I had a great day with my family today--the sun is finally shining again, so we headed out to the zoo and surrounding park. Part of the reason for this trip was to take pictures my son needs for his next science project, and part of the reason was to spend some time together as a family, which we don't get to do often enough these days.
My daughter is fifteen. She has a pretty terrific boyfriend, and he's easily become part of the family. We even added him to our zoo membership, so he could come with us whenever we head across town. Today, though, he couldn't go. I was a little pleased with this, since it meant my daughter would actually be interacting with us for a change, but I knew we were also running the risk of dealing with Surly Girl all day.
I adore my daughter. She's smart and beautiful and friendly and practical, all the things you'd want your daughter to be. From the time she was a tiny girl, with a head full of Shirley Temple curls and a 100-watt smile, she just drew people to her. Complete strangers would stop us on the street or in an airport and strike up a conversation with a two-year-old. Once, when we were in Memphis--Jordan was not quite three at the time--an elderly woman walking slowly past us on the sidewalk stopped and openly stared at my daughter. "My gracious," she said. "You really are a little angel." Then she asked if it would be all right to touch my daughter's hair. Jordan was used to the attention, so she didn't mind. I said it was fine. The woman fingered Jordan's curls, then smiled and thanked us both before she went on her way.
I'm pretty shameless in my admiration of Jordan. And while I know I'm supposed to feel this way--she's my kid, after all--I know many people who feel the same way about her without being compelled to. It's hard not to like her, honestly. (Well, except for the few girls at school who seem to hate her precisely because of best qualities. Those people, I tell her, aren't worth being concerned about, and most of the time she believes this.)
I know my daughter is aware of how much I like her, in addition to loving her. But I think that's what makes it really difficult for her not to boss her little brother around--all the things I've always praised in her are qualities her brother doesn't possess. In addition to the age difference between them--which always seems to make the older kid feel entitled to direct the younger one--Andrew is different from his sister in just about every way. He's shy and introverted around people other than his family, not at all social. His teachers are always alarmed by the fact that he doesn't talk to other people in class, or not unless they speak to him first, and I have to reassure them that he talks all the time at home. He has ADHD, the inattentive variety, which makes it hard for him to focus at school. He takes medication that makes this a little easier, and now that we have an IEP in place, guaranteeing some extra follow-up from his teachers, his grades have improved to the point that he isn't failing any of his classes--but A's are rare for him. B's are an accomplishment, and C's are the goal. Still, he's in Advanced Placement classes and his teachers often say that he's obviously very bright. He just can't express that in the ways they would like.
Although he doesn't have an official diagnosis, I've done enough research to understand that my son also has Asperger Syndrome (which was recently placed under the autism spectrum.) He doesn't seek out friendships, doesn't understand body language or social cues, and takes figurative language very literally--when he was little, I learned to be very careful about saying things like "My head is going to explode if you keep making that noise," because he really believed that would happen. He develops an intense interest in odd subjects (when he was little, he was obsessed with decoding circle/slash signs; these days, he can tell you anything you might want to know about hurricanes) and really needs to stick with a routine. He gets very upset when his life is off schedule, when he can't watch his favorite TV programs at the appointed time.
I adore my son, too. He has a well-developed sense of humor, which he expresses in the comic strip he's been drawing for several years now, and he's very smart--he just isn't able to demonstrate that at school. He's much more like his dad and I than his sister is. We're shy and introverted too; neither of us has a large friend network, and that doesn't bother us. For the most part, it doesn't seem to bother Andrew either. Once in awhile he talks about wishing he had some friends, and that's when my heart breaks for him, but more often he talks about being glad he doesn't have to deal with the kind of drama Jordan deals with on a regular basis.
Today the two of them were getting along pretty well, as they often do. But I couldn't help notice that Jordan spends a lot of time telling Andrew what to do, and he rarely ever questions what she says--he just does it. I might have just written this off to sibling behavior if not for the fact that, earlier this week, Andrew showed me a paper he'd written about Jordan for his English class. The assignment was to write about an important person in your life, and Andrew wrote about how he looks up to Jordan because she's so good at everything. A general theme of the essay was "She's better than me at everything." (Except at video games, where he acknowledged an ability to beat her occasionally.)
I know Andrew hears us telling Jordan "Good job" pretty often. I know he hears her telling us that she earned a First Division rating in band, or an A on the Spanish test that everyone else failed. It wouldn't be fair to her if we acted like these things don't matter, because they do. She deserves to be proud of her accomplishments. She works hard for what she gets--she practices her flute for competitions, studies for exams. I point this out to Andrew whenever he complains that she gets everything she wants.
So today I started wondering how I can let Andrew know that we love him because he's different from Jordan, not in spite of that fact. I've learned so much from being his mother. I've learned enormous patience; I've learned to swallow my pride and ask for help when I can't solve a problem myself, which is really hard for me; I've learned that, sometimes, problems can be addressed but not solved. I've also learned that, sometimes, a C is reason enough to celebrate. That's not an easy lesson to learn when you're a person who always did well in school--a person who earned a Ph.D. because school was the only place you ever felt you really fit in.
Watching Andrew struggle has made me a better professor, too, because I've learned there are many reasons why students don't do well in class, and some of those reasons aren't entirely under the student's control. I've learned that giving those students a break often makes them feel worse, not better. It makes them feel like you don't have faith in their ability to do what you've asked everyone else to do.
Earlier today I was reading a friend's blog. Her son was recently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but she's encouraged that he might improve in the long run because he wasn't a "weird" kid--he didn't, for instance, talk to himself or obsess over odd hobbies and subjects. Reading that stopped me cold, because Andrew is that "weird" kid. He always has been. I know schizophrenia affects young men more often than women, and mental illness runs in our family, on both sides. So, once again, the odds are against him.
But I'm determined to love that boy in every way I know how--supporting him, giving him a push now and then, expecting nothing less from him than I do from his sister. I expect him to do his very best, no matter where that leads him. And I'm determined to teach my daughter how to love her brother this way, too--for who he is, not who she thinks he should be.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Endless Possibility
I had lunch with a former student today. M. had agreed to visit my Senior Thesis class and do her thesis presentation for them, so they could hear what a really good presentation sounds like, and then to talk about her process for completing that project. She was smart and articulate and encouraging to the students who came to hear her, just as I'd hoped she would be. I took her out for Chinese food afterward--as a gesture of appreciation, but also because I enjoy her company. We've met for coffee every few months since her graduation.
This afternoon, we spent most of our time talking about her recent break-up with the man she's been dating since she was 17. It's tempting to think of that as a childhood romance, but the relationship lasted five years--longer than a lot of marriages these days (five times longer than my brother's first marriage, actually.) She'd been struggling to end that relationship for some time, but it's tricky when you're living with the person you don't want to be with anymore. And then there's the matter of guilt: women are not programmed to think about themselves. We're taught to be careful of others' feelings, not to make trouble, to be self-sacrificing above all else. It was really difficult for M. to take a moment and think about herself.
But she did it, and I'm proud of her, and I told her so. Rather than doing the easy thing, she did the difficult thing on behalf of herself. And now she's making a plan for taking the next steps toward the future she wants to have: finding her own place to live, researching grad schools, taking the GRE. It's scary to be completely responsible for yourself, but it's exhilarating too.
I spent much of this afternoon thinking about my first year in grad school. I moved to Kansas from Idaho without knowing a soul; I drove cross-country in my little Chevette packed full of my wordly possessions. (I still marvel at the fact that I made it across the Rockies in a little economy car that went 40 mph on those inclines.) I did this because I had a fellowship that offered me a chunk of money when I arrived and a teaching assistantship that would pay the bills while I was in school. I was homesick, of course, but I'd expected that; I was homesick when I went away to college, too, and I was only six hours from home then. For the first six months of grad school, I consoled myself with the thought that if it got too bad, I could drive straight home in 24 hours. By this time tomorrow, I could be sitting in my parents' living room became my mantra.
I thought about dropping out of grad school many, many times. But, for whatever reason, I didn't. I made new friends, found that I really enjoyed my graduate classes (once I got through the first semester, during which I was stuck in the courses that had low enrollments--meaning, in other words, the least popular classes with the most difficult professors.) Eventually, I connected with a group of people I really loved, many of whom are still my friends today.
Before I got to that point, though, there were moments of real difficulty. There were language barriers and culture clashes--yes, even between Kansas and Idaho. The student union building was the Union, not the SUB--the first time I asked someone for directions to the SUB, I got a look that suggested I was potentially dangerous. I'd never heard locusts in the trees before, and when I asked my new roommate "What is making all that noise?" I got a blank look in return. She didn't even hear what was absolutely deafening to me.
I didn't know that, in the Midwest, it stays hot all night long. The first time I opened my windows at 10 o'clock, expecting a cool breeze, I was stunned to find that it still felt like high noon. I didn't know that walking outside in the rain without an umbrella was going to leave me soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes. In Idaho, it can rain for three days without accumulating a full inch.
A lot of the time, I felt like I was existing on a separate plane, all by myself. There were new brand names to learn at the grocery store and new stores to navigate. There were tornado sirens tested at noon once a week. The list of things I had to learn keeps on going, but the point is that learning it all at once, all alone, was overwhelming.
And exciting, too.
I sympathize with M.'s conflicted feelings of excitement and anxiety. I've been there; I know how it feels to have your whole life in your own two hands, to be solely responsible for yourself. But I told her today to enjoy that feeling: "This is the only time in your life when you'll be able to do anything you want," I said. "You aren't tied to a mortgage or a career or a marriage--anything is possible. That's a wonderful thing."
It's scary to look into that horizon of endless possibility. But if you're never brave enough to take in that vista, I have to believe you're going to wonder what might have been.
This afternoon, we spent most of our time talking about her recent break-up with the man she's been dating since she was 17. It's tempting to think of that as a childhood romance, but the relationship lasted five years--longer than a lot of marriages these days (five times longer than my brother's first marriage, actually.) She'd been struggling to end that relationship for some time, but it's tricky when you're living with the person you don't want to be with anymore. And then there's the matter of guilt: women are not programmed to think about themselves. We're taught to be careful of others' feelings, not to make trouble, to be self-sacrificing above all else. It was really difficult for M. to take a moment and think about herself.
But she did it, and I'm proud of her, and I told her so. Rather than doing the easy thing, she did the difficult thing on behalf of herself. And now she's making a plan for taking the next steps toward the future she wants to have: finding her own place to live, researching grad schools, taking the GRE. It's scary to be completely responsible for yourself, but it's exhilarating too.
I spent much of this afternoon thinking about my first year in grad school. I moved to Kansas from Idaho without knowing a soul; I drove cross-country in my little Chevette packed full of my wordly possessions. (I still marvel at the fact that I made it across the Rockies in a little economy car that went 40 mph on those inclines.) I did this because I had a fellowship that offered me a chunk of money when I arrived and a teaching assistantship that would pay the bills while I was in school. I was homesick, of course, but I'd expected that; I was homesick when I went away to college, too, and I was only six hours from home then. For the first six months of grad school, I consoled myself with the thought that if it got too bad, I could drive straight home in 24 hours. By this time tomorrow, I could be sitting in my parents' living room became my mantra.
I thought about dropping out of grad school many, many times. But, for whatever reason, I didn't. I made new friends, found that I really enjoyed my graduate classes (once I got through the first semester, during which I was stuck in the courses that had low enrollments--meaning, in other words, the least popular classes with the most difficult professors.) Eventually, I connected with a group of people I really loved, many of whom are still my friends today.
Before I got to that point, though, there were moments of real difficulty. There were language barriers and culture clashes--yes, even between Kansas and Idaho. The student union building was the Union, not the SUB--the first time I asked someone for directions to the SUB, I got a look that suggested I was potentially dangerous. I'd never heard locusts in the trees before, and when I asked my new roommate "What is making all that noise?" I got a blank look in return. She didn't even hear what was absolutely deafening to me.
I didn't know that, in the Midwest, it stays hot all night long. The first time I opened my windows at 10 o'clock, expecting a cool breeze, I was stunned to find that it still felt like high noon. I didn't know that walking outside in the rain without an umbrella was going to leave me soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes. In Idaho, it can rain for three days without accumulating a full inch.
A lot of the time, I felt like I was existing on a separate plane, all by myself. There were new brand names to learn at the grocery store and new stores to navigate. There were tornado sirens tested at noon once a week. The list of things I had to learn keeps on going, but the point is that learning it all at once, all alone, was overwhelming.
And exciting, too.
I sympathize with M.'s conflicted feelings of excitement and anxiety. I've been there; I know how it feels to have your whole life in your own two hands, to be solely responsible for yourself. But I told her today to enjoy that feeling: "This is the only time in your life when you'll be able to do anything you want," I said. "You aren't tied to a mortgage or a career or a marriage--anything is possible. That's a wonderful thing."
It's scary to look into that horizon of endless possibility. But if you're never brave enough to take in that vista, I have to believe you're going to wonder what might have been.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Happiness
I'm teaching a seminar on the short story this semester, and one of my students recently asked "Aren't we ever going to read any happy stories?" That led us to a discussion of the fact that happy material doesn't usually make for great fiction; to paraphrase the writer Janet Burroway, fiction is about trouble. No trouble, no story to tell.
Not long after this, in my poetry workshop, we talked about the techniques that allow positive emotions to be expressed in ways that are interesting and complex rather than simple and cliche. One of my students asked "Do professional poets even think about positive emotions?" So I referred him to the poem "Happiness," by Jane Kenyon, which begins with these lines:
The fact that Kenyon wrote about the inevitability of happiness while she was dying of leukemia adds a whole layer of meaning to the poem. Even if you don't know that, though, the connection between happiness and the story of the prodigal son is a beautiful surprise. Who would turn away happiness simply because it disappeared awhile? Who would turn away their child, no matter how long he'd been gone?
As I think I've mentioned before, I always hated the story of the prodigal son when I was a kid--I spent a lot of my energy trying to be good, to do the right thing and not get in trouble. It seemed egregiously unfair to me that the irresponsible kid would end up as the guest of honor at a welcome-home party thrown by his father, and his more responsible brother was also expected to celebrate the return. Of course, all this was before I became a parent myself. Before I knew that it's impossible not to love your child, or to feel relief that they're safe at home, especially after they've been gone for awhile.
As an adult, I understand that this is the way the world works. People make mistakes--or perhaps they just do things we don't agree with, things that disappoint us--and we either forgive them and move on with them in our lives, or we hold a grudge and push them away. Those are our options. Sometimes we try to play the middle ground, keeping them in our lives under specific conditions, but that never leads to anything like a real relationship. We're just pushing them away without exactly saying so.
There's a student at my university, a beautiful, smart, eternally optimistic young woman who's deeply involved with our Campus Ministry group. I think she may be the best example of Christianity I've ever known. She's also gay. This past week, she gave an oral presentation about her Senior Thesis project, which will focus on the ELCA's recent vote to allow people in same-sex relationships to serve as clergy. She'll be exploring the opinions of people on both sides of the issue, and I encouraged her to explore the middle territory as well--"the crap position" as I called it. Those people who say "I won't vote to exclude you from the church because, as a Christian, I'm supposed to love everybody. But I think you're a sinner, so I'll love you the same way I love people who cheat on their spouses or beat their children." In short, people who view love as an absence of action, rather than action itself.
"You mean people like my mom," she said.
She laughed when she said this, and her classmates laughed with her. But I couldn't imagine how painful it must be to know that your mother loves you in spite of who you are, not because of it.
There are so many things to love about this girl. She's exactly the kind of person I hope my kids will grow up to be.
All anybody wants in the world is to know there's a place where they're loved completely, for all their gifts and limitations--to know the joy of unconditional acceptance. I have to believe the prodigal would never have come back home if he hadn't been fairly certain that he could count on his father's forgiveness. He knew he was loved; he knew he'd be welcomed when he returned, just as we welcome happiness into our lives whenever (and wherever) it appears. To do otherwise makes no sense.
Not long after this, in my poetry workshop, we talked about the techniques that allow positive emotions to be expressed in ways that are interesting and complex rather than simple and cliche. One of my students asked "Do professional poets even think about positive emotions?" So I referred him to the poem "Happiness," by Jane Kenyon, which begins with these lines:
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
The fact that Kenyon wrote about the inevitability of happiness while she was dying of leukemia adds a whole layer of meaning to the poem. Even if you don't know that, though, the connection between happiness and the story of the prodigal son is a beautiful surprise. Who would turn away happiness simply because it disappeared awhile? Who would turn away their child, no matter how long he'd been gone?
As I think I've mentioned before, I always hated the story of the prodigal son when I was a kid--I spent a lot of my energy trying to be good, to do the right thing and not get in trouble. It seemed egregiously unfair to me that the irresponsible kid would end up as the guest of honor at a welcome-home party thrown by his father, and his more responsible brother was also expected to celebrate the return. Of course, all this was before I became a parent myself. Before I knew that it's impossible not to love your child, or to feel relief that they're safe at home, especially after they've been gone for awhile.
As an adult, I understand that this is the way the world works. People make mistakes--or perhaps they just do things we don't agree with, things that disappoint us--and we either forgive them and move on with them in our lives, or we hold a grudge and push them away. Those are our options. Sometimes we try to play the middle ground, keeping them in our lives under specific conditions, but that never leads to anything like a real relationship. We're just pushing them away without exactly saying so.
There's a student at my university, a beautiful, smart, eternally optimistic young woman who's deeply involved with our Campus Ministry group. I think she may be the best example of Christianity I've ever known. She's also gay. This past week, she gave an oral presentation about her Senior Thesis project, which will focus on the ELCA's recent vote to allow people in same-sex relationships to serve as clergy. She'll be exploring the opinions of people on both sides of the issue, and I encouraged her to explore the middle territory as well--"the crap position" as I called it. Those people who say "I won't vote to exclude you from the church because, as a Christian, I'm supposed to love everybody. But I think you're a sinner, so I'll love you the same way I love people who cheat on their spouses or beat their children." In short, people who view love as an absence of action, rather than action itself.
"You mean people like my mom," she said.
She laughed when she said this, and her classmates laughed with her. But I couldn't imagine how painful it must be to know that your mother loves you in spite of who you are, not because of it.
There are so many things to love about this girl. She's exactly the kind of person I hope my kids will grow up to be.
All anybody wants in the world is to know there's a place where they're loved completely, for all their gifts and limitations--to know the joy of unconditional acceptance. I have to believe the prodigal would never have come back home if he hadn't been fairly certain that he could count on his father's forgiveness. He knew he was loved; he knew he'd be welcomed when he returned, just as we welcome happiness into our lives whenever (and wherever) it appears. To do otherwise makes no sense.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)