Category Archives: Adventures in Parenting

You really have not lived until you have chaperoned a group of kindergarteners on their fieldtrip to the local fire station.   The sight of a whole class of five-and-six-year olds in red plastic hats is pretty high on the adorable-meter.  Add in their tangible excitement at seeing the firemen slide down the pole and their earnest questions about fire safety, and it’s quite the day.

But perhaps the most memorable moment came shortly after we arrived, when the fire chief talked to the kids about reporting an emergency.

Fire chief: What number do you call when you have an emergency?

Kids: 911!

Fire chief: Let’s talk about what “emergency” means.  Is it an emergency if your younger brother pulls your hair?

Kids, laughing: NO!

Fire chief: Is it an emergency if your dog bites your ice cream cone?

Kids: NO!

Fire chief: Is it an emergency if your mom falls on the ground and isn’t moving, and you keep calling her name but she doesn’t answer you?

Kids: NO!

I won’t take it personally.

For the past few weeks, the centerpiece on our dining room table has been the CRS Lenten Rice Bowl.   I remember it fondly from my own childhood: a cardboard box for collecting change and bills to help needy people in various places around the world.  Shortly after we got it, the boys went into their rooms and emptied all the coins from their respective china piggy banks to give to the poor.  “Look, Luke!” I overhead Matthew say, pointing to the pictures of the children on the side of the Rice Bowl.  “We’re helping her, and her, and him.”   The giving up of their change generated a great deal of excitement.  It did my mom-heart good.

Then just the other morning, I came out of the kitchen and Matthew said, “Mom!  I counted, and I have sixteen dollars.”

“Where?”

“In my piggy bank.”  I looked on the coffee table, and there was his china piggy bank, the one given to him at his christening.  Over the years, small bills have been tucked in there from time to time — by my mom, or by me, or occasionally by Matthew when we give him a random dollar.   The rubber plug on the bottom of the piggy bank was out, and the bills were lying on the table.

“That’s great, Matthew,” I told him.  “Be sure to tuck them back in so they don’t get lost.”

Instead, he took the bills to the dining room table and spread them out.   As I sat and watched, he pulled the Rice Bowl towards him.  He took a dollar bill and folded it very carefully in half, and then again, until it was small enough to put into the cardboard bank.

“Oh, you’re giving some more money,” I said.  “That’s so nice of you, Matthew.”

“I’m going to put all of it in the Rice Bowl,” he said.   And as I watched, he took another bill, folded it, and pushed it through the slot.

I am ashamed to admit this, but I almost stopped him.  Don’t you want to keep some of it for yourself?  I almost said.  If you keep half of it, you’ll still have eight dollars to use for something you really want to buy.  You don’t need to give all of it to the poor.   That money has been there for years, in his china piggy bank.  At various times he has taken it out and looked at it, but he’s never spent any of it.  And I thought of the things — new toys, books, or heck, even college tuition — that he could spend it on.

But I said nothing.  Because in a moment of sudden clarity, I realized that there is only one way to respond  in the face of  such innocent generosity, and that is to let it happen.  In that moment, I also realized how much I need to learn from my own child.

He folded every bill and inserted each one carefully into the cardboard box.  I stood with my arm around him and hoped he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.  I am not sure how I could have explained those tears to him.  I’m not sure how I could have said that I had almost, with my cautious adult pragmatism, disrupted the flow of a spontaneous act of pure goodness.

Jesus said that unless we change and become like little children, we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.  I keep edging closer to understanding what that means.  It doesn’t mean that God will keep us out.  I think it means that we adults have a tendency to keep ourselves out.  We need children to show us what we’ve lost … and what we can regain.

One evening last week, I was sitting with a pajama-clad Matthew at the dining room table while he finished his homework.

As he carefully wrote his letters and did his number sheets, I  noticed an ant creeping across the table in front of us.  We get ants periodically, in the wintertime especially.  I did a few index-finger-flicks and on about the third one I made contact, sending the ant neatly out of my line of vision (and, surely, to a premature end).

Matthew, hearing the repeated snap of my finger, looked up from his work.  “What are you doing, Mommy?”

“I saw an ant on the table, so I flicked it away.”

Matthew looked at me over his pencil, blue eyes fixed on mine.  “Why?” he asked in a tone that was a disconcerting blend of sweet kindergarten earnestness and pure teenage attitude.  “It’s part of God’s creation.”

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t.  He was completely serious.  And, for that matter, he was right.

St. Francis would totally approve.

There are a zillion different ways to pray.    One method that I like involves reflecting on a simple question:  Where did I see God today?  (This is a shorter version of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Examen, which you can read more about here.)

If I take this question seriously and give myself time to answer it — and yes, like many of us, I don’t do this nearly as often as I should — I find I can come up with a pretty long list.

I saw God in the way that Scott got up early to make me coffee.

I saw God in the way that Matthew ran to give me a second hug as I was going out the door to school.

I saw God in the hawk sitting regally on a fence as I drove through the hills on my commute.

I saw God in the driver who kindly waved me into his lane, even during rush hour.

I saw God in the cheerfulness of a coworker.

I saw God in the receptionist at the doctor’s office who found a way to squeeze me into the doctor’s schedule.

I saw God in the pale pink camellias blooming in front of the neighbor’s house.

I saw God in the kindergarten mother who was honestly interested in how things are going.

I saw God in the way that Matthew and Luke, of their own initiative, emptied the change from their piggy banks to put into the Lenten Rice bowl.

I saw God in the way that Luke, who wants to be so independent, spontaneously reached for my hand and held it.

I saw God in the way that Scott got home late after his meeting because he was dropping off someone who didn’t have a ride home.

It’s pretty addictive, once you start.

Where have you seen God lately?

That’s a good thing to remember when I feel exhausted by all the demands that my kids/students/etc. make on me.  I feel exhausted, then I feel frustrated, then I feel guilty for feeling frustrated.  It helps to remember that Jesus himself needed to get away from the crowds every now and then and be alone and clear his head.

I’m in good company, in other words.  We all are.  And it’ s a comfort to know that even though Jesus wasn’t a mom, he still totally gets it.

I swear, there are times when my kids say things that blow me away.  Take this recent exchange between Matthew and me.

Matthew: How come Jesus’ birthday isn’t on Easter?

Me, folding laundry and distracted: What?

Matthew: How come Jesus’ birthday isn’t on Easter?

Me: Because his birthday is on Christmas.  The days celebrate two different things. Christmas is the day when Jesus was born.  Easter is the day that Jesus rose from the dead.

Matthew: I think we should celebrate his birthday on Easter.

Me:  Why?

Matthew: Because that’s the day he was alive.

At this point, I put the laundry down and simply looked at him.  I realized there was something so simple yet so profound about his words.  

The lesson I learned: Never underestimate a kindergartener’s ability to grasp the big ideas of faith.  Sometimes, I think they understand them better than we do.

One thing I’ve learned in this whole parenting gig is that kids absorb more than we think they do.  They are great imbibers of our own attitudes: what we say and do, and what we don’t say and don’t do.   And, on this day dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr., I’ve been thinking about how all of this relates to my own kids, and to me, and to the issue of race.

To put it another way, here’s a question I’ve been pondering lately: What are my kids learning from me about people who look different from us?

Most schools — my son’s included — honor Dr. King with assemblies, or lesson plans, or art projects.  I’m glad that they do, but that’s only a part of raising kids who are inclusive of others.  I know from my life as a teacher that not a few people find in-class diversity awareness curriculum to be forced or inauthentic (this is perhaps a more common reaction in high school settings than in elementary school settings).  My answer to that is that it will feel forced and inauthentic if we adults don’t actually live it ourselves.  Do we as teachers and parents truly believe in the dignity and worth of all people?  If so, how do our students and children know that we do?

This is an important issue for me, for a few reasons.  On the one hand, it’s practical; in a global society like ours, being respectful of people from different cultures and backgrounds is an increasingly important skill to have . But on a much deeper level, it’s spiritual.  My faith teaches me that all people have dignity and that every life is precious; it’s one of the earliest lessons I learned as a child.  My faith is also a universal faith — “catholic” literally means “universal” — and when I go to Mass, especially here in diverse California, there are people of every skin color imaginable in the pews.  It’s a weekly affirmation of something I truly believe: that the body of Christ is made up of every color imaginable.  We are all part of it and when one of us is missing the rest of us are diminished.  That’s something I want my children to understand, too — sooner rather than later.

A few years ago, I came upon this quotation, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.  “At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being,” said the sociologist Frederick Hertz.  It makes you think, doesn’t it?  If someone were to ask your child, “Which groups of people do your parents think are God’s mistakes?”, how would your child answer?  It is a good question to ask ourselves.

I’m hardly a perfect parent when it comes to teaching my kids to appreciate diversity (or, honestly, when it comes to anything else).  But I do care about it.  I want my children to grow up seeing every person as having an innate human dignity.   And it does my heart good to see the playground at my son’s school, which is full of students who are not just white but Asian, Latino,  African-American; there are students who are Pacific Islanders and those whose parents came from India and those with parents of two different races (or more than two).  It’s a little microcosm of the world, and I like that.

And I am letting Matthew know that I like it.  “Isn’t it great that God created people in so many different colors?” I said recently.  “It would be so boring if we all looked the same.”

It’s one little step, but it’s a step all the same.  And children do listen.

P.S.: For a fascinating look at how kids absorb lessons about race, check out the book Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  There is a  chapter called “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race.”  Worth a read.

Both of my children, for reasons too long to go into here, were born via C-section.  One the one hand, that kind of stank  (fiery incision pain, inability to stand upright or use my abdominal muscles, etc.).  On the other hand, it had its pluses,including the fact that I got eight whole weeks of maternity leave as opposed to  six  (insert diatribe about how US policymakers need to learn from their more enlightened Scandinavian counterparts).    But one of the best things about having a C-section was getting to spend four whole nights in the hospital.

Yes, I said “getting to,” not “having to.”  Call me loco, but I loved my hospital stays.  I loved them because for the first time in my life, I could push a button and other people would come wait on me.  They brought me water whenever I asked for it.  They changed my sheets for me.    They helped me dress.  They  fixed me dinner and brought it to my bedside on a tray.  It was like Club Med, without the beach.   I am considering having a third child just so I can go back for more.

This obviously indicates something about my life, namely the fact that I (like most moms) don’t get a lot of pampering.   It also explains, at least in part, why I love “Downton Abbey.”

I’ve been a fan since Season One, and  this new season couldn’t come soon enough.  Watching the Crawley family, I get pulled into a beautiful fantasy about a life of leisure, a life without the drudgery of housecleaning and meal preparation and rushing out the door into the morning commute.   I get to live vicariously in a genteel world of ancient estates and devoted servants and ringing for tea.   And oh, it all sounds so lovely.

At the same time, I love the show because it also satisfies the flip side of my desire to be pampered: that side of me that I guess could be called my social conscience.  It’s a weird paradox that although I like being pampered,  I have a very hard time actually letting people do it.  I always feel as though there is something else that they could be doing for themselves, not for me.  That’s why the hospital stays were so nice: there was no possibility that I could do anything  for myself, so I was able to fully relax and enjoy the experience as much as I could, guilt-free.  And another thing that “Downton Abbey” does so well (much like “Upstairs, Downstairs” did) is show the harsh reality of being a servant and working very very hard for very very little reward.  You can’t help but feel bad for poor little Daisy the kitchen maid, or for Mrs. Hughes, who never gets to put her feet up with a good book.  (I don’t feel a whit bad for Thomas, though.  I have my limits.)

So “Downton Abbey” is not just an Anglophile’s fantasy about living in a lovely place and being treated like royalty.  It also acknowledges that even in a pretty world, there are people all around us who do difficult work on a daily basis and often fly below the radar of our consciousness.    In our own world, those are the people who pick our crops and empty our trashcans and clean our offices.   And — just as we see every time “Downton” ventures into the servants’ hall — their stories are fascinating and important, too.

And — spiritual musings aside —  I love “Downton”  for the sheer soap-opera drama of it all.  This season has not disappointed.  Oh, poor Edith!   (I was so devastated by what happened during the last episode that my husband finally had to say, “You do know she’s a fictional character, right?”)   And I would not have thought it possible in the first season, but Thomas’ shenanigans are actually making me feel sorry for Miss O’Brien.   And will Sibyl and Branson ever feel completely at home with her family?    Yes, I pretty much live for Sunday nights now.

Are a fan, too?  Do the same things that appeal to me appeal to you?  What do you think of the new season?

We’re back home now from our holiday trip to upstate New York.  It was, in a word, challenging.  Let me clarify that actually being there, visiting Scott’s family, was wonderful; I’m blessed with truly terrific in-laws.  It was the getting there that was the problem.

It all started with an early morning flight from San Francisco, which was delayed nearly two hours because of rain.  Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in Washington, D.C.   We got off the plane to find that the United folks — frazzled with the influx of holiday travelers on December 23rd — had nonetheless managed to find four tickets for us on an alternate flight.  The problem?  The new flight departed about 22 hours later, at 3 pm on the 24th.

The prospect of a night spent in Dulles International Airport is not the kind of thing that makes one break into joyful song, especially when one has an already fried four-year-old and six-year-old in tow.  Merry Christmas to us!  I thought to myself hysterically, trying to keep Luke from lying down, in a sort of mute exhausted protest, in the middle of the line of travelers at the gate.

Enter Scott’s sister Kathy, who literally travels for a living.  Once she heard of our plight, she got on the phone and made things happen.  Five hours later, we were boarding a flight to Allentown, Pennsylvania (booked by Kathy), where we checked into a hotel at the airport (arranged by Kathy) and, the next morning, got a rental car (also arranged by Kathy) for the three-hour drive to our destination.  I have a new hero.  Her name is Kathy.

So yes, the whole thing was much, much less bad than it could have been.

But — sad to say — this is not the first time that we have had bad luck on a flight back east.   I still have PTSD from the night that we spent stranded in the Philadelphia airport five years ago, with baby Matthew in tow.   There is nothing that makes one’s heart sink more than the words FLIGHT CANCELLED, especially when one is traveling with children.

I will be the first to admit it: I don’t handle setbacks very well.  And this is where Ma Joad  comes in.

A few months back, I was teaching The Grapes of Wrath to my American Lit class.  Every time I read it, I am amazed at Steinbeck’s craft, and at the ending (one of the two best endings in literature, I think), and  – most of all — at the character of Ma Joad.  When her family is driven off their farm in Oklahoma due to the Dust Bowl, they have to pack up their jalopy and head to California, with no job lined up, no home to go to, no certainty, and very very little money.   They are like the turtle famously crossing the road in Chapter Three: all they have with them is what’s on their back (or in their truck).  It is disorienting, to say the least.

And throughout the whole story, Ma is the one who keeps the family going. She cheerfully sets up a home in every migrant camp they find.  She makes the hard decisions when no one else in the family is willing to make them.  When her pregnant daughter is becoming whiny, she employs tough love when needed and empathy when needed.  She gives to fellow travelers in need.  She keeps her own feelings under wrap for the good of the family (witness the episode with Granma dying in the desert).  She treats everyone with dignity.  She lets family members go when she knows they have to move on.  “That’s a woman so great with love that it scares me,” says Jim Casy, the novel’s ex-preacher and resident Christ figure.   And when multiple crises rain down on Ma’s head — as they do repeatedly — she employs her own personal system of triage.  “We’ll take the biggest thing and lick it first,” she says resolutely — and she does.

Resilience.  That’s what she has.  And that’s what I want to have, too. Somehow, there is nothing like a cross-country flight with children to show me just how much I am lacking in that department — and to give me a personal goal to strive for.

As I told my students two months ago, only half-joking, I want to be Ma Joad when I grow up.