My now 6-year-old daughter came galloping into our living room with her cherubic cheeks jiggling, smiling freely, like she was having the time of her life with a level of unselfconscious joy I haven’t felt since before group chats became a thing.
She was running around with one of those sticks with a horse’s head on it, and I thought it was adorable. She rides real horses, which always leaves me uneasy, even if she has a body protector on. A real horse weighs half a ton and can take off at any moment; the worst a hobby horse will do is give you a really bad splinter.
This being closer to the ground felt like a much safer choice; though, a natural extension of her love of horse riding nonetheless.
I clapped excitedly and asked all the things a child wants to hear, like, “Oh, what is your horse’s name? Is she fast?!”
Suddenly, she skidded to a stop, flushed and out of breath, announcing with sheer determination and a will only a kid her age can muster up, “I’m going to do hobby horsing!” I looked at her quizzically, unsure of what this was, until she showed me on YouTube (because of course there’s a YouTube channel for hobby horsing).
The video I saw was of grown adults, hopping over jumps with horse heads on sticks with the focus of Olympic athletes and the faces of people who had just done their yearly taxes. There was even a competition in Switzerland or Sweden, I can’t remember, one of the S’s, with the seriousness of a real horse riding competition; they even wore body protectors and carried whips.
“Sure, you can try that!” I said, my voice the kind of tone you use when you’re really drafting a plan to talk your kid out of something, like a puppy.
What Is Hobby Horsing...To The Uninitiated
For the uninitiated, hobby horsing is exactly what it sounds like... only more serious.
People of all ages ride stick horses while jumping and even competing. My daughter has 2 more of these sticks, so my husband and I were running around the kitchen breathless and sweaty along to the same song she had done a routine to in a competition the previous week, and I was hoping this would get it out of her system.
It only spurred her on.
The theory that if parents join in on something, it suddenly becomes uncool and untouchable, only works on teenagers, apparently. To a 6-year-old, it’s a recruitment video.
Hobby horsing is a real hobby with real devotees. And I, an adult woman with a functioning prefrontal cortex, could only picture her at school, galloping past a group of kids who would absolutely bully her.
In my version of events, the kids at the gate were not 6. They were 14-year-olds with goatees who smoked on the weekends and drank hard liquor. Leaning against their lockers, they had formed a committee; someone would whisper, and someone would film it. By Friday, my daughter would be the weird kid at school with a cruel nickname like “Stick Girl” or Pony Express,” and I would be the mom who let it happen.
I know it sounds absurd, but I still saw it all, frame by frame in my mind.
The List I Didn't Know I Still Had
The part I’m most embarrassed about is that I keep a running list in my head from my own childhood growing up in the United States, in which there were rules for what you were allowed to like and for how long; they were unspoken, but absolute.
Thinking back, I can pinpoint them now: Harry Potter and playing Quidditch like it was a real sport, Pokémon cards, or being the “horse girl,” which I realize now she already is.
I live in a country famous for letting kids be completely themselves. I’ve spent the better part of a decade watching Dutch children bike to school alone, wear mismatched outfits, and show zero shame about it.
Yet, a stick with a horse’s head on it goes strictly into the uncool column in my head.
My Very Subtle Attempts To Talk Her Out Of It
I would like to say I responded with the maturity of an adult woman in my 30s, but what I really did was offer a series of alternatives with escalating desperation.
Did she want more riding lessons?
Had she ever considered a second hobby like ballet?
SHOULD I BUY HER A REAL PONY?!
None of it worked because she wasn’t asking me to choose between hobby horsing and something else; she just wanted to do that thing. There was no argument because I couldn’t say the shameful part to her or even out loud: “I’m worried other kids will think you’re weird, and I’m worried they’ll think I raised a weird kid.”
It’s like walking by a group of teenagers as an adult, feeling their judgmental eyes boring into your soul and your outfit.
She Didn't Get The Memo
The thing about a 6-year-old is that she hasn't learned to check the room yet. In my head, she was heading for social ruin when in reality she was in the garden setting up a course of decorative pillows and a pool noodle between 2 chairs. Not once did she glance back to see who, if anyone, was watching, and she wasn’t doing it to be seen either. She was hobby horsing because she loves horses, and a stick horse is the way to be with one on a random Tuesday when she doesn’t have riding lessons.
That's when it hit me that I was the only person in this situation thinking about an audience.
She wasn't performing for anyone; she just wanted to jump a pool noodle on a stick horse. The audience was in my head, along with the list, and I had been about to hand her both.
Who I Was Actually Protecting
I told myself I was protecting her. I wasn't, or at least not only. If a kid at school said something, she'd probably shrug, since she doesn't carry a list yet. And if she didn't shrug, we'd talk about it, which is a normal and survivable part of childhood. What I was really protecting was me, from the little flinch at the thought of being the mother of the weird kid.
Ouch, what a thought.
The horse was made of fabric and a stick!
Nobody was asking her to renounce society or join a cult. And yet here I was, mentally workshopping the potential reputational fallout.
I thought about how I would feel if I taught her that the things you love are things to manage, hide, or run past a group of your peers first. I know this lesson well; I learned it young and clearly I haven’t unlearned it yet. I wasn’t about to pass that on.
Apparently, having a child doesn't automatically make you emotionally evolved. It just gives you a tiny person to project all your unresolved issues onto, which is both a privilege and a terrible system.
To be fair to myself, wanting to protect a child from cruelty is just good, motherly instinct. Kids can be brutal, and I would be lying if I said I've made peace with that.
But there's a difference between preparing her for the world and editing her for it in advance. I was about to do the second one and call it the first. I would be teaching her to anticipate rejection before anyone had actually rejected her. A preemptive strike against a war that, for all I knew, nobody was planning to fight. I had appointed myself head of public relations for a 6-year-old who hadn't asked for a publicist.
Not Cured, But Paying Attention
I would like to report that I’m healed like one of those celebrities on the cover of People magazine, but I’ll admit, I’m not. I still feel the flinch when she announces that she’s taking it to a friend’s house or to school.
But now I notice it, and noticing turns out to be most of the work. I say "have fun" instead of "are you sure?" I've even started helping with her jumps, and I plan on buying her one of those super nice hobby horses for Christmas.
My inner mean girl is still in there. She just has to watch from the sidelines now, arms crossed, while a 6-year-old on a stick horse clears a pool noodle, lands it, and doesn't look back to see if anyone saw.
Nobody needed to; it was a great jump.