22/01/2024
What a story. Both mom and daughter were so brave!
I lost my daughter on the New York subway yesterday...and it was the best part of our trip.
True story. Yesterday morning, while exploring NYC, the subway doors closed too quickly at our stop, leaving me on the platform, and my (11 year old) daughter still in the train. I pounded on the doors and saw her start to tear up in fear on the other side...as the train pulled away...leaving her alone in a foreign city and me feeling completely helpless.
Long story short, we were reunited about 20 minutes later at a coffee shop, where she had made friends with a crew of NYPD officers and was well cared-for by the thoughtful staff.
While this experience was (more than) a little traumatizing for both of us in different ways given 24 hours of distance, some key learnings emerge:
Things don't always go as planned. Getting lost on the subway was not included in our plans for the day. It took like and emotional bandwidth for which we hadn't planned. And things happen, so we pivoted, considered our priorities for the day, and made the most of the time we had.
Dispositions are essential. My daughter is a problem solver at her core. She may struggle with long division, but she did exactly what she should in a situation like this (including giving everyone she met my phone number and using Google translate with a Spanish-speaking mother to help her call the police). While she claims she knew what to do by watching YouTube shorts, I know her grit and perseverance are to be credited.
Opportunities to learn and grow are everywhere. Batya was (understandably) scared to take the subway after this...but we did anyway. Learning from the earlier incident, she suggested that we keep track of the stops and prepare to get off well in advance and that I hold her hand as we got off to make sure she didn't get lost again. Done and done.
Reality is all in our perception. I was really worried that this little incident was going to ruin our whole trip. Instead, it gave us an interesting story to tell others, and my daughter immediately talked about all of the benefits that came out of the mishap (bonding with the police, getting hot cocoa, having another reason to convince her parents to let her get a phone). The narrative around her getting lost on the subway became a narrative about her bravery and good things coming out of seemingly-bad situations.
I'm really proud of my daughter and how she handled the whole situation. And I'm really proud of both of us and how we turned the whole thing into a powerful learning opportunity.
What lessons have you learned from unplanned incidents in your life recently?
