Getting to Wilderness: K's Story

Sitting in the rear of a Southwest flight bound for Salt Lake City, Utah, my thirteen-year-old daughter squeezing my hand. As stoic as I tried to be, to onlookers I imagine we appeared like a couple of phobic flyers or headed for a funeral. Through tears she said, "What if girls are mean to me? What if there's some meth-head who wants to beat me up?" Maybe my smile wasn't entirely appropriate, but it was the first thing she'd said all morning that wasn't a single syllable or charged with defiance. "It's not like that," I told her. "This isn't rehab. It's not like you're going to juvie." Not that she'd ever been, but she'd been bullied enough in and out of middle school to have a rational fear. Which is partly what lead us here. 

Through the window snowcapped mountains appeared, pretty enough for her to straighten up and capture with her phone. An Instagram post for another time. Where she was going there'd be no phones. If I could get past the fact that my head hurt from crying and we had zero luggage between us, it was almost like we were on adventure. A terrifying, unknown, open-ended adventure. Her dad and I didn't know if it was the right thing—had we done everything we could? For our fifteen-year-old son it made one thing clear, we were now officially assholes, bent on destroying their lives, never to be trusted. We'd betrayed them, him and his sister. The same little sister who'd been primarily a nuisance his entire life, now his ally for one reason. She was being sent away, and he knew it could've just as easily been him. 

It felt like a much milder version of Sophie's Choice making that decision. Who do we save? Our first decision was to leave it in the hands of an educational consultant, hired at the recommendation of a friend and soon-to-be fellow wilderness mom. If educational consultants strike you as pricey (but worth every penny); wilderness programs are over the top. Though both our kids were perfect candidates, we had to choose just one for serious intervention or resign ourselves to living on rice and beans for the remainder of our years. Based on her advice it came down to this: of the two, whose actions could potentially have a greater, even irreversible, negative impact? 

Maybe it's sexist, but having once been a girl in the trenches I know how vulnerable we can be. Our desire to fit in and to be desired, coupled with raging hormones, can turn a young eager-to-please female into a monkey with clapper cymbals at the snap of a mean-girl's fingers or the wink of a cute boy. We have a lower tolerance for drugs and alcohol, a greater risk of rape, of being exploited, and face the consequence of pregnancy. So while they both exhibited reckless behavior, gender, plus having become a target for some pretty severe bullying, made the decision for us. Maybe our son would still be eating grilled cheese and playing Xbox on our couch at twenty-five, but our daughter was falling down a rabbit hole.

It was decided. She wouldn't graduate with her eighth-grade class, many of whom she'd known since kindergarten. Or participate in her June dance recital ($200 down the toilet on Spandex and tassels), an end-of-season ritual since her first Hip Hop class at age five. She hated us both for taking these, the only things she still cared about. Literally screamed, "I hate you!" And now I had to feign certainty. I'd endured two weeks of hiding our secret; her hysterical reaction to our letter of intent the night before; sleepless hours lying in bed, sick with fear that she'd run or hurt herself before we could get her on the plane, both of which she threatened. Not as though we hadn't been warned. I'd managed to coax her from bed before first light, and convince her to, "Please let me take you. I don’t want a stranger to do it. I want to be the one. Please." We had back-up and were prepared, reluctantly, to use him. It was one instance where her anxiety came to the rescue. She managed to put on clothes, get in the car, and make it through airport security without bolting. 

I was escorting my daughter to a wilderness program, pulling her from the last quarter of her schoolyear to change the trajectory her life was headed. At that point I didn't know as a parent whether it was bravery or weakness. I'm not the kind who asks for help. Was I throwing in the towel, or making one of the boldest choices I may ever have to make? I had no idea what to expect. All I could do, now that she was squeezing my hand and able to somewhat listen, was assure her this wasn't a punishment. These people deal with crying homesick girls all the time. It was a safe place. A place of non-judgment, where she could let her guard down, find support and even make friends. I tried to explain, yet knew these were all things she'd have to figure out for herself once she got there. That's the idea, that's all we could hope.

-K. McGinty