How to get a full-grown woman out of a shell

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on May 6, 2011


How is it possible that my daughter is turning 21? Is it really over two decades that I had my first encounter with the baby girl who is now a young woman? This person, who is half of me and half of my husband, but wholly her own person, introduced me to the perplexities of motherhood.


How the child survived the early years, I do not know. It probably has more to do with the grace of God and the supervision of my husband than my own skills. The very fact that I somehow botched the Biblical spelling of the child’s name when filling out the birth certificate in the hospital not be the sole indicator of my incompetence. (The ensuing years would pile further evidence in like the $5 video bin at Wal-Mart.)


In Philippians 4:2, there is a caution to two women to stop arguing: they are Syntyche and Euodia. Knowing that the former meant “fortunate” (but apparently not knowing how to spell it), I filled in “Synteche” on the birth certificate. I have since consoled myself that the pronunciation “SinTEEkee” is much prettier than “SinTYEkee.” So my variation (code word: misspelling) actually worked out better. That consolation is usually gone when we are in a waiting room and the receptionist scrunches up her face and ventures a shaky “SINtesh?” Now, if you happen to be an expert in Greek, and are laughing because I have spent twenty-one years also mangling the pronunciation of the name, do me a favor. Keep your expertise to yourself, and stop showing off. I’m not sure whether my dignity (or my daughter’s) could handle that after 21 years of mispronouncing a misspelled name.


Despite this rocky start, she’s done fairly well. The kid is majoring in electrical engineering (just like mom did), but is planning to teach high school or junior high-level math and/or technology (just like mom is). Having volunteered and worked with schools in Baltimore, she has decided that she would like to serve underprivileged children of inner cities.


Unlike me, this child is always well prepared and early to arrive when she goes anywhere. (In all her years of public schooling, she never once missed the bus.) As a matter of fact, that’s how she landed her first summer internship while at Johns Hopkins. There was to be a scholars’ brunch or luncheon on campus in her freshmen year, and we were discussing her intended attire. Should she wear Indian clothes or Western business attire, she wondered? This was a great honor, because with daughters leading our chain of children, I am usually on the receiving end of wardrobe advice. “Mom, why do you keep wearing that?”


She arrived twenty minutes early for a scholarship luncheon for the corporate sponsors, dazzled them in her business suit, and was given a personal introduction and recommendation to the corporation that hired her. One thing led to another, and she is a Student Alumni Ambassador, and was chosen to speak at University events. She’s even on the University’s home web page in a video “We are the very Model of a Modern University,” a spoof on the Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major General” song from “Pirates of Penzance.” Visit http://modeluniversity.jhu.edu/ and click play. The president of the university is on right after the maniacal-looking blue jay mascot playing the piano, and then Synteche is the one in the bottom right corner of the nine featured students. She’s also there a minute and thirty-five seconds into the video in front of a microscope. Oh, yes – and everyone in there happens to be lip-synching.


Ironically, she was in Fauquier High School’s production of this same musical under the direction of Kevin Mettinger. (Of course, you’re going to see “Hairspray” at the high school this weekend or the next, aren’t you?)


Synteche’s coming home this weekend. You might think it was for her birthday or for Mother’s Day, but it is actually to see the musical at the high school, and it has nothing to do with her younger brother manning the spotlights backstage. A devotee of the stage, she always tries to get home whenever Kevin Mettinger works his directorial magic on stage. Like an expert jeweler, he knows just how to get the students’ talents to shine.


Synteche, who was homeschooled for the greatest number of years, from kindergarten to seventh grade (notice how the eldest child always gets the brunt of things?), was so painfully shy, that she would prefer to nibble her fingers than engage in conversation with anyone. That, by the way, is simply part of her personality, and has nothing to do with homeschooling. The rest of the kids could, and often would, talk people’s heads off. She is the only non-talkative one out of the six. Theater got her out of her shell, and it’s going to get her out of Baltimore this weekend.


Happy 21st Birthday, Synteche! May God bless you as you enter official, full-fledged, adult life.