Susan Senator

When Max was Ben’s age, I had the same worries, about who would be his friends. This was not because of anything intrinsically wrong with Max’s personality; it was because Max did very few of the typical afterschool activities. We pretty much pleaded with/forced him to play soccer for several years, and he was so blase about it that he became the only kid who would walk across the field towards the ball.

As boys get to be ‘tweens and then teens, it appears to me that most of them veer off into sports of some kind. If not a formal team, they seem to want to be moving quickly, outside, with some kind of ball. I remember watching as, one by one, Max’s friends became less and less available to him. It broke my heart for him and it also angered me, that everyone seemed so unoriginal, that sports was the only thing they seemed to want to do and it was the main thing parents encouraged them to do. Parents did not encourage them to work on their art, or anything else.

The same thing is happening with Ben’s friends now. More and more of them want to play sports. It is very difficult finding him a playdate, and I worry about him finding friends. But maybe it will be the same for him as it was for Max: eventually they find kids whom maybe they didn’t notice before. Kids who seem a bit quirky, or geeky. Max found a boy who was into Flash animation, and that started him on his whole technology hobby. Max eventually identified with this kind of kid, the nerd. Now he has a very nice group of boys he is friends with at the high school, who are into Star Wars, computers, the Matrix movies, and Manga.

That might be in the cards for Ben, too. I look around and notice the boys who don’t do sports, who often go home with their moms instead of riding with their scooters or bikes with the other kids. There is one in particular whom I think is a real sweetheart, but for the longest time he has not wanted to play with Ben because in the fall Ben punched him. Yes, punched him. It was terrible. Ben had become really frustrated with this boy, who was kidding around and kind of teasing him, and before he knew it, he punched him in the stomach. This boy has been really unnerved about the idea of playing with Ben since then, although they often do team up in school projects. I have been talking with the parents about what to do, but they don’t want to insist. I can’t blame them, but I really feel for my little B. He made a bad mistake, but he is so sorry about it by now.

Anyway, B told me today that this boy said he wanted to play tomorrow! I was so happy I nearly cried right there, but of course I didn’t. I felt so proud of Ben, working hard to resolve things. Social life does not always come easily to him, that’s for sure: he is very strong-willed, impulsive, oversensitive, and can sometimes be mean. But he is also brilliantly creative, funny, and talented. It’s a good thing his positives are so strong.

Sometimes I think: If Ben could only survive childhood; and If Nat could only survive adulthood. And If Max can survive all of us.