September, 2002: Abduction of Values

This past summer and spring, it seemed that each week, there was news of a new child abduction. From Milwaukee’s little Alexis Patterson to Utah’s Elizabeth Smart, each case left me nauseated and afraid. For awhile, I reacted to the stories as if my responsibility as a mother was to assume an abduction could happen to my two boys — ages 7 and 4 — anywhere, anytime. I hovered on the porch as they played in front of the house. I took note of unfamiliar cars in our neighborhood. My husband and I reviewed the “don’t go with strangers” rule and rehashed our “these body parts are private” discussions.  We amended our talks about being nice to everyone and gave our usually-polite little boys  permission to yell and scream and bite and kick if anyone ever tried to take them. Mostly, we walked the tightrope between not scaring the boys with too much information and giving them enough to offer some protection.

Protection. The more I thought about the role my husband and I have as our children’s protectors (in addition to being their cooks, garbage collectors, chauffeurs and entertainers), the less likely abduction by a stranger seemed and the more likely abduction by society in general became. While strangers snatching children is still so rare and terrible that it makes front page news, the abduction of a child’s value system is so common, many of us don’t see it anymore.

I decided I needed be less worried about some nameless villain lurking in the shadows and more worried about the dominant American culture kidnapping the souls of my sons.

Every generation of parents has had its own enemy to fight in terms of protecting their young. Ages ago, cold winters, starvation and wild animals posed the biggest danger to children. In the more recent past, parents were terrified of polio. Today, the biggest threats to our children are insidious and in disguise. Materialism, consumerism, and a culture that glorifies violence, casual sex and self-centeredness prey on our children on a daily basis.

For the first time in human history, many stand to gain more — at least in the short term — by corrupting children than by caring for them. 

There is money to be made in selling children toys they don’t need and clothes that will go out of style in six months; in convincing them to buy food that corrodes their arteries and entertainment that corrodes their minds. There’s money to be made in taking teens’ natural interest in sex and using it to sell everything from CDs to TV shows to glossy girls’ magazines. Too many stand to make a huge profit if they can convince children that in all things, more is not enough.

I realized, as I watched my little boys play in the front yard, that the Gospel values of living simply, caring little for possessions and reaching out to the marginalized are not only different than the values of society at large, but are actually at odds with those values. And that’s where abduction comes in. Because in order for big corporations to convince my sons that they need to watch a cartoon with rude or violent characters, buy countless plastic action figures or judge people by the brands they’re wearing, they will first need to convince my children that the values they have been taught at home are wrong. They will need to steal our family’s — our faith’s — teachings. And they’re working hard to do it — with clever billboards, slick commercials, and even by using those children whose value systems they’ve already stolen.

But my husband and I, and many parents we know, are working just as hard. Having been given the gift and responsibility of parenthood, we are holding tight to our children, even as our culture strains to pull them from us. We are seeing through the empty promises of commercials and are teaching our children to do the same. We are deciding that driving past is often better than driving “thru.” We are acting as guardians and protectors of our children — making decisions about what music, TV programs and clothes are welcome in our home — and which are not. And most importantly, we are making choices in our own lives that teach our children that we value helping people and protecting the earth over buying more and more stuff. 

And yet, I know no matter what we do, it is still possible that our children’s values may be abducted, for there are no guarantees. We offer them the best protection we know and send them out into the world — and we pray they will not be taken.

August, 2002-- Shopping for my boy in the Girls department

            Three years ago, when my son Liam was just beginning to toddle, all of his clothes were cute. Tiny trains made their way across the front of his overalls. Smiling lions peeked out from pockets. Some of his hats even had ears. A friend of mine has a girl, Tyra, about the same age, and her baby clothes were darling as well. Fuzzy kittens, ladybugs, the whole bit. When Liam turned three, though, something changed. While Tyra's clothes continued to sprout animals with big eyes and goofy grins, Liam's became more subdued. Tyra had bumblebees, elephants and Elmo. Liam had flannel shirts and jeans.

  Shopping for a gift in the little girls' department, I found it bursting whimsical patterns and bright colors. The boys' department, on the other hand, was determined to stay serious, concentrating instead on forest green and all things sports. I was annoyed.

It wasn't that I wanted my son to wear daisies and frills or to be any less masculine. The child exited the womb knowing how to make car sounds, and could hit solid grounders before he was out of diapers. I was fine with that. It was just that when I described him as a little boy, "little" was the operative word, and I wanted his clothing to reflect this. At age three, he had more in common with the drooling baby a few doors down than he did with the preteen boys in their low-riding jeans who skateboarded on our street. And I knew that there was precious little time this would be true.

After looking at one too many rugby shirts one day while folding laundry, I decided to beat the system. Armed with my charge card, I strode into the local department store and headed for the pink sign that said Girls. After flipping through a few racks of shirts that were too flowery, too frilly, or too pink, I found what I was looking for: a striped blue and white sweater, size four. There were no flowers, no bows, no ruffles. On the front though, was sewn an adorable fuzzy brown bear. The ears stuck out, and the bear smiled at me shyly as I looked at it. It was the perfect sweater for a three-year-old boy.

Liam loved the sweater, and so did his buddies on our block. I was hooked. When I wanted a new outfit for him to wear for his first day of pre-school, I did only a cursory check of the boys' department, then went to the girls' section and found a navy sweater vest stitched with primary colored ABC's, crayons and pencils. He wore it with a crisp white t-shirt and khaki pants.

When I told my friends about my exciting discovery, showing them my newest find, a red Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt, they seemed confused. They wondered why I cared what he wore. I paused at their questions. Why did I care so much? I’m a woman who doesn’t know the current fashion trend until it makes its way to the clearance rack. In my free time, I read Newsweek, not Vogue. Why was I suddenly so concerned about the wardrobe possibilities for young boys?

            Upon reflection, I discovered my concerns went deeper than the clothes themselves. What bothers me is the message implicit in the difference between boys' and girls' clothes. The fact that my husband could safely wear a larger size of just about anything in the boys' department, but I'd look ridiculous in adult versions of the little girl clothes tells me that it’s okay for girls to be small and cute, but boys are expected to be little men. While strides have been made in the last generation, it's still true that girls can cry when their feelings are hurt, but boys are expected to hold back their tears. Middle school girls take stuffed animals to slumber parties; boys leave theirs in the darkness of their own bedrooms. Studies show that parents tend to hug and touch their little girls more than their boys. And a baby boy might be referred to as a "tough" little guy, but few would use the same adjective for a baby girl. There is something unsettling about these things. All children have the right to be children; to be small and protected, to be vulnerable and un-tough. They need to be able to cry and be held. They need permission to be kids in a world which seems intent on selling adulthood to children.

The flip side of my problem with little boys’ clothes, my friends with girls tell me, is that once their girls outgrow size 7, the stores offer them slinky, midriff-baring, Brittany-inspired outfits that would be more appropriate on a rock stage than a playground. Should these moms visit the boys’ department for some nice solid-colored turtlenecks to wear under those outfits? Yikes.

             As far as four-year-old Liam is concerned, though, Girls 4-7 continues to offer strong possibilities occasionally. While I know that bright colors and ABC's won't change everything, a fuzzy bear on the front Liam's sweater might remind me how young he really is; it might make me bend down and touch his chubby cheeks. Though I may not even be conscious of it, that bear might earn my son an extra hug. And I'll shop for extra hugs in whatever department sells them.

*          *          *

March, 2002 Jacob's first ashes

Jacob, my first grader, received ashes this past Ash Wednesday for the first time. And I wept.

I didn’t expect for it to be such an emotional experience. After all, receiving ashes is not a sacrament, and sometimes children much younger than my son receive them as they stand next to their parents. As a preschooler and kindergartener, though, little Jacob had hid his face behind my leg as I received my ashes, so that the unfamiliar minister could not mark his forehead. This Ash Wednesday, though, Jacob was not with me for Mass. He was with his class, and I was a dozen pews behind him, with the rest of the parents. There would be no leg to hide behind.

            As Jacob approached the sixth grade teacher to receive his ashes, I was one aisle over, in line for my own ashes, watching him.

            Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

            Dust. In moments, the teacher was going to tell my son he was dust, and that he would return to dust someday. The teacher was going to tell Jacob he would someday die. And standing in line to receive my own ashes, I knew she was speaking the truth. But hearing the words repeated over and over as each person before me received his or her ashes, I recognized that I held in my heart the tiniest hope that this phrase wouldn’t be true for my son. That Jacob would somehow beat the system. That he wouldn’t suffer and die like the rest of us. That maybe, if my husband and I could just love him enough, dust to dust would not apply.

            Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

            In his homily, the priest had explained the phrase to the children by saying we are only on Earth a certain amount of time. He had held his hands about three feet apart, emphasizing with each hand the beginning and the end of life. During this life, he said, Jesus wants us to be the very best disciples we can be. The ashes remind us we only have a short time to do this.

            And as I looked at Jacob, now just three children away from receiving his ashes, I suddenly realized that his time to be a disciple had already begun. He was old enough to understand Father’s homily; old enough to understand about life being about 80 years if you’re lucky and possibly much shorter. He was old enough to start being a disciple. 

            And that’s when my tears welled. For there is something wonderful and terrible about watching someone you love become a disciple. Being a follower of Jesus is never easy, if you do it right. And to invite a child to become a disciple is to invite that child to enter into some of the suffering that discipleship requires. Parental love made me want to shield my son from any pain. Christian love called me to help him learn to live his life in a rhythm of continual dying and rising with Christ.

Earlier, on the way to school, Jacob and I had talked about the rice that he and his classmates would have for lunch that day as part of Operation Rice Bowl. The money saved from not buying the regular school menu items would be given to the poor. As I drove, we talked about the circumstances of the children in the world who do not get enough to eat each day. I asked Jacob why he thought we chose to eat just rice, and didn’t simply eat our regular food, and give the same amount of money to the poor. How can your hunger help kids so far away? I asked. Troubled, Jacob thought for a moment, then said that maybe if we were hungry after lunch because of just eating rice, we would understand a little how it must feel to be hungry all the time, and maybe we would help more because of it.

Old enough to understand. Old enough to be a disciple.

And so, my son stepped forward to receive his ashes. And I stood, watching—somehow as both parent and fellow journeyer. Dust to dust, dear Jacob. Life is so short. Live as a disciple. 

January, 2002: Thanks Mom and Dad for Catholic Education

My parents gave me the gift of 16 years of Catholic education and I’m not sure I ever thanked them for it. From first grade on, I went to school in places where we prayed daily, worshiped together at Mass, and learned about our faith just as surely as we learned our math facts and our parts of speech. While my parents knew I was getting a good education and they were happy with my faith formation, they couldn’t know exactly how my Catholic education was forming me. They couldn’t know, in part, because I didn’t know myself. Not at the time. I never came home from school and said, “Mom, I learned something today that will affect my faith development for the rest of my life.”  Instead, I drank in my Catholic education like it was water, breathed it like it was air — and took it for granted just as surely as I take water and air for granted. So today, on the eve of Catholic School’s Week, I have decided it is time I let my parents know just what it was they gave me, and thank them for it. 

Dear Mom and Dad,

            The strangest thing about the gift of a Catholic education is I didn’t realize it was a gift at the time. Even as a kid, I usually recognized gifts. I remember exclaiming over the Weebles Tree House you gave me for my sixth birthday, and gasping over the Barbie camper I received on my ninth. I remember hugging you for the pink running suit (so 80’s) that I ran in all through high school. But I know I never thanked you properly for the sixteen-years-long, thousands-of-dollars-later, skip-that-vacation and wait-on-the-new-furniture gift of a Catholic education.

I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but now, with two kids in Catholic school, and another toddling toward it at breakneck speed, I understand. And so I will thank you for the pieces of my education you could not have known about.

            Thank you for fourth grade at Holy Family with Mrs. Foti. I still remember our class’ role planning the Mass on the last day of school. The Catholic Church may have higher holy days than the last Mass before summer vacation, but as a nine-year-old, I couldn’t think of anything bigger than sending everyone into the summer with a holy bang. Fourth grade was 1978, and guitar Masses were all the rage. We wrote the petitions and chose songs based on the readings. We belted out, “They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love,” keeping beat on our tambourines. I learned that planning a liturgy was not a job reserved for priests or mysterious adult leaders. A fourth grader could do it. A girl could do it. At nine, I learned what “we are the church” really means.

            Thank you for seventh and eighth grade with Mrs. Gallagher. I definitely didn’t tell you what I learned from Mrs. Gallagher, because she taught a human sexuality unit as part of religion class. She would allow us to write our questions on little slips of paper and she’d answer them. Mrs. Gallagher blended frank answers with Church teaching; she provided me with a lens through which I could see a sacredness to sexuality that I may have missed otherwise. Those religion classes, coupled with a marriage and family class I had in high school, shaped decisions I made in dating.

            Throughout high school, I doubt if I ever mentioned Fr. Jerry. Fr. Jerry was not a headline teacher. He was thin, quiet and seemed a little shy. But then again, compared to a shrieking adolescent girl, who doesn’t seem shy? Fr. Jerry taught Justice and Peace at Dominican. He pushed us beyond the boundaries of the upper-middle class North Shore. He made us look at poverty and oppression and ask the question, “Why?” And ask it again. Fr. Jerry started me thinking about injustice, both in the U.S. and across our borders. I would not have read the U.S. Bishops 1986 Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching if it weren’t for Fr. Jerry. It was a letter that told me that it was okay to rock the boat —  that in fact, rocking the boat was part of our calling as Catholics.

            And then there’s your biggest ticket item. Marquette University. You gave me the choice between Catholic and public; I chose Catholic and never even saw you wince. My experience of Marquette was 10 p.m. Masses at Joan of Arc Chapel, retreats and campus ministry. Marquette was a week doing service work with Brother Booker Ashe in Milwaukee’s inner city and a week in Appalachia, helping repair run-down houses. Marquette built on what Mrs. Foti, Mrs. Gallagher and Fr. Jerry started. Marquette handed me the Catholic baton, told me it was my Church and to take off toward adulthood running hard and strong, with that baton always in hand.

            I’m sorry I didn’t thank you at the time. I was too busy relating stories of sixth grade cliques and explaining exactly why I didn’t like algebra. I remember complaining to you about various teachers throughout the years and about Marquette University’s refusal to divest from South Africa. These Catholic schools were far from perfect, and I made sure you knew exactly why.

            But perfect or not, in most ways, Holy Family, Dominican and Marquette University reinforced what you taught at home. By the time I graduated, prayer and faith were not abstract concepts but living and real parts of my life. Working for justice was not someone else’s responsibility; it was mine. Catholic schools gave me an ownership of my Catholic faith that I’m not sure I could have developed in any other way.

 The Weebles Tree House, the Barbie camper and the pink running suit are all fond memories now. I really can’t say what became of any of them. But I know what became of the Catholic education. Somehow, it became me.

Love, your daughter,

Annemarie

October, 2001: Baby #3?

My 3-year-old is napping and my 6-year-old is in school and I’m thinking of another baby again. These “third baby” thoughts rarely come when the boys are fighting or I’m woken up in the middle of the night by someone who needs a drink or fell out of bed. The thoughts of baby number three come when the house is quiet; when Jacob puts his arm around his little brother and kisses him; when Liam tells me he loves me “this much” and holds out his chubby little arms just as far as he can. My third baby thoughts come during those times that it seems that my boys are growing so fast I can almost see their pants getting shorter as they stand in front of me. They come when I pick up Jacob from school and I look at an 8^th grader towering over his mother and realize that, God-willing, my son will stand taller than me in fewer years than I would have believed possible when I held him as a tiny newborn.

            When my husband Bill and I got married, we had not talked about what size our family would be. My surprise pregnancy with Jacob happened before we could get to the family-size discussion, and once we had Jacob, it never occurred to me that we would have any fewer or more than two babies. Bill and I each have one sister and having two children seemed natural—a given almost. When Liam was a baby, I would look at other moms I knew with three or four, and in one case, five children, and not understand what drove people to have more than two children. To me, two children were children enough.

One child seemed like a lonely idea, but three or more meant that parents played zone defense rather than man-to-man. With baby Liam and preschooler Jacob, I saw no need to make more work for ourselves.

            Something changed within me as Liam approached his third birthday and I’m still not sure what it is. We went to the beach with some friends, and I had so much fun with my wet, slippery boys, that I began to think that I didn’t want this pudgy, innocent stage to end so soon. I splashed Liam in the water and watched Jacob practicing his very shaky front crawl and wanted the day to last forever. The boys were just independent enough to walk and play in the water without a constant hand from me, yet they delighted in my “motorboat” rides and grabbed my hand as they jumped off the pier. Suddenly, it seemed that in just a whisper of time passing, they would be floating away into the deeper water. And while I didn’t want to prevent them from growing up, it occurred to me that I could have another one. That I was allowed to have another one. That just because I never wanted a third before didn’t mean I couldn’t change my mind. I had never before stretched my mind around the idea of a third bed, a third car seat—or most exciting, a first pink dress-- and letting my imagination go to a future I had never before considered was exhilarating.

            My husband Bill understands these baby-longings of mine, and is especially attuned to the fact that a part of the baby longing, might be, more specifically, baby girl-longings. But when Bill looks at the possibility of another child for us, he sees the thousands of U.S. children languishing in foster care, waiting for a mom or a dad to call their own. He believes one of these children may be our first responsibility as a family. Why make our own when there are others that need our care?

            And I have no argument. Our family is healthy and happy and whole. Bill is a teacher; I have a background in education as well, and am home with our children almost full-time. As far as I can tell, our marriage is more stable than most. Our children are well-behaved; they seem well-adjusted and secure. We have enough money and enough room. If there is any home that a foster child would feel welcome, ours would be one. Part of our wedding vows included a promise to always reach out to others, and we both recognize there would be no greater way to reach out than to welcome an abandoned or abused child into our family.

            And yet.

            That’s all I can say. The yets add up in my mind. And yet I’d love to see a daughter who has my hair or my laugh. And I’m not sure I want to complicate our lives with the problems that foster care could bring. And I feel like we have one life to live and it’s seeming shorter by the day, and if I even think for a second I want to have a third child, we should. And I just think it would be exciting to see what one more combination of Bill and Annemarie would be, so happy we are with the first two.

            But if I really felt that strongly to have another one, I could pull Bill to my side quickly and easily. If I felt a “YES I DO,” instead of a “I think I might,” he would jump in with few questions. But I don’t have that certainty. Each time I see a foster care case in the headlines, I can’t help but think, “We could do that,” and know there would be less chance we would if we have another of our own. And sometimes I’m just not sure I want one more little person around the house—biological child or not. When the boys argue; when the laundry piles up; when I think that another baby would put my career on hold even longer, I have little desire for one more. I don’t look longingly at pregnant women--  while I appreciated the miracle of childbirth, I didn’t particularly enjoy being pregnant. Neither do I envy my friend down the street who has a newborn. With 2:00 a.m. feedings several years in the past, and diapers safely packed away, sometimes I have little desire to go back to square one. I had both children before I was 30, ahead of many of my friends. In doing so I exchanged the freedom of my twenties for the responsibilities of parenthood. I don’t have any regrets, but now, with freedom coming back in small tastes—a night out here, a weekend away there, do I want to give up my mid-thirties as well?

            I don’t think I do. But I’m not completely sure. And that’s the problem, because each month that slips away is one month more in age-difference between our boys and the new baby. I can’t help but wondering if there’s a little girl in our future. I can’t help but wonder what the 40-year-old me would say to the 33-year-old me that writes right now. Would she say go for it because she loves having a six-year-old along with her preteen and teenager, or would she say that the two boys are enough and she has embraced this new stage of ‘big kid’ parenting? And maybe more importantly than what I would say 7 years down the road is what I would say in 15 years, when both boys are in college and the “baby” would just be starting high school, or in 25 years, when this yet unborn child and I might pick out her wedding dress together.

            In spite of many happy visions of what this baby might mean to me later, though, the idea of becoming pregnant today fills me with equal parts of trepidation and joy. I am so happy with our family as it stands. I have this feeling that we may be complete. And as I ponder this question yet one more time, I feel that I have almost answered it. While I’m not sure if I’m called to a third baby, I feel like I need to examine the idea carefully. I need to cradle the idea of a baby. Hold the idea. Nurture the idea. And maybe allow that idea to become a reality. Or possibly let that idea go, knowing that I took a good, long look at it. I believe God speaks through  the desires of our hearts. I need to stop long enough to listen to what my desires are. My prayer is that I might listen closely enough.