me.  They’re running away from me and hiding,” she says in between sobs.

I take her into my arms and stroke her little blonde head brushing the tears away from her cheeks with my other hand.  This isn’t the first time she has been left out, and it certainly won’t be the last.

“I’ll play with you,” I say thinking I have solved the problem.  “Come inside and we’ll play one of your games, or read some books,” I say cheerfully even though I have a million other things I need to be doing.  But she has a way of making me forget dirty laundry and a sink full of dishes.

“But Mommy, I don’t want to play with you, I want to play with the kids!” She yells looking up at me with her watery blue eyes pleading for me to help.

How do you explain to a little girl that sometimes kids (including her very own sister) are mean and insensitive, and that unfortunately this doesn’t end in childhood, adults can be this way too.  It seems like such a simple thing to consider how our actions will impact others, but for some reason it is a hard lesson to teach and an even harder one to learn.

I call my older daughter’s name from the top of the driveway.  She knows what my tone means, and as soon as she rounds the corner and sees my face, she knows what my face means.  She is “a leader” which means she has the power to sway the group to include or exclude her sister without a great deal of persuasion.  It comes naturally to her.  Knowing this I feel the need to steer her in the right direction.

“But Mommy-” she begins to protest.  I hold up my hand making it clear that I don’t want to hear it.

“You need to include your sister,” I say as calmly as I can manage looking down at her with my hands now on my hips.  I know there will be times in the future when she shouldn’t have to include her sister, but we’re not there yet.  For now she must.

“Okay,” she says.  “I will.  I promise,” she says taking her little sister by the hand and leading her back up the driveway to the pack of waiting kids.  My baby is now smiling, looking up at her big sister in awe as if she’s a college freshman who has just been inducted into the sorority of her choice. 

We were all the youngest one at some point in our lives and we all know what it feels like to be left out, rotten.  Inclusion is something we need to teach our kids, and maybe even more importantly we need to learn how to do it ourselves, me included.