While getting ready for bed last night, Savannah confided that she wasn’t invited to a classmate’s birthday party. She was brokenhearted and hoping I could somehow fix the problem.
Seeing the pain splashed across Savannah’s face recalled memories of my not being invited to Susan Wager’s birthday party in the second grade. I took the ‘dis hard and was loss for words on how to explain to a 7-year-old mean girl behavior, simply because I myself don’t understand it.
My mother, a prim and proper Irish Catholic, was a stickler about manners. She and my father, liberal Democrats living in an uptight Midwest city, always welcomed those outside the clan. “Don’t you dare blackball anyone,” she warned when against her wish I joined a sorority.
So, I don’t blame the little girl inasmuch as the parents, and was surprised that the mother, who seems pleasant enough, didn’t reinforce the “all or none” rule. The father, a grungy, downtown artist type, in perpetual need of a shave, is another story.
My inner bitch wants to fire off a snide remark to the mother next time we meet, perhaps the mean girl herself. But I won’t. The good Catholic girl always prevails.
Susan Wagner and I eventually became friends, though I never forgot the slight and it still stings today, as I suspect will happen with Savannah. One never forgets a mean girl.
Lipstick and Playdates 