Venice Revisited... and Peaches

May 20, 2010

As our day was drawing to a close, Cade finally vented about something that had obviously been on his mind all day.  He asked why "some grown-ups think that they don't have to treat kids like real people."  After some prodding, he told me that on the train from Venice back to Florence the day before, the aging, unfriendly Italian woman sitting across from him had her feet on his lap for more than half of the two-hour journey.  No shoes, no socks.  Bare, smelly feet.  At first I thought he was joking.  I was sitting just across the aisle – literally meters (when in Europe...!)  away from him and I never noticed anything.  I was confused and absolutely horrified, and began to question her intentions as well as her audacity.  I asked a lot of questions and tried to glean details without planting ideas or new concerns in his head:  How far onto his lap did her feet reach?  Was she moving her feet or keeping them still?  I told him that I wished he had said something to me, that I wished I could have protected him from something that had obviously upset him (as it would anyone, let’s be honest).  He said that he was too self-conscious and shy, and he didn’t want to make a scene.  “Besides, she only spoke Italian," he said. "What could you have done?”  Hmm.  What could I have done?  I definitely had some ideas that I kept to myself.  But I told him that I would have instructed him to get up and go to the bathroom and then I would have traded seats with him, stared her down, and just dared her to try putting her feet in my lap.  "Oh," he said.  "I didn't think about that."

I was angry and my heart ached for him and his distress.  I wish I could protect my kids.  From strangers, from themselves.  From the downside of niceness and the "benefit of the doubt."  From people-pleasing personality traits they likely inherited from me.   But the reality is, I can’t protect my kids all the time.  Apparently I can’t even protect them when I am sitting practically right next to them.  So I must give them the tools to protect themselves. 

I told them that if someone ever invades their personal space, they don't have to be nice and polite.  We'd never discussed specifics of this before, so we did some role playing.  And we made a plan.  If the kids are ever too embarrassed to tell me openly that something is wrong, they should use a key word like… umm… I threw out “peaches.”  Cade was confused about how to work “peaches” into a normal, random conversation, so we started to brainstorm. “Mom, I really loved those peaches we had for dinner last night.”  Or  "Do you know what would be a good gelato flavor?  Peaches!"  The kids started chiming in with their own made-up sentences, which became more and more silly and nonsensical until we were all laughing.  A weight seemed to be lifted from Cade, and he no longer obsessed about the incident.  

I was still bothered by the actions of the rude Italian woman, but in a strange way I was almost grateful.  Because now we have “peaches.”