FRANCES WHITING
“Show-up is one of the most important parts of parenting”
Iwent to see my teenage daughter’s school choir performance recently and as the students filed on to the stage, each one of them did exactly the same thing. It was executed in different ways – side glance eyes, darting eyes, eyes wide-open stares – but they all did it. The eye scan.
As they walked across the stage, those girls – the plaited, the ponytailed, the ribboned, the ribbonless, the tallest, the shortest, the striders and the shufflers – all scanned the audience. If they didn’t find what they were searching for by the time they took their place, they continued the search, eyes flicking across the first row, the second, and all the way to the back.
And when they did find what they were looking for, when their eyes settled on a familiar face, their own faces settled also. Some of them smiled, some gave a nod, the bolder among them a wave, and one girl broke out a short, but unmistakeable, dance move. But most of all, they relaxed. Because that eye scan had found its target. Because someone had shown up.
And I realised watching my own daughter’s eyes, scan, find mine, and settle, is that show-up is one of the most important parts – if not the most important part – of parenting, or caring for a child.
We think so little of it when we are getting ready, cursing the school for holding a performance at 6pm on a Wednesday night, or the swim coach insisting on winter training at 5am.
We don’t really consider it when we’re lining up outside some school hall somewhere, coffee in hand, grumbling to the other adults about the traffic on the way there. We don’t really think about these small services at all. But they bestow such huge and wondrous gifts. Because the show-up says to a child, “You matter”. “I see you.” “Out of all these kids in this choir/band/ footy team/computer tournament/drama performance, I am here for one kid, and that kid is you.”
The show-up, I realised watching those teenage girls’ eyes dart about the auditorium, is so important to a child, or a teenager, even one who has had a huge fight with their parents that morning.
Perhaps most importantly for the one who’s had a huge fight that morning. The one who might look like an angel now up on stage but a few hours ago was a spitting, hissing demon throwing out
“f… you” and “I hate you.” Because the show-up says “I heard all of that, and I came anyway.”
My daughter and I did not have a huge fight that morning (I’m sure that’s on the way one day) but I was really glad I went. Because I nearly didn’t. I’d had a huge week at work, I was tired, she could have got a lift there and back with a friend, but I decided to go.
And it occurred to me, when I saw her eyes find mine, that in all the noise around parenting, all the words and books and podcasts and lectures, that one of the most valuable tools makes no sound at all. It is the show-up.
The silent exchange between two people that tells a child that in their glorious, confusing, exhilarating and sometimes terrifying world, they have someone to lock eyes with in the storm.