This weekend, my daughter celebrated her ninth birthday with a gaggle of 16 giggling girls parading through our household for two days.  This event, otherwise known as a slumber party, was both exhausting and eye opening as we got to peek into the world of these little ones in a way that we are normally not privy to.
    
    I was struck, more than once, by how lucky I am to have the exact child that I have.  Though all the girls were as wonderful as a group that large can be while in our household, there were definite differences in the ways that these girls reacted to each other.
    
    Some, I would say, have spent an inordinate amount of time watching fast-to-respond-with-a-snappy-answer tv tweens on cable.  Others, I would say, were unbelievably innocent and sweet.  Thankfully, mine fell somewhere in between.

    In the weeks preceeding her party, my daughter was constantly being called down for being disrespectful to her parents.  In the midst of her peers however, I began to realize that compared to some of them, she is actually VERY respectful.  

    Is disrespect a sign of the times?  Are other parents pushing their children to be respectful as we are pushing ours?  I have to say, upon watching these girls, I wasn't sure.

    And the disrespect was not targeted to the adults.  It was pointed to each other.

    I saw enough head snapping and finger waggling to hold me through to the next millenium.  Simple questions were answered with smart remarks that would have crushed me as a young girl.  Innocent misunderstandings were ganged up on in groups of two and three.  It really was a sight to behold.  And yet, they all acted as if this was perfectly normal.  Par for the course.

    As you can imagine, I was growing weary of this as the night went on.  During games, bad sports made snappy comments to winners.  So, when my own daughter spoke up loudly after her team had won two consecutive rounds of pictionary, but then lost the third, I became very angry with her.

    "You can not be a bad sport about this!"  I said.  "Your team just won TWICE!  You have to let the others win and not cry!"

    "But it's not FAIR!" she screamed at me and kept crying.

    Getting angrier by the minute, I said "Fine!  If it's so unfair, we won't play any more games tonight.  Is that fair?"

    "No mama!" she said.  "It's not fair because Hannah is the only one who didn't get a turn to draw!"

    My heart sank.  Sweet, quiet, little Hannah.  The same Hannah that had helped me twice to clean up spills by other children.  The same Hannah that came and told on herself when she spilled water on the bathroom floor.  That Hannah was not about to speak up for herself.  

    But in the madness of a roomful of girls playing pictionary: winning, losing, clapping, screaming... my daughter had noticed one in the shadows.  One who didn't get her chance.  And, was hurt by it.

   " What a bad mother!"  I thought to myself.  I'd been around so much attitude in the last hours, that I thought my daughter was just coming into her own.  She was.  But not in the way I expected.

    Hannah got her turn.  Two to be exact.  Due of course, to a "Mommy Mess Up", where I accidently gave her the wrong word.   She was happy.  My daughter beamed.  And I?  Well, I learned a lesson in respect.