June, 2005 Summer vacation

On one of the first days of summer vacation, my sister called. She had known the boys had swimming lessons in the morning and was wondering what they did in the afternoon.

            “They bickered,” I said.

            “All afternoon?”

            “Pretty much.”

            Maureen found this funny, partly because she doesn’t have kids, partly because I made it sound like it was an actual activity. Time to swim, then lunchtime, followed by a period of incessant bickering.

            Now, a month later, we are in the middle of summer and while the boys still bicker occasionally, it doesn’t seem to be the full-time sport it was in early June.

            If the first week of school is takeoff, the first week of vacation after the school year is reentry. For astronauts, reentry is the most dangerous time. As they pass from space into the atmosphere, the temperature outside their spacecraft can reach three thousand degrees. Without the proper equipment and the correct maneuvers before and during reentry, they will perish.

            Summer vacation means reentry into the family. No longer is everything in the boys’ world set up exactly for their age and developmental level.  For six-year-old Liam, reentry heat is turned on as he tries to keep up with his brother, 3 years older. For Jacob, the heat comes through frustration with a little brother who asks too many questions and doesn’t always understand everything on the first try. And both of them need to deal with the thousand-degree toddler, who is apt to scribble on their pictures, take apart their Lego creations and generally pull away Mom and Dad’s attention.

            To avoid what felt like an inevitable crash and burn, I found myself giving my boys the equivalent of the ceramic tiles put on the outside of the spaceship to resist the heat. For the first part of the space age, scientists didn’t think reentry without burning was possible. Because of this, they didn’t even man the first flights. As they learned more about how to manage the reentry process, they developed spacecrafts that were better and better able to handle the heat. I’m sure each parent has developed his or her own “tiles” that help with reentry and cut down on bickering. My tiles can be boiled down to three sentences. The first week of vacation, I found myself saying each several times a day. Now, it seems that the boys actually internalized them somewhat, and I don’t need to say them as often:

            Tile 1: “Find something he’s saying that you agree with and talk about that.” This is especially aimed at 10-year-old Jacob. Too often, Liam would make a statement about something, and Jacob would find the one thing about it that was incorrect and point it out. To prevent a conversation from escalating to an argument over small points, Jacob needed to see that the object of conversing wasn’t to find every error in what Liam was saying. His job was to find Liam’s main point and build on that, rather than tear down a smaller point.

            Tile 2: “No one can talk until the next stop light.” When it seemed that every car ride was a trip to Bickerfest, I began instituting whole blocks of silence when I heard an argument was starting. At the stoplight, they could talk again, but if the talk goes back to the same old argument, then it’s more silence until another landmark. They soon learned that if they have any hope of doing anything in the car besides listening to NPR, they needed to talk civilly to each other.

            Tile 3: “You’re arguing over the computer? You’re lucky to have a computer.” This is my social justice tile. I noticed that a lot of the things the boys argued over wouldn’t even be available to the average kid in a third-world country. Early in the summer, I explained (and re-explained) why kids in another place would be so happy to take turns with whatever my boys both wanted to use at once. I found I could apply the lesson to just about any material thing. “Do you know how lucky you are to have a ___?” (basketball, turn to choose the TV show, bike.) I’m not sure if they now have internalized this message or just don’t want me to start the third-world lecture again, since it does tend to be long.  Regardless, they are not fighting as much over objects.

            I have been able to write this whole essay as the boys played whiffle ball in the front yard. The first week of summer, I wouldn’t have been able to get through the first paragraph.

The reentry is successful, Houston.

And I’m going to enjoy it until we need to once again prepare for takeoff.

June, 2005-- Bragging parents

No one likes to hear a mother bragging about her kids. While every parent has moments of thinking his or her child is the smartest, cutest, most athletic, kindest kid in the class (and perhaps the city or even the nation) we all know there are limits of how much others want to hear about our kids. I would like to brag as much as the next mother, but I hold myself back, and expect others to do the same.

The other night, we were at a fund-raising dinner for a local charity and were placed at a table with a couple we had never met. Their children were about the same age as ours, and we soon learned the mother was home schooling. She spent the first course of dinner going on about how brilliant these kids were because of her home schooling.

            “Our kindergartener just finished Treasure Island,” she gushed across the table.

            “Really,” I said, reaching for the rolls. “The real Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, or an abridged version?”

            “Well, an abridged version, but still, it had chapters,” she said.

            “It was 164 pages long,” her husband added.

            “Now that would be something, if he could read the actual Treasure Island, wouldn’t it?” I said.

            As a former teacher, I knew as well as anyone that it is a feat for any kindergartener to even be able to read the words “treasure” and “island,” let alone an abridged version of the classic novel. Truly, anything beyond Dick and Jane is considered quite advanced for kindergarten. Yet, somehow, I could not give this mother the satisfaction of an amazed reaction. I needed to downplay her son’s achievement.

            My husband teased me about it later on the car ride home.

            “The REAL Treasure Island?  Oh, just the abridged version. Well, then.”

            “I couldn’t help it,” I said. “It just popped out.”

            The desire to brag about our children is not all bad. In fact, when done to the right audience — the child’s other parent, grandparents, even aunts and uncles — it can be a wonderful thing. Some of my favorite conversations with Bill have been when the kids are gone for the weekend and we have a chance to catch up with each other and talk about great things they’ve done lately. (Of course, the fact that we are alone for the weekend always helps us think fondly of the kids.)  Grandparents never recognize parental bragging for what it is-- they call it “news” and soak it up. And aunts and uncles — especially childless ones — tend to be their nieces and nephews’ biggest fans.

            When kept within the confines of the family, or even within close friendships, telling of our children’s accomplishments helps us to appreciate them even more. One example of Liam’s creativity, told by me, often sparks his grandmother to think of another example, and soon we are basking in the glory of Liam-ness. It’s a nice place to be.

            The difference between boasting inside and outside the family circle has to do with how full a picture the listener has of your child. In the case of close friends and family, a proud parent’s comment about a child’s accomplishment is just one piece of the puzzle. Grandma heard about how Liam hit his sister yesterday, but today she’s hearing about the elaborate popsicle-stick crucifix he made at school. Both are parts of Liam. She sees the whole picture and delights in the good.  In the case of the Treasure Island reading kindergartener, though, that’s all I know about him. His mom is providing a one-sided view, and while I know it can’t be all that there is, I can’t very well ask, “Yes, but what are his bad points?” so I choose to diminish the one good point I do know about. Was it nice of me? Not really. But it did just pop out.

             Our vast parental love for our children propels us into wishing that everyone could love and appreciate our children as we do. Our mistake is thinking that if others could just know of our child’s gifts and strengths, they too, would love our child. The irony is the opposite is true. The people who love our children most are those who know their wobbles as well as their triumphs.

            Swapping stories of missteps-- whether our own or our children’s-- is an important part of telling the parenting story. It’s a way of making sure we don’t puff up with pride in our own accomplishments. Acknowledging imperfections keeps us grounded and true. It releases us from the fear that either our children or we need to be perfect in order to be loved. Telling of foibles as well as triumphs allows us to take one step further away from conditional love. At the same time, it brings us one step closer to love without condition — love even through faults and failings. And that brings us one step closer to loving as God does.

May, 2005: A new house?

ZIP codes are on my mind. My husband and I are in the beginning stages of house-hunting. With all three kids in one bedroom  (sharing a closet), things in our current home are feeling a bit tight. Since right now, our lives center around the kids’ school, we want to buy a house within a reasonable radius of that school. Four different suburbs surround St. Monica, but they share one ZIP code, so when I search one of the Realty Web sites for houses, I enter that ZIP code as a way of narrowing the search.

            Entering the ZIP code makes me a little uncomfortable because of a homily I heard a few years ago. The homily was so right on and true that it has stayed with me. I attended Mass that day with some friends, so we all heard it, and to this day, we refer to the homily as “Luck of the ZIP code.”

            The priest’s point was that many of the successes we congratulate ourselves for, are not really ours alone, but are ours by virtue of being born into the “right” ZIP code. Strong school systems, crime-free neighborhoods and intact families are all more common in some ZIP codes than others. People who grow up in these ZIP codes have an immediate advantage over their counterparts who are born into poor, crime-ridden ZIP codes. Fr. John Horan cautioned us against being judgmental toward others or puffing up with pride at our own accomplishments — had we been born into a different ZIP code, our lives could be very different. 

            Sometimes I think of that homily as I key in the ZIP code for the area we’re interested in. No one would argue that it’s not a fine ZIP code to buy a home. Houses are well-maintained, streets are quiet, children are generally well-cared for and well-educated. Property values go up each year. What bothers me is not that our family has  the opportunity to purchase a home in this ZIP code; it’s that other families do not have this chance. The very people who could most benefit from the quiet neighborhoods and excellent school systems of our ZIP code cannot afford to live here. Once you’re born into a very poor ZIP code, your chances of ever living in a wealthy one are very slim.

            And that’s where the second part of the priest’s homily comes in. He challenged the congregation to see the inherent injustice in the luck of the ZIP code. He called us to use our own resources, talents and time to work to make things better for those whose roll of the ZIP code dice was not as fortunate as our own.

            I don’t know what the Gospel was the day of that homily, but it could very well have been the parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus tells his followers to love their neighbor, they ask him what “neighbor” means. Jesus replies with the story of the Samaritan man. Samaria was certainly in another ZIP code, and the parable shows us how Jesus calls us to reach beyond human-made borders as a response to his command to love one another. 

            As Bill and I continue our house hunt, I know the message of Fr. John’s homily will stick with me, like an itch that won’t go away. And that’s okay. If the role of Jesus is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, I’ll admit that in my search for more closet space and another bedroom, I can use a little afflicting — especially on those days when I start thinking about a first-floor laundry room. And while originally, becoming a foster parent was a way of reaching out to those from other ZIP codes, we will adopt our current foster daughter this Thursday. In four days, we won’t have a foster child; we will have a daughter. And as a new family of five, we will need to find another way to reach out across the ZIP code line.

April, 2005 Adoption Day for Jamie

            Her name is Jamilet — Jamie. For seven months, she was our foster daughter. We adopted her April 28, and now, she is as much our daughter as Jacob and Liam are our sons, so her days of privacy are over — with a mom who’s a columnist, the best she can hope for in terms of privacy is that her brothers will do newsworthy things more often than she does. In yet another God-incidence (not coincidence) the court-decided adoption date of April 28 was Bill's mother's birthday, and she is also adopted.   

Jamie’s older biological sisters named her, and while Bill and I already have a Jamie as a brother-in-law, a Jamie for a boy cousin and a Jamie for a good (male) friend of the family, we figure we can handle one more. Keeping her name is one way we can honor her family of origin. We hope it will also be one fewer question to answer when she’s older.

            The question I hear the most since the adoption is, “Does it feel different?” I wish I could say it did. I wish that I had some dramatic story to tell about how, at the moment of adoption, everything changed. I never liked those questions on my birthday as a kid, either. “How does it feel to be eight?” an uncle would ask. It didn’t feel any different.

For me, growing to love Jamilet as a daughter began the first day I met her, as a foster daughter. Just as I didn’t know newborn Jacob and Liam, I didn’t know 1-year-old Jamilet. Yet, with all three, I felt an almost instant sense of responsibility and protectiveness. I’m not a fan of babysitting for other people’s children, and one of my fears before I had Jacob, and then again, before I became a foster parent for the first time, would be that I would feel about the child like I did about my friends’ children — fondly, but not passionately. But with both of my biological sons, my two foster daughters, and now, with adopted Jamie, the passion kicked in right away. For me, there was something about knowing I was a child’s mother — whether for a month or for a lifetime — that clicked on a sense of interest and purpose I do not feel for other children. With Jacob and Liam, with my other two foster daughters, and now with Jamie, the passage of time deepens the love. I can’t say I love Jacob more now, at 10, than I loved him when he was 2, but I can say I love him more fully now. Jacob is a more complex person now; there are more aspects to love, and as I discover those aspects, I can more fully know him as God knows him. The same is true for Liam and Jamie. As they grow into who they are, I love them more fully.

In Jamie’s adoption, the court recognized officially what Bill and I had long felt. She is a member of our family. There is a bond here that cannot be broken.

On adoption day, we went to the courthouse with both sets of our parents, Bill’s sister and her family, Jamie’s original foster mother, and my grandmother and uncle. We brought with us a bunch of pink helium balloons, and an enormous, 20-foot long, 3 foot wide pink banner, made by Liam, proclaiming, “Happy Adoption!” in big first grade block letters. He taped it to the front of the judge’s bench.  I got so choked up on the first question (“Please state and spell your name”) that I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to continue. Jamie raced around the courtroom in a pretty white dress and brand new patent leather shoes, excited that everyone she knew was all together in the same room. And after all the questions were answered and the forms were signed, the judge invited the boys up to the bench. They each got to pound the gavel and say, “This adoption is final.”

Finally final. We are so thankful.

April 2005 We're Center of the Universe, and holding...

For most of their lives, our children will not live with us. If they take the same path Bill and I did, they will fly the coop for college at 18, returning only for summer and winter breaks until they graduate and have their own places. For most of their lives, our children will see their roommates, friends, co-workers, and eventually, their own families, far more hours each week than they will see us. And while I hope that they will call their dad and me when they’re in a tight spot or need help working through a problem, I know that it’s more likely that first, they will turn to each other and their friends.

            But we have them for now. 

            At 10, 6 and 1, our children still see Bill and me as the center of their universe. And we are by no means unique in our high status. Studies repeatedly show that without exception, children look first to their parents as role models.

Yet, looking around me, I am amazed at how willing many parents are to share the stage — to allow their young children’s values to be shaped and shifted by strangers who do not have their children’s best interest in mind. In pockets around me, I see parents too willing to share their precious time that center-of-the-universe spot with the TV, movie theater, computer, GameBoy and MP3 player.

 Parents who wouldn’t think of skipping a babysitter’s reference check have no problem leaving their kids alone with The Bachelor. Parents who hope their children will wait until marriage — or at least adulthood — for sex, nevertheless allow their young children to see sexually suggestive movies and listen to explicit songs. Parents who downplay materialism themselves, yet invite clothes companies and car companies to come into their family room and make a pitch to their children.

            It’s not that I think these parents are bad or purposefully abusive as they expose their children to a radically different value system than that of the Gospel. Instead, I think they have been swindled just as their children are being swindled. They have been convinced that if you can’t speak the language of pop culture, you’ll be left behind. These parents may even believe that media executives are looking out for their children — that a program or commercial can’t be that bad if it’s allowed to be shown during a time slot when kids are watching. Their gut may say not to let their 9-year-old see the PG-13 movie with her friends, but they override their conscience with an exception — just this once. And in doing so, they sell their children’s childhoods, bit by bit.

            Maybe it’s the teacher in me that understands that consistency needs to drive all decisions we make with our children. As an adult, I can see the occasional raunchy movie or watch an eye-candy reality show without it shaping who I am, but that’s because my value system is already set.  A child, repeatedly exposed to advertising, casual sex, materialism and back-talk in the media will need to try some of them on for size. Parents and teachers’ values are suddenly weighed against the glossy and glamorous world of primetime.

            I know I can’t protect my kids forever, but they’re all mine right now. And it’s my responsibility to keep them true to their chronological age. Limiting TV and media exposure is one of the easiest things I can do to make sure they stay young. Six-year-olds and ten-year-olds have no need to be repeatedly told by anyone what brand of shoes to buy. They have no need to see sit-coms where everyone sleeps together by the third date or reality shows with little basis in reality. They don’t even need to hear the flippant back-talk and sassiness of the average cartoon. What they need is for Bill and me to stand guard of our home — to monitor the words and images they are exposed to through the media. 

Our children need for Bill and me to protect our place at the center of their universe, for in protecting that place, we protect them.