Editor's Pick of July: The Usurper by Ariel Bernstein

There are times, usually when I’m not even trying to remember, that I think back to the days when I awoke and knew I’d have the whole day to be myself. The memories aren’t always clear of course, as I must have been only five or so at the time.

I didn’t understand then why it had to change but now that I have time to think things over, I'm pretty sure her concern really started when the subject of red-shirting came up.  I was only four, but I remember the look on my mother's face when my pre-school teacher asked if she'd thought about it.  Nora is one of the youngest and still a bit immature isn't she? the gray-haired teacher with lots of experience with these types of situations said, either oblivious or resilient to my mother's contempt. Still has trouble recognizing all of her letters and often trips up on the days of the week. She's only four, but still, maybe she'd do better to wait a year. She said all this in front of me as though I couldn’t understand.

We left that day and I don't know what else happened with the teacher. I do know I started kindergarten with everyone else and stayed one of the youngest. You just need help mom told me. She decided to help me some days and I'd remember to water the plants and feed our cat Fifi. But it turned out to mostly be okay in kindergarten. I really liked the music class and painting and somehow figured out that a d was not a b and got almost every day right, except Saturdays and Sundays took a while to fit correctly into my head. I was better with the other kids at that age too, which was a big plus for my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Krause, so mom let me go in most days.

Maybe her help picked up around second grade when we got a lot more homework and tests and all that. I think I did okay but certainly not the top of the class. When she helped and she got to tell my friend Janie's mom that I tied for first place in the second grade spelling bee, I could see we'd continue this way for a while at least. I tried to make the best of it on those days and watch a lot of TV and find the hidden chocolate bars but sometimes I was just bored. Not as bored as I am now of course, but you never know how good you have it at the time.

I liked going to school and sometimes even doing things like squash practice, because the top schools like students who play squash-and piano lessons of course, so I tried as hard as I could. I figured that might be her strategy for a while. If I couldn't do well enough, she'd announce that I needed her help and I'd sit that day out, so it was all about motivation. But sometimes I did okay or even better but she said it still wasn't good enough.

One time when I was eight I remember I threw a fit. We'd just had three snow days in a row and I didn't want to stay home anymore. But I was supposed to read a report aloud to the class the day we finally got to go back to school and mom said I didn't look up enough during practice or enunciate a lot of the big words and she just knew I'd be too nervous standing in front of the whole class. I didn't care that she was right; I just wanted to go and feel badly during the report and then eat my cheese crackers and yogurt for lunch in the cafeteria. So I screamed I was going but she was too quick for me and I never knew how she did it. You are my flesh and blood, she would say and give me a kiss at night because she knew things I didn't and that was that.

When she came home to see the mess I'd made she said it didn't matter, that I got an A for the report and now I needed to clean to feel good about accomplishing something on my own. I didn't clean very well and she knew and said it was okay because it wouldn't affect my future.

At night she came into my room and held my face in her hands and looked sad. Don't you know how lucky you are? she asked me and I know I was supposed to say yes but I stayed silent, which she was okay with. Some parents think they do everything for their child, she said. They think activities and tutors and the best best best are enough but I know I'm the one giving you the best. All the advantages I could ever have to offer, you get to have.

When I was younger I used to imagine it would end one day. I'd finally catch up to where she wanted me to be. The marker kept changing though and getting pushed further and further back and her help only increased until I didn't even remember days where I was me. She sometimes mentioned how ungrateful I was because she always made sure I was at the top of my class, even when it got a lot harder in tenth grade and she started using tutors too.

She says she wants me to go to medical school because she always thought she'd do well, so she's having me take all the pre-med required courses in college now. The coursework is beyond her and now she's the one catching up but that's nothing I can help with.

I sit and watch TV and read graphic novels and look up anything on the computer to make me forget how I used to be me. It's her life now and she says she's going to make the best life for me. Sometimes I look through her work and find a grade that's not the top and I ask her about it over dinner. She doesn't like to talk then and sulks in her room and then I go online and decide who I want to be for the day.

Ariel Bernstein was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently a stay-at-home mother to two young children in Livingston, New Jersey. She writes a blog, “How to Raise Benevolent Dictators,” at: a3bernstein.wordpress.com