the wish tree

The Hirshhorn Museum has a lovely sculpture garden of modern and contemporary art that's simply fabulous. I liked it a fair bit better than the more renowned sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art. One of the pieces of art was Yoko Ono's "Wish Tree," which allowed for "audience" participation. The exhibit invites participants to write a wish on a small piece of paper and then hang their wish on the little dogwood tree. Periodically, the wishes are collected and sent to Yoko Ono, who then uses them for some other piece of art the specifics of which unfortunately I've forgotten. One can walk around the tree and read the wishes of folks, some signed and others unsigned. The wishes I read ranged from the ironic and witty and snarky ("I wish people would stop abusing my leaves and branches"--signed, The Tree) to the politically bitter ("I wish geo. w. bush would resign asap") to the pitiful ("I wish I had friends") to everything in between. I only read about twenty or so of these wishes (there were hundreds), but my favorite wish was so very human that I couldn't help but instantly love the person who wrote it ("I wish for delicious fat free pizza. And world peace."--Andrew.) I hear you brother Andrew, I hear you.

The wish shown above hit me in the gut when I read it. A little confessional here (too confessional?), but I think my oldest daughter sometimes feels this way. I know we cut her two sisters a little bit more slack than we do for her, and I can tell that she is keenly, if most of the time silently, aware of this disparity in treatment. We can't seem to help using a higher standard on her--and not just an age-appropriate higher standard--than we do for the others. Maybe it's a common parenting hazard for raising (rearing?) first born kids. Or maybe it just reflects our own tendencies. Both my wife and I are the last-born children and we tend to react very negatively to bossiness in any form. And let's be honest: first born kids tend to be bossy, just as latter born kids tend to be slackers (but also amusing. And charming. And downright wonderful. And nearly perfect, if we get right down to it. And certainly more modest.). Our first born child's personality is in keeping with this particular first-born tendency at least with respect to her sisters, and we constantly remind her to be more loving to her sisters. In the meantime, her littlest sister is rascally--but incredibly charmingly so--and so we latter-born parents naturally tend to cut her the most slack of all.

But the point (which I nearly lost sight of) is that my dear oldest daughter sometimes feels that she cannot live up to our expectations no matter how hard she tries. And the fact that her feelings are probably not completely delusional makes me feel like a rotten father because this girl, who we do love furiously and desperately, is such a blessing to us. She is an interesting and thoughtful and quirky (always a good thing, no?) and clever and good child--well, she's just just more of everything than we could have ever hope for in a daughter.