Published: November 23, 2009 01:34 pm      

A Canuck in Kantuck: Tales of a fourth-grade nothing

Little 9-year-old Gabrielle dragged into the house the other night with her school bag slung around her neck. The poor kid looked positively war torn, with her hair knotted, a hole in the knee of her tights and her eyes dark. When she sat down to eat, she picked at her food, choked down a few bits and half-heartedly drank her milk.

“I’m so tired,” she, uncharacteristically, said. “I’m just so tired.”

Tired and also near tears, I noticed. When I went with her to brush her teeth, she finally broke down.

“Shelby called me ugly today,” she said, sobbing all of a sudden. “Why is she so mean to me?”

Why, indeed, I thought as I hugged her. If only I had that answer.

Fourth-grade girls are a rare breed, one that has recently discovered it has claws and isn’t afraid to use them. Since August, Gabrielle has come home with stories of girls making fun, leaving her out, ganging up. She’s had sleepless nights. She’s had headaches. She’s had buckets of tears slide down her cheeks.

And all for what?

“They made fun of me because I tried octopus and snails in Montreal,” she wailed one night. “They think I’m weird.”

As a quasi-parent, it’s nearly impossible to listen to. Thinking of your kid trying to helplessly fit in at recess with a bunch of gum-snapping, smug-faced girls makes you want to reach in, God-like, and rescue them.

What’s worse is we, as women, all know exactly what they’re going through. We know because we went through it ourselves.

For me, it involved a cast of mean girl characters by the names of: Jennifer Gates, Kristin Normandin and Heather Robbins. One day, as Tara Paule Kaprowy walked into her classroom, she wasn’t greeted with the usual hellos, smiles and secret handshakes. In fact, as she went to her desk, she thought she heard snickering and looked over to get in on the joke. But when she did, the snickering immediately stopped and her look was met with icy stares.

Things continued to be decidedly brisk through social studies, when Mme. Harrison asked for the students to pair up for an assignment. As Tara Paule Kaprowy looked over to find a partner, she suddenly saw everyone had already doubled up, with a woozy-looking Pam Dick, who had always been mercilessly made fun of on account of her last name, tucked in tight beside Jennifer Gates. Tara Paule Kaprowy was forced to sit with too-chipper Kim Spears after Mme. Harrison impatiently pulled their desks together.

By this time, a lead balloon has started to inflate in Tara Paule’s belly. It got ready to burst when she was informed of her new lot in life at 10:15 a.m. during 15-minute recess.

“You’re going to have to find new friends,” Kristin Normandin, who would go on to be a chain smoker and a lawyer, said. “We don’t like you anymore.”

Heather Robbins, wearing her Walkman that was inevitably filled with her George Michael tape, simply nodded.

So, for a month, Tara Paule didn’t have any friends. And every night she would go home to her mom and cry and cry and cry. Until one day, Julie Boyle came up to her and asked if she felt like jumping rope with she and Bonni-Anne Bender.

After that, of course, things were better. But the memory of that month of misery came back to me shortly after fourth grade started for Gabrielle and she started introducing us to her own cast of mean girls.

Seeing her struggle as I did, I realize fourth grade is a miserable rite of passage girls, for some reason, just have to get through. All the while, moms and stepmoms everywhere are obligated to tell their child just to hold on, rise above, ignore and be nice. But every little girl’s instinct is to continue to try to be friends with the mean girls, convinced that if they can just crack into that popular core things will be heavenly.

Gabrielle expressed that desire to me the other night. So, finally, upon the advice of a friend, I told her what I thought she needed to hear.

“I don’t know why the mean girls are mean. But you don’t want to be their friend. Sometimes, you’ve just got to put your big-girl panties on and move on.”

Staff writer Tara Kaprowy can be reached by e-mail at tkaprowy@sentinel-echo.com.