I Never Liked Kids. Then They Started Sending Me Letters

For reasons I do not completely understand, the children who live across the street adore me. About once a month I find a love note in my mailbox, penned by the oldest girl, who is 7, and “signed” by the two younger boys, who are 4 and 1. My husband’s name, Daryl, is almost always charmingly misspelled, and never in the same way.

Their letters attest to their love for us in flowy, newly-learned cursive writing embellished with colorful hearts. The last one we got suggested that a new holiday called “Neighbor Day” be instated (interestingly, neighbor was spelled correctly), and as the note was in our mailbox, we supposed this meant we were the neighbors to be celebrated.

It’s charming, if baffling. People who know me know I prefer almost everything in the world to children, with the possible exception of traffic circles and cold pasta salad. I am much more likely to cry at movies that feature animals, even if the animals are in no way harmed, than I am to smile at movies that feature children doing the allegedly adorable things children do.

I can only surmise that my neighbor children’s love for me (and yes, I think it is centered on me, and has very little to do with my misspelled husband) was actually strengthened by the fact that I barely engaged with them when we moved to the neighborhood. I was like that enigmatic kid in school who, by ignoring the flirtatious attentions of others, became utterly irresistible.

My mother’s theory about why I’ve always been disinterested in children is that I didn’t like myself when I was a child. She’s baffled about why this might be. I think it’s because whenever I misbehaved or pestered her, she said she hoped I’d grow up and have a child just like me, which I understood to be a curse. It was enough to scare me off motherhood. And not just motherhood, but children in general. I have also always kept a respectable distance from my younger cousins, my nieces and nephews, my friends’ children, and children in stores, at parks and, of course, in the neighborhoods where I’ve lived.

But I can’t completely ignore the kids across the way; I’m not an ogre. A few days after their notes appear in my mailbox, I sit down at my desk with my watercolor markers and write back to them. My letters are short on words and long on quirky illustrations of their backyard chickens, of our dogs, of me and of my misspelled husband. Sometimes the friendly garter snake that lives in our yard gets a mention, and once I wrote specific instructions on the envelope that the letter was TOP SECRET and could only be viewed by one of the three kids or their parents but that absolutely NO chickens were allowed to lay eyes on it. This, I heard from the parents, caused special glee.

I know my notes back probably fuel their love for us (me), but I am not sure what else to do. Not responding seems like a harsh alternative, and besides, for someone who mostly feels like Cruella de Vil around children, this is good for my self-image. I don’t want to be the proverbial mean old lady who screams at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn. Let’s face it, if I’d wanted to torment children, I’d have had a few of my own.

I admit this is not the first time I’ve been unjustly loved by children. And it always surprises me how resilient a child’s worship is in the face of very little encouragement. It’s like there is an undying loyalty, similar to that of dogs, that, if we are not careful, can mold us into people worthy of receiving it. In my case, and completely without meaning to, I have risen to the occasion of my neighbor kids’ adulation, and practically adored them right back. Last year at Halloween I special-ordered witch and goblin cookies just for them. And in response to their last letter, which included a charmingly incoherent missive on one page and a colorful drawing of something I think might be my Nissan Xterra on another, I went into my studio and, on carefully sanded plywood, painted 4-by-6-inch portraits of them, which I delivered to their mailbox a few days later.

It’s a frightening loss of control. Obviously, there is a chink in the armor, and my carefully curated collection of acceptable others is slowly expanding. As I write this, I can hear the high voices of the kids across the way, and I wonder whether there is another letter to us in the works. After all, I did end my last one back to them with, “Please write again soon with more news.”

Honestly, I don’t know what is wrong with me.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com