At ten, Alina was able to get from school to home or to the dance studio where she was practicing, but I was very worried about going out of town on her own. My daughter was still a little girl, and what kind of people don’t ride in the train.
Standing her ground, Alina proved to my husband and me that she could easily make it on her own for an hour and a half sitting in the train. She knows where to get off, and her grandmother will meet her there. She got her husband to buy a ticket for her, and she was capricious.
We saw her off for a long time, we admonished her, but Alina said that she knew. When she was getting on the train I told her to write me by all means if she felt uncomfortable or afraid.
And so it happened. In less than twenty minutes my daughter wrote to me, and some unruly man sat down beside her, pestering her, asking all sorts of questions. Alina was on the verge of tears, wanted to sit down, but all the seats were occupied.
Good thing my husband is such a pragmatic person and offered to play along with my daughter and take a ride with her. As a last resort, we would have gone straight home, but after Alina’s messages, we advanced across the carriage to our daughter.
Not because we didn’t trust her or were just waiting for an opportunity to rebuke her for not being independent and ask, “What would have happened if we hadn’t been here?”
No, we’re just parents who worry, and Alina is a child who aspires to be independent, not yet thinking that even adults face troubles and problems and need help from loved ones.
