The How-Not-To Guide to Parenting and Marriage

by Jon Ziegler

  It took a few minutes before she was able to tell me what had happened. One of the girls in her kindergarten class was having a birthday party, and not only was my daughter not invited, but the girl had handed out invitations to the other classmates in front of her.

  I pictured my normally happy baby girl waiting silently as the invitations were given to the other students standing around her. I could feel her excitement over the prospect of going to a party, slowly turning to wonder as the pile of invitations got smaller, and then finally the awkward realization that she would not be going. She was not invited.

  It’s hard to put into words, the agony of watching your daughter’s feelings be so callously trampled on. It tore at my insides, and I knew that all the comforting in the world would not take away the sting.

  But as I drove the few miles home with my daughter still trying hard to end her sobbing, my mind began to stray from my own pain and anger over the situation. I began to think about the heartbreak of other children around the world

  I thought about a young girl sitting silently on her bedroom floor, wondering if the footsteps in the hallway meant that she was about to suffer more unimaginable abuse from the very people who were supposed to love and protect her.

  I envisioned a small boy wandering aimlessly amongst the rubble that was once his home, the bodies of his family lying near. I tried to imagine how his young mind would comprehend a war that had taken from him everything and everyone that he had known in his short life. Where would he go? Who would take care of him?

  I thought about other children who were enduring the agony of slowly starving to death, and the mothers and fathers that must watch helplessly. I imagined a mother being willing to give up her own life if it would somehow end her child’s pain.

  And that is when I felt joy over my own daughter’s heartbreak. I felt joy that her not receiving an invitation, was the most painful thing in her life at the moment. I realized how fortunate I was.

  I’m quite sure that I will always feel sorrow when my children are heartbroken or in pain. But when I compare it to all the unspeakable horrors that are inflicted upon so many children in the world, I will also feel fortunate and grateful as well.