NOT-SO-LITTLE LOVE

Iam told true love is hard to find these days, but I am not sure I believe this. It seems my four-year-old daughter has found it amidst the glue and carpettime of her preschool classroom. His name is Hayes. I am not exactly sure of the details of when and where they first found one another. Maybe it was when their eyes met and their noses wrinkled as they put their tongues to the brightly colored piles of salty play dough. Maybe they realized they shared a joint affection for goldfish and Dixie cups filled with water. If I had to guess — knowing the two of them — I would say their love likely grew outside on the playground in the fresh air and sunshine and sand-filled shoes they both seem to love so much. But I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened.

I do know theirs is a unique love. Because while most “love” at their age is arranged by narcissistic, meddling mothers — theirs was not. Arranged marriages are a global phenomenon. Every 2.9 seconds, a mother somewhere in the world will dress her baby up in the finest monogrammed gear and super glue a giant bow to its head. Then she bundles and buckles her small child into a stroller, car seat, or sling and heads off to the play date market at the park or Kindermusik or the rice paddy field. Then the children are all placed on the ground, the mothers (with Starbucks in hand) surround them, and the wedding planning ensues.

One mother will begin the process exclaiming over her dimpled baby boy, “Oh my gosh! So cute! Did you just see how he smiled at her?”

Then, if the mother with the daughter can picture herself going on a cruise with the boy’s mother and can see past his case of cradle cap, she will respond with, “Oh my gosh! They are totally going to get married someday!” And then discussions of dowries and livestock and Montessori schools ensue.

However, if the mother with the daughter is horrified at the thought of spending high tea and another minute going over the ins and outs of lactation with the first mother, she will respond with, “Really? Because I am pretty sure it was just gas.”

And then some marriages are arranged between hypothetical, not-yetborn children. But this typically occurs in college sororities, at baby showers, or in the 14th century.

I am not judging these mothers — we have all done it. We get our kids together and watch them scoot and burp and poop themselves and hope for some sort of cosmic soul mate connection so we can have fun in-laws someday. My kid’s love life is all about me, and it is not dysfunctional at all.

But back to my daughter and her friend, Hayes. Like I said, their love is unique in many ways, but most notably because it wasn’t arranged.

“Hi, I am Hayes’ mom,” Hayes’ mom said as she introduced herself at preschool pickup one day. Since then, we have spent countless lunches at Chick-fil-A getting to know one another while the two fast friends scurry and climb in the play area playing Russian roulette with rotavirus as they beef up their immune systems.

Uncharacteristically, we mothers have never talked about a future marriage for these two. And it is not because we wouldn’t be thrilled to be in-laws. I think the reason lies somewhere in a place of curiosity and respect for their young love. Because while their love is young in relation to time — it is frankly so much more mature than the love we adults try at. I have never heard my daughter or Hayes talk about getting married. When my daughter talks about Hayes, it is never embarrassed or coy. “I love Hayes very much, and he loves me,” she will say confidently and matter-of-factly, so not a person in this world could refute this as truth.

One day, I asked my daughter why she loves Hayes. “I love him because he never makes me feel small,” she said without hesitation. I have thought about her insightful answer as I watch the two of them together. She is right — Hayes never makes her feel small. Hayes, in his laid-back, grinning manner, adores her. He doesn’t mind that she speaks her mind and spends the majority of her time believing she is a horse. He comes alongside and feeds her hay. Unlike her older brothers who spend a lot of time reminding her they are bigger and stronger and smarter and eighteen months older, it never crosses Hayes’ mind that my daughter can’t climb to the top of the monkey bars — and so he encourages her and she makes it to the top with him by her side.

I have overheard my daughter confess her deepest fears to him: “What if a bear comes in at night and eats all of the waffles and steals my new snow globe?” Hayes doesn’t belittle her fears or tell her she is being ridiculous. He just says, in his pragmatically optimistic way, “Well, I guess we should build a trap.”

How do you meddle in a love like this? We mothers don’t know how long their love will last — if it will grow past preschool or survive cooties. But we do know that we can learn from it and be inspired. We can look at our own husbands and see the loyalty and adoration in their little boy hearts. We can remember to be unabashed and confident in being loved and remember how important it is to listen and not judge confessed fears. As mothers encountering such a unique love, we couldn’t bring ourselves to interject our own expectations or desires into their friendship because to do so might make them feel small. And evidently, when you love someone, you never make them feel small. Besides, this love — no matter its size — is theirs.