Consulting the Magic 8 Ball

I don't know why I said yes when, in the middle of our weekend grocery shopping, my daughter begged for a Magic 8 Ball. Maybe it kicked up a kind of vague nostalgia, long-forgotten images of me wearing pigtails hunching over my own childhood 8 Ball, waiting for the answers to my own most pressing questions to float up from the omniscient, encapsulated blue sea. Maybe I was just distracted with the issue of whether or not to buy English muffins. Either way, I got our groceries, she got her 8 Ball, and we were headed home.

I wasn't prepared for the reaction I'd have when, as she consulted her 8 Ball in the back seat, I heard a small voice question, "Does (insert name of boy of interest) like me?"

It wasn't that I didn't know about her long-standing interest in this particular boy. It wasn't that I didn't approve of her interest. It was that something about her plaintive-sounding question and the fact that it was the first question out of the gate reminded me of the beginning of an era in which someone's liking me or not liking me determined my sense of self-worth. Am I likeable? Am I good enough? Am I acceptable the way I am, or do I need to change into someone different before I can be loved?

I'm not sure whether I consulted an 8 Ball about such matters. I like to think that at an elementary school age, I asked it things like whether I was going to be a writer when I grew up, or whether I was going to like fourth grade. I like to think it wasn't until my adolescent years of reading Teen Magazine and Seventeen and Young Miss that I became so focused on whether or not this or that boy would "like" me.

Truthfully, I'd like to think the younger me paddled far from those perilous waters in the first place. But I didn't, and I want better for her. So when she asked the 8 Ball whether or not a particular boy liked her, I went quiet. Perhaps made a particular face. Did I ever tell you that my daughter is somehow able, from the back of the car, to see my expression right through  the back of my head?

"What, Mom?"

"Nothing, sweetie. I was just wondering if you had questions for the 8 Ball besides, you know, that one?"

She pondered this for a minute, then came up with a new set of questions. Is Birch (our cat) happy? Will the weather be good for camp this week? Will any of my friends be playing outside today?

Then: "But what's wrong with asking about (so-and-so) liking me? The other girls ask the 8 Ball if boys like them!"

(Ah, of course. The Other Girls.)

I did my best to explain that there was nothing wrong with wanting a boy to like you or asking the 8 Ball about it, but that I would  feel concerned if it was the only question or the most important one, since liking yourself is ultimately what matters most.

She seemed to consider this.

"Mom?" she asked as I pulled into our driveway and parked the car. "Do you like yourself?"

I looked out the car window for what felt like I long time.

"Here." She handed me the Magic 8 Ball.

I shook it and waited a little anxiously until an answer floated up: "All signs point to yes."

"See? I told you we needed an 8 Ball," she said with authority, and we held hands on our way in and thought about the things we'd ask next.