I Thought I Was Giving My Daughter A Life Any Kid Would Dream Of. I Was Shocked By Her Response.

Moving to Hawaii may sound like a dream come true, but for our family, it was a forced relocation thanks to a set of orders from the U.S. Navy. We were excited about island life, but five military duty stations into my marriage, I knew better than to expect an easy transition. 

Week one felt like a vacation. My husband and I had never been to Hawaii, so everything was fresh: waterfall hikes, shave ice, world-class beaches. Even the one-lane traffic on the North Shore felt charming. These weren’t orders we requested or expected, but we kept telling ourselves: This is going to be great! As well as: The kids are resilient! They’re going to be fine!

By week two, our 5-year-old middle child, Alice, had fully committed to not being fine.

Her Hawaii life was starting to sound like her personal version of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” She had to share a bed with her little sister. Her nose got sunburned. On day three at the new-to-us beach, she got stung by a box jellyfish. 

And all the other kids at the Navy Lodge seemed to be either her big brother’s age or her little sister’s — not a single new best friend in sight. Every sentence began with “I juuuust don’t like…” and ended with “…and can we please juuuuust go back to Virginia?”

Meanwhile, my husband and I were running dangerously low on optimism ourselves. Living in Hawaii quickly stopped feeling like vacation and started feeling like crushing reality: unbelievable grocery bills, including $9 for a gallon of milk, $4,000 to ship our car overseas, and mountains of paperwork to dig through, ranging from car registration to reimbursement for our stay at said Navy Lodge.

We pinned our hopes on the first day of school. Surely, a little structure would help everyone. Surely Alice would come home bubbling with new-friend stories, tired and happy from a long kindergarten day.

Nope.

At pick-up, full of best-case-scenario expectations, we asked, “How was your day?” But instead of happily chirping about new friends and exciting specials, she launched into a tirade that rivaled any talking head you’ve seen on cable news. 

Her school didn’t even have a real playground — just a blacktop. All the other kindergartners had gone to pre-k together and didn’t want to be her friend. She couldn’t FaceTime Grandma after dinner because of the time difference. Her favorite after-school activity (playing on the backyard swingset) was 4,800 miles away. She was outraged that our hotel had only one potty instead of “three potties, like a regular house.” And the novelty of eating dinner on paper plates on a hotel floor? Worn off, big time.

I want to be the mom who validates feelings and listens with saintly patience. But when your 5-year-old delivers a personalized podcast nightly on why your new home is the actual worst —and blames you personally— it wears a person down.

After a week, I made a quiet decision: I’d stop asking her how her day was. Not out of spite, but survival. If she wanted to tell me, she could, but I wasn’t going to prompt her.

Next, I tried that thing adults always tell other adults: “Focus on the positive.” I have journaled on and off for decades — from middle school drama to post-partum exhaustion —  and I hoped maybe it could help Alice, too. I bought a jaunty little composition book with a cartoon sun on the cover and dubbed it “Alice’s Positivity Notebook.” We were going to fake it until we made it.