We're having Fall Break at my university next week (for friends in the north, it's like a miniature Spring Break--we get next Thursday and Friday off.) I'm heading to Boise for the 4-day weekend. I love the fall in Idaho, so I'm looking forward to having some time among the turning leaves. Fall is the one thing I really miss here in Texas. I thought I'd miss winter when we moved here, but not so much. Turns out you can live a long and happy life without snow.
I'm a little nervous about my trip home, though--partly because my dad's health has been declining pretty steadily for the last few years, and I haven't seen him since this time last year, when we flew to Boise for my niece's wedding. I'm expecting to be shocked by how much he's aged, and I know that caring for him is taking a toll on my mother as well. I doubt either of them will look like the people I remember. Beyond having to face these rather difficult realities, though, I'm always a little nervous about going to Boise.
I know that sounds silly. How can you be nervous about visiting your home town? But these are the facts: I never felt like Boise was where I belonged. After I left Idaho, I fell in love with the idea of it; while I was living there, I couldn't wait to leave. I love mountains, and I always feel at home when I'm within visual distance of them. The smell of pine trees makes me deeply happy in a way few things do. But being in Boise makes me remember how it felt to be a powerless teenager in a place I just didn't belong, which is a feeling I'd just as soon forget.
It's not that I don't like the place. On the contrary, I really love my little hometown. It's just that I don't know how to be there as a grown-up, I guess.
Showing posts with label Family Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Life. Show all posts
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Gentle Giants
I went to the movies with my son yesterday--we saw Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's interpretation of the book by Maurice Sendak. I don't know what I expected from the film, exactly, but what I took from it was much different (and much more profound) than anything I could have anticipated.
People who haven't liked the film, as far as I can tell, went in expecting a lighthearted adventure fantasy. I'm not sure why anyone would expect that--at least, not anyone who's read the book. The monsters in Sendak's story were enormous, scary creatures who gnashed their teeth and bared their claws and rolled their eyes. They were the creation of an angry little boy, Max, who'd been sent to his room for misbehaving. Why would they be cuddly, fun-loving friends? Max isn't looking for someone to play with; he's looking for a place where he can finally call the shots. That can't happen in the human world, where big people boss the little people around, so it has to happen in an imaginary world where small people rule. And the occupants of that world might as well be big and scary, to illustrate just how powerful the small people are.
The film version of this story deals more with the psychology of Max's experience (and of being a child, in general) than with monsters or wild rumpus. The movie begins with several scenes of Max acting like a boy of eight or nine--first chasing his dog, then building a snow fort of which he's particularly proud, then trying to get his big sister Claire's attention so he can show off the fort. Her conscious decision to ignore him in these scenes obviously hurts Max, as does the fact that Claire and her friends don't care about his pain when the snow fort is destroyed during a snowball fight gone awry. Jonze is careful to show that the big kids, especially Claire, see exactly what they've done and choose to walk away from it without apology or concern. Max is just a little kid, after all. He has no power to shape the behavior of older people. He does, however, have enough power to trash his sister's bedroom--so he does. He pays particular attention to destroying a gift he made for her some time ago. And then he regrets that decision, as we all regret things we've done in anger.
There's a casual mention, in this early scene, of Max and his sister spending the weekend with their dad. So later, when Max's mother is entertaining a male friend, we're not entirely surprised to see Max throw a tantrum--once again, he has no power to change what's happening around him, to stop the gradual unraveling of his family. This time, though, the frustration of being put in that position leads him to run away from his mother and sail off to the island of the Wild Things, where some smooth storytelling skills help him to establish himself as the king.
The problem with being the king, of course, is that people expect you to fix their problems. To talk about everything that happens on the island would take far too long, and the events of that experience aren't really the point anyway--suffice it to say that Max's imaginary world is similar to the real world in meaningful ways. He meets a monster who's very much like himself; when Max arrives, Carol is throwing a tantrum. Carol is frustrated by situations he can't control, too, including his rejection by another monster, KW. Carol and KW have been romantic partners at some point in the past, it seems, but KW's lank hair and big eyes are also reminiscent of Claire's. KW just doesn't feel about Carol the way she used to--she has new, more interesting friends to hang out with--and Carol doesn't understand why this is happening, and KW can't really put her feelings into words. Maybe there are no words for what she feels. She just knows that she doesn't want to hang around Carol anymore.
At one point, Carol shows Max a model world he's created, a world in which he and KW ride a canoe together down a lazy river. Some time after this--after Max has to admit that he's not a king, just a regular boy who lacks the power to shield the world from sadness, as he promised he would--Max discovers that Carol has destroyed his model in another fit of anger. And Max knows what this means: Carol has given up on thinking things in his life will ever be okay again. He worries that Carol will turn that anger against him, as well. So in the rubble of that imaginary utopia, Max leaves Carol a sign that he loves him and hopes that will make a difference.
And it does, of course. Small acts of love are the only thing that can bring us back to each other those moments of intense frustration and anger. The end of the movie, when Max leaves the island to head back home and Carol watches him leave, weeping openly, is simply heartbreaking. Max has to go back--he's just a little boy, after all, and he misses his mom. But he doesn't want to hurt Carol. He knows how painful it is to be abandoned. Still, Max has learned that you can't rely on someone else to fix your problems, and you can't run away from them either. Sometimes, lacking the power to change a situation, you just have to live with things the way they are.
Any movie that's honest about childhood has to be sad. Both my son and I were crying our eyes out by the end of the film. Many people like to romanticize childhood as a carefree and magical time in our lives, but the truth is that it's the time when we learn the hardest lessons: Human beings are often unkind to each other for no real reason. There is no magic for solving the world's problems. There is only love--and love, sadly, can disappear without warning.
Like I said, I don't know what I expected from this film. What I got was a beautiful reminder of how scary it is to be a child, powerless in a world where small acts of caring are the only defense against the Wild Things that threaten to eat us up.
People who haven't liked the film, as far as I can tell, went in expecting a lighthearted adventure fantasy. I'm not sure why anyone would expect that--at least, not anyone who's read the book. The monsters in Sendak's story were enormous, scary creatures who gnashed their teeth and bared their claws and rolled their eyes. They were the creation of an angry little boy, Max, who'd been sent to his room for misbehaving. Why would they be cuddly, fun-loving friends? Max isn't looking for someone to play with; he's looking for a place where he can finally call the shots. That can't happen in the human world, where big people boss the little people around, so it has to happen in an imaginary world where small people rule. And the occupants of that world might as well be big and scary, to illustrate just how powerful the small people are.
The film version of this story deals more with the psychology of Max's experience (and of being a child, in general) than with monsters or wild rumpus. The movie begins with several scenes of Max acting like a boy of eight or nine--first chasing his dog, then building a snow fort of which he's particularly proud, then trying to get his big sister Claire's attention so he can show off the fort. Her conscious decision to ignore him in these scenes obviously hurts Max, as does the fact that Claire and her friends don't care about his pain when the snow fort is destroyed during a snowball fight gone awry. Jonze is careful to show that the big kids, especially Claire, see exactly what they've done and choose to walk away from it without apology or concern. Max is just a little kid, after all. He has no power to shape the behavior of older people. He does, however, have enough power to trash his sister's bedroom--so he does. He pays particular attention to destroying a gift he made for her some time ago. And then he regrets that decision, as we all regret things we've done in anger.
There's a casual mention, in this early scene, of Max and his sister spending the weekend with their dad. So later, when Max's mother is entertaining a male friend, we're not entirely surprised to see Max throw a tantrum--once again, he has no power to change what's happening around him, to stop the gradual unraveling of his family. This time, though, the frustration of being put in that position leads him to run away from his mother and sail off to the island of the Wild Things, where some smooth storytelling skills help him to establish himself as the king.
The problem with being the king, of course, is that people expect you to fix their problems. To talk about everything that happens on the island would take far too long, and the events of that experience aren't really the point anyway--suffice it to say that Max's imaginary world is similar to the real world in meaningful ways. He meets a monster who's very much like himself; when Max arrives, Carol is throwing a tantrum. Carol is frustrated by situations he can't control, too, including his rejection by another monster, KW. Carol and KW have been romantic partners at some point in the past, it seems, but KW's lank hair and big eyes are also reminiscent of Claire's. KW just doesn't feel about Carol the way she used to--she has new, more interesting friends to hang out with--and Carol doesn't understand why this is happening, and KW can't really put her feelings into words. Maybe there are no words for what she feels. She just knows that she doesn't want to hang around Carol anymore.
At one point, Carol shows Max a model world he's created, a world in which he and KW ride a canoe together down a lazy river. Some time after this--after Max has to admit that he's not a king, just a regular boy who lacks the power to shield the world from sadness, as he promised he would--Max discovers that Carol has destroyed his model in another fit of anger. And Max knows what this means: Carol has given up on thinking things in his life will ever be okay again. He worries that Carol will turn that anger against him, as well. So in the rubble of that imaginary utopia, Max leaves Carol a sign that he loves him and hopes that will make a difference.
And it does, of course. Small acts of love are the only thing that can bring us back to each other those moments of intense frustration and anger. The end of the movie, when Max leaves the island to head back home and Carol watches him leave, weeping openly, is simply heartbreaking. Max has to go back--he's just a little boy, after all, and he misses his mom. But he doesn't want to hurt Carol. He knows how painful it is to be abandoned. Still, Max has learned that you can't rely on someone else to fix your problems, and you can't run away from them either. Sometimes, lacking the power to change a situation, you just have to live with things the way they are.
Any movie that's honest about childhood has to be sad. Both my son and I were crying our eyes out by the end of the film. Many people like to romanticize childhood as a carefree and magical time in our lives, but the truth is that it's the time when we learn the hardest lessons: Human beings are often unkind to each other for no real reason. There is no magic for solving the world's problems. There is only love--and love, sadly, can disappear without warning.
Like I said, I don't know what I expected from this film. What I got was a beautiful reminder of how scary it is to be a child, powerless in a world where small acts of caring are the only defense against the Wild Things that threaten to eat us up.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
100 Yards From the Trailer Park
Let me just say right up front that I waste way too much time on Facebook. My husband and I used to say that we'd love to have videotapes of our old friends' lives, so we could see what they were up to at the present moment--and now we have Facebook, which is pretty close to the same thing. Except you get daily updates, which is even better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it--see my confession about wasted time.
Lately, though, I've been noticing how many of my Facebook friends seem to be comfortable with the phrase "white trash." One of them recently moved to a new city and announced she had "discovered the land of whiny children and their white trash mothers." (Or something like that--I'm paraphrasing, but I know I got the relevant two words right.) Another took one of the millions of silly face book quizzes in order to discover her "white trash name." Those are just two examples, but I've seen or heard those words far too often in the last month or so.
My father grew up in a family that no doubt was referred to as white trash: absent father, numerous children raised in abject poverty. No one was paying attention to what he did, so my father did whatever he wanted to do and, as a result, got himself into lots of trouble. My mother grew up poor, but her family went to church and owned a farm and a home--they were probably a few rungs above what would have been called white trash, but they watched people slip back down the ladder during the Great Depression. My mother knew just exactly how easy it would be to lose everything, including her precarious just-above-the-bottom social status.
As adults, both of my parents lived in terror of being thought "trashy." I know this because I was cautioned against trashy behavior, clothing and talk throughout the years I lived at home. Being trashy meant many different things, but among those things were promiscuity (or even the suggestion of it, in either clothing or speech or behavior), cursing, and leaving the house without "fixing yourself up." That meant presentable clothing, good shoes, and make-up. (But not too much, lest you should veer into trashy territory again.) Not having money wasn't shameful, as far as my parents were concerned. Acting like you didn't care what people thought of you--well, that was beyond shameful. That was "trashy".
My mother used to say "As long I'm at least 100 yards from the trailer park, I know I'm doing all right." I don't think I knew what she meant by that, when I was younger; I'm pretty sure I thought she just didn't like the idea of living in a trailer. Now, though, it's clear my mom and dad were keeping an eye on class markers: As long as we stay on this side of the line, we know we're okay. My dad had pulled himself out of poverty on his own, with a career in the Army, and he was determined not to backslide into "white trash" territory. My mom had seen just exactly how easy that kind of slipping could be. They raised three kids on one very modest income, which couldn't have been easy, even all those years ago.
But I didn't know my family lacked money. I thought my parents were frugal--not incapable of buying me the clothes I wanted, just reluctant to spend that much money on a pair of jeans. They were frugal, of course, but out of necessity. Credit was harder to come by, for one thing, but debt was a one-way ticket straight back into the trailer park--not an option. So I wore my one pair of brand-name jeans to school every single day and scowled at my mother, thinking she was cheap. When I was old enough to get a job, it didn't occur to me that my parents encouraged it to ease the financial strain on our family; I thought they wanted me to learn responsibility. And they did, of course, but I can see now that this desire was probably secondary to the need to loosen up the family budget.
My parents would want me to be very clear about this: I did not grow up poor. We owned a house that was definitely more than 100 yards from the nearest trailer park. That house needed serious repairs when we moved in, but over time my dad made those repairs himself. He remodeled the basement so my brother and I would have a play room. He kept a huge garden in the adjacent lot, purchased with our house, until his back gave out and he had to sell it. My mother spent days canning produce so we'd have fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the winter. My dad went hunting so we'd have meat. Nobody ever went to bed hungry. If I claimed, now, to have grown up poor, my mother would say "You don't know what poor is," and she'd be right. My parents made very sure I didn't know what it meant to live in poverty, because they knew how people who live in poverty are viewed. They're trash. They're useless. They're disposable.
Over dinner last night, my husband and I were pointing out to our kids that the goal of families is to help each generation do a little better than the last. I have more education than either of my parents would have imagined was possible for one of their children. Together, my husband and I make three times what my father made in salary. We're paying off student loans and other debts we accumulated during graduate school, so a lot of our money isn't available for spending--money is tight, to say the least--but we live in a very nice house, in a very nice neighborhood. There's no trailer park in sight. And I know that's the way my parents wanted it for me. They worked hard to get me here.
So forgive me if I'm a little sensitive to the term "white trash," if I don't find it all that amusing when people play at being queen of the trailer park or make a disparaging comment about the woman at Wal-Mart, the one with the bratty kids. A few generations ago, at a local store somewhere in Iowa, that woman was my grandmother. One of those kids was my father. And if he was misbehaving, that's probably because he was starving. Or frustrated at hearing his mother tell him, again, No, you can't have that. Or very, very tired after a long walk into town.
Lately, though, I've been noticing how many of my Facebook friends seem to be comfortable with the phrase "white trash." One of them recently moved to a new city and announced she had "discovered the land of whiny children and their white trash mothers." (Or something like that--I'm paraphrasing, but I know I got the relevant two words right.) Another took one of the millions of silly face book quizzes in order to discover her "white trash name." Those are just two examples, but I've seen or heard those words far too often in the last month or so.
My father grew up in a family that no doubt was referred to as white trash: absent father, numerous children raised in abject poverty. No one was paying attention to what he did, so my father did whatever he wanted to do and, as a result, got himself into lots of trouble. My mother grew up poor, but her family went to church and owned a farm and a home--they were probably a few rungs above what would have been called white trash, but they watched people slip back down the ladder during the Great Depression. My mother knew just exactly how easy it would be to lose everything, including her precarious just-above-the-bottom social status.
As adults, both of my parents lived in terror of being thought "trashy." I know this because I was cautioned against trashy behavior, clothing and talk throughout the years I lived at home. Being trashy meant many different things, but among those things were promiscuity (or even the suggestion of it, in either clothing or speech or behavior), cursing, and leaving the house without "fixing yourself up." That meant presentable clothing, good shoes, and make-up. (But not too much, lest you should veer into trashy territory again.) Not having money wasn't shameful, as far as my parents were concerned. Acting like you didn't care what people thought of you--well, that was beyond shameful. That was "trashy".
My mother used to say "As long I'm at least 100 yards from the trailer park, I know I'm doing all right." I don't think I knew what she meant by that, when I was younger; I'm pretty sure I thought she just didn't like the idea of living in a trailer. Now, though, it's clear my mom and dad were keeping an eye on class markers: As long as we stay on this side of the line, we know we're okay. My dad had pulled himself out of poverty on his own, with a career in the Army, and he was determined not to backslide into "white trash" territory. My mom had seen just exactly how easy that kind of slipping could be. They raised three kids on one very modest income, which couldn't have been easy, even all those years ago.
But I didn't know my family lacked money. I thought my parents were frugal--not incapable of buying me the clothes I wanted, just reluctant to spend that much money on a pair of jeans. They were frugal, of course, but out of necessity. Credit was harder to come by, for one thing, but debt was a one-way ticket straight back into the trailer park--not an option. So I wore my one pair of brand-name jeans to school every single day and scowled at my mother, thinking she was cheap. When I was old enough to get a job, it didn't occur to me that my parents encouraged it to ease the financial strain on our family; I thought they wanted me to learn responsibility. And they did, of course, but I can see now that this desire was probably secondary to the need to loosen up the family budget.
My parents would want me to be very clear about this: I did not grow up poor. We owned a house that was definitely more than 100 yards from the nearest trailer park. That house needed serious repairs when we moved in, but over time my dad made those repairs himself. He remodeled the basement so my brother and I would have a play room. He kept a huge garden in the adjacent lot, purchased with our house, until his back gave out and he had to sell it. My mother spent days canning produce so we'd have fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the winter. My dad went hunting so we'd have meat. Nobody ever went to bed hungry. If I claimed, now, to have grown up poor, my mother would say "You don't know what poor is," and she'd be right. My parents made very sure I didn't know what it meant to live in poverty, because they knew how people who live in poverty are viewed. They're trash. They're useless. They're disposable.
Over dinner last night, my husband and I were pointing out to our kids that the goal of families is to help each generation do a little better than the last. I have more education than either of my parents would have imagined was possible for one of their children. Together, my husband and I make three times what my father made in salary. We're paying off student loans and other debts we accumulated during graduate school, so a lot of our money isn't available for spending--money is tight, to say the least--but we live in a very nice house, in a very nice neighborhood. There's no trailer park in sight. And I know that's the way my parents wanted it for me. They worked hard to get me here.
So forgive me if I'm a little sensitive to the term "white trash," if I don't find it all that amusing when people play at being queen of the trailer park or make a disparaging comment about the woman at Wal-Mart, the one with the bratty kids. A few generations ago, at a local store somewhere in Iowa, that woman was my grandmother. One of those kids was my father. And if he was misbehaving, that's probably because he was starving. Or frustrated at hearing his mother tell him, again, No, you can't have that. Or very, very tired after a long walk into town.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Chaos Theory
My theory is that when everything seems to be in order, you're looking at the flip side of chaos. Which means that chaos is right around the corner.
I came home from campus today at 3:00. The plan was to have a snack, get the mail, let my son grab a snack when his bus dropped him off at 3:30, then take him to the orthodontist at 4:00. But when I got home, I saw the fencing company had sent out a crew to replace our fence today. We'd been hoping they'd come this week, so I was happy enough to see them--just surprised, because we'd been told they would call and give us notice a day ahead of time.
I walked around the back of the house to let them know I was home--no one there. Hmm. So I went inside, knowing the animals would be a little freaked out by the strangers in the yard. Sure enough, both the dog and the cat were sitting squarely in front of the door, looking worried, wearing their Oh my God there's a stranger in the yard Mom what do we do there's a stranger in the yard Mom I don't know if you've noticed there's a stranger in the yard but oh my God Mom there's a stranger in the yard! faces. I fed Miss Kitty and put Hailey on a leash, thinking I'd take her out the front door and down to the mailbox while I gathered the mail.
3:02 When I walked out the front door, I was met with two more worried-looking faces: the two guys from the fencing crew were standing next a gushing pipe just to side of our front porch. I tried to figure out what had happened, but neither of them spoke much English. It looked like the pipe (a PVC pipe that runs along the outside of our house) had just snapped clean in two. I figured they'd hit it with one of the fence boards. I did manage to determine that they'd tried to turn off the main water valve at the street, though that didn't appear to have done much good. Meanwhile Hailey, terribly excited by the presence of strangers, was barking her head off. So I took her back inside, called my husband at work, left him a slightly panicked message, and called the plumbing company to ask if they could come right away.
3:10 My daughter Jordan called. "Did you pick up Andy at school today?" No, why? "Because he's not on the bus." Well. Excellent. I tried to call him on his cell phone, but Andy wasn't answering. The phone beeped to let me know I had a call on the other line. My husband, Mike, finally back in his office after class. I brought him up to speed and he reminded me that we'd bought a tool to turn off the water at the street (during another moment of plumbing-induced chaos.) I went back out to the water meter and one of the fencing guys was quick to help me figure out how to turn the cut-off valve. Then I told Mike I thought I'd have to call the orthodontist and tell them we couldn't make it today. But Mike didn't want Andy to have to reschedule; he wanted him to go ahead and get his retainers today. So he said he'd come home and meet the plumber while I went to the orthodontist. It's a half-hour commute through downtown from his office to our house, so coming home in the middle of the day is a major headache. Plus, his graduate class met for the first time tonight, and he'd planned to use those late afternoon hours to prepare for class. I felt bad that he had to come home, but I didn't know what else to do.
3:20 Andy called right after I got off the phone with Mike. We agreed that he'd sit in front of the school until I could get there to pick him up. Then I called the plumbing company back, to tell them I had to leave for about 20 minutes. They said they'd send a crew to meet me at the house when I got back.
3:30 The bus dropped Jordan at the corner. I briefed her on what was happening, so she could show the plumbers where the problem was in case they arrived before I did. Then I left to pick up Andy.
3:45 Back home with Andy, but no plumber. I called Mike--still en route. I told Andy to have a snack, then told him to brush his teeth, then remembered we had no water.
3:50 The plumbers arrived. They couldn't figure out where the broken pipe was coming from or what it was leading to. "I've never seen anything like this before," one of them said, and the other could only shake his head at the absurdity of our plumbing.
3:55 Andy and I left for the orthodontist; Mike stayed behind to deal with the plumbers.
By the time I got back home, the plumbers had finished their work and told Mike what we really needed was a complete overhaul of our pipes--apparently, they're the creation of "some handyman who thought he knew what he was doing" when he removed a water softener and re-routed the pipes that supply our house. Mike and I talked about whether to call the fencing company and tell them what had happened. On the one hand, we didn't think we should have to pay the plumbing bill; on the other, if the company did agree to pay the bill, we figured they'd take it out of the workers' pay for the day. That, or they'd just fire the guys for being careless. In the end, we decided to just let it go. We aren't rolling in money, by any means, but I'm fairly certain we can cover that unexpected bill more easily than two guys who build fences for a living. (Maybe I'll change my mind about that when I see our water bill for next month.)
Mike went back to campus for his evening class. The fencing guys stayed until 7:00, nailing up fence boards in the dark--and this is one of those actually cold evenings we get in January, when working outside in the dark wouldn't be pleasant at all. Obviously, though, they lost quite a bit of time worrying over the gushing pipe and still needed to finish this job on time so they could start on another project on schedule tomorrow.
After they'd gone, the kids and I went to the grocery store. The first thing I put in my cart was a six pack of Shiner beer, which made my daughter laugh.
"Hard day?" she said.
Indeed.
I came home from campus today at 3:00. The plan was to have a snack, get the mail, let my son grab a snack when his bus dropped him off at 3:30, then take him to the orthodontist at 4:00. But when I got home, I saw the fencing company had sent out a crew to replace our fence today. We'd been hoping they'd come this week, so I was happy enough to see them--just surprised, because we'd been told they would call and give us notice a day ahead of time.
I walked around the back of the house to let them know I was home--no one there. Hmm. So I went inside, knowing the animals would be a little freaked out by the strangers in the yard. Sure enough, both the dog and the cat were sitting squarely in front of the door, looking worried, wearing their Oh my God there's a stranger in the yard Mom what do we do there's a stranger in the yard Mom I don't know if you've noticed there's a stranger in the yard but oh my God Mom there's a stranger in the yard! faces. I fed Miss Kitty and put Hailey on a leash, thinking I'd take her out the front door and down to the mailbox while I gathered the mail.
3:02 When I walked out the front door, I was met with two more worried-looking faces: the two guys from the fencing crew were standing next a gushing pipe just to side of our front porch. I tried to figure out what had happened, but neither of them spoke much English. It looked like the pipe (a PVC pipe that runs along the outside of our house) had just snapped clean in two. I figured they'd hit it with one of the fence boards. I did manage to determine that they'd tried to turn off the main water valve at the street, though that didn't appear to have done much good. Meanwhile Hailey, terribly excited by the presence of strangers, was barking her head off. So I took her back inside, called my husband at work, left him a slightly panicked message, and called the plumbing company to ask if they could come right away.
3:10 My daughter Jordan called. "Did you pick up Andy at school today?" No, why? "Because he's not on the bus." Well. Excellent. I tried to call him on his cell phone, but Andy wasn't answering. The phone beeped to let me know I had a call on the other line. My husband, Mike, finally back in his office after class. I brought him up to speed and he reminded me that we'd bought a tool to turn off the water at the street (during another moment of plumbing-induced chaos.) I went back out to the water meter and one of the fencing guys was quick to help me figure out how to turn the cut-off valve. Then I told Mike I thought I'd have to call the orthodontist and tell them we couldn't make it today. But Mike didn't want Andy to have to reschedule; he wanted him to go ahead and get his retainers today. So he said he'd come home and meet the plumber while I went to the orthodontist. It's a half-hour commute through downtown from his office to our house, so coming home in the middle of the day is a major headache. Plus, his graduate class met for the first time tonight, and he'd planned to use those late afternoon hours to prepare for class. I felt bad that he had to come home, but I didn't know what else to do.
3:20 Andy called right after I got off the phone with Mike. We agreed that he'd sit in front of the school until I could get there to pick him up. Then I called the plumbing company back, to tell them I had to leave for about 20 minutes. They said they'd send a crew to meet me at the house when I got back.
3:30 The bus dropped Jordan at the corner. I briefed her on what was happening, so she could show the plumbers where the problem was in case they arrived before I did. Then I left to pick up Andy.
3:45 Back home with Andy, but no plumber. I called Mike--still en route. I told Andy to have a snack, then told him to brush his teeth, then remembered we had no water.
3:50 The plumbers arrived. They couldn't figure out where the broken pipe was coming from or what it was leading to. "I've never seen anything like this before," one of them said, and the other could only shake his head at the absurdity of our plumbing.
3:55 Andy and I left for the orthodontist; Mike stayed behind to deal with the plumbers.
By the time I got back home, the plumbers had finished their work and told Mike what we really needed was a complete overhaul of our pipes--apparently, they're the creation of "some handyman who thought he knew what he was doing" when he removed a water softener and re-routed the pipes that supply our house. Mike and I talked about whether to call the fencing company and tell them what had happened. On the one hand, we didn't think we should have to pay the plumbing bill; on the other, if the company did agree to pay the bill, we figured they'd take it out of the workers' pay for the day. That, or they'd just fire the guys for being careless. In the end, we decided to just let it go. We aren't rolling in money, by any means, but I'm fairly certain we can cover that unexpected bill more easily than two guys who build fences for a living. (Maybe I'll change my mind about that when I see our water bill for next month.)
Mike went back to campus for his evening class. The fencing guys stayed until 7:00, nailing up fence boards in the dark--and this is one of those actually cold evenings we get in January, when working outside in the dark wouldn't be pleasant at all. Obviously, though, they lost quite a bit of time worrying over the gushing pipe and still needed to finish this job on time so they could start on another project on schedule tomorrow.
After they'd gone, the kids and I went to the grocery store. The first thing I put in my cart was a six pack of Shiner beer, which made my daughter laugh.
"Hard day?" she said.
Indeed.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Basic Thing
When my son was little, he used to ask me a baffling question: "What's the basic thing about X?" (For X, substitute anything you can think of: cheeseburgers, The Flintstones, going to the movies. I got all those questions and many, many more.) It's a harder question than you might imagine. I didn't realize this at first--I thought, well, the basic thing about a cheeseburger is the burger. But without the cheese, of course, it's just a burger. So perhaps the basic thing is cheese. But no. A slice of cheese alone does not a cheeseburger make.
I started thinking about this yesterday, when I started to write an essay on character that I was asked to contribute to Center, the literary magazine published by the graduate writing program at the University Of Missouri. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized how tricky it is to identify the basic thing about anything. For example, parenting.
Yesterday I was helping my son get ready for school when my husband pointed out that while I was away at Ragdale, our kids got themselves ready for school every single morning. I know they're completely capable of doing this--they're certainly old enough--but I've been in the habit of helping out since they were small people. So now I do it without even thinking about whether it's really necessary, or if it's of benefit to them.
My husband and I grew up in very different families. I had a hands-on stay at home mom and a working dad; my husband had two working parents and two much younger siblings that he was responsible for much of the time. I think he knew more about being a parent when he left home for college than I did when we had children of our own. Still, I have to question whether being a hands-off parent is the basic thing about good parenting. There were mornings while I was gone, I've heard, where my husband wound up driving the kids to school because they'd missed their bus. So what's more important: teaching them to take care of themselves, or teaching them that operating on a schedule is an important part of life? (I really don't want my kids to be like the students who wander into my classroom ten minutes late every day and fail to see why this is an issue.)
Ideally, of course, they'd learn both lessons. But if I have to choose between the two, I'm going to teach my kids that maintaining a schedule is a matter of respect. When my daughter called from the bus stop a few weeks ago to tell me she'd just realized that she forgot to put on makeup before she left the house, I told her she'd have to go to school as she was. I wouldn't agree to drive her to school after she'd come home and finished getting ready; that was something she had to learn to do in the time between waking up and leaving for the bus. When she did the same thing earlier this week, she didn't even bother to call home. She knew her main responsibility was getting herself to school on time, and that's what she did--even though it meant letting people see what she looks like without eyeliner.
Kids make mistakes, of course. When they miss the bus after school, very occasionally, I don't tell them to make the long walk home along a busy street; I go pick them up. But they're apologizing to me the minute they get in the car. They know they've messed up. They don't assume they're entitled to miss the bus once in awhile, that I should be available to pick them up. They respect the fact that I have a schedule, too, that I'm responsible for being other places and doing other things. But they also know that they will always come first, when they really need my help.
So maybe that's the basic thing about being a parent: making sure your children understand that they're always your first priority, that this is a privilege not all children share, and that they therefore shouldn't abuse that privilege arbitrarily. This is something we can help them understand by letting our kids know we have faith in their ability to be responsible for themselves--and providing backup when, inevitably, they fail. Or by making sure our kids show respect for others by being where they're supposed be, on time--and providing backup when, inevitably, they fall behind.
Well, look at that: providing backup. The basic thing.
I started thinking about this yesterday, when I started to write an essay on character that I was asked to contribute to Center, the literary magazine published by the graduate writing program at the University Of Missouri. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized how tricky it is to identify the basic thing about anything. For example, parenting.
Yesterday I was helping my son get ready for school when my husband pointed out that while I was away at Ragdale, our kids got themselves ready for school every single morning. I know they're completely capable of doing this--they're certainly old enough--but I've been in the habit of helping out since they were small people. So now I do it without even thinking about whether it's really necessary, or if it's of benefit to them.
My husband and I grew up in very different families. I had a hands-on stay at home mom and a working dad; my husband had two working parents and two much younger siblings that he was responsible for much of the time. I think he knew more about being a parent when he left home for college than I did when we had children of our own. Still, I have to question whether being a hands-off parent is the basic thing about good parenting. There were mornings while I was gone, I've heard, where my husband wound up driving the kids to school because they'd missed their bus. So what's more important: teaching them to take care of themselves, or teaching them that operating on a schedule is an important part of life? (I really don't want my kids to be like the students who wander into my classroom ten minutes late every day and fail to see why this is an issue.)
Ideally, of course, they'd learn both lessons. But if I have to choose between the two, I'm going to teach my kids that maintaining a schedule is a matter of respect. When my daughter called from the bus stop a few weeks ago to tell me she'd just realized that she forgot to put on makeup before she left the house, I told her she'd have to go to school as she was. I wouldn't agree to drive her to school after she'd come home and finished getting ready; that was something she had to learn to do in the time between waking up and leaving for the bus. When she did the same thing earlier this week, she didn't even bother to call home. She knew her main responsibility was getting herself to school on time, and that's what she did--even though it meant letting people see what she looks like without eyeliner.
Kids make mistakes, of course. When they miss the bus after school, very occasionally, I don't tell them to make the long walk home along a busy street; I go pick them up. But they're apologizing to me the minute they get in the car. They know they've messed up. They don't assume they're entitled to miss the bus once in awhile, that I should be available to pick them up. They respect the fact that I have a schedule, too, that I'm responsible for being other places and doing other things. But they also know that they will always come first, when they really need my help.
So maybe that's the basic thing about being a parent: making sure your children understand that they're always your first priority, that this is a privilege not all children share, and that they therefore shouldn't abuse that privilege arbitrarily. This is something we can help them understand by letting our kids know we have faith in their ability to be responsible for themselves--and providing backup when, inevitably, they fail. Or by making sure our kids show respect for others by being where they're supposed be, on time--and providing backup when, inevitably, they fall behind.
Well, look at that: providing backup. The basic thing.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Amusing moments from the McCain viewing party at my house
So my son had to watch John McCain's acceptance speech last night as an assignment for his history class. (I didn't object when he was required to watch Obama's speech last week, but this time around I was thinking, "What? That's a ridiculous assignment. They shouldn't be requiring me to expose my child to Republican propaganda.") My son decided he wanted to watch the speech by himself, in our bedroom, where he could focus on his note-taking--his job was to write down 15 facts from McCain's speech. Please don't get me started about how difficult I would find that task.
After my son had left the room, my husband turned to me and said, "That's probably for the best. I wouldn't want him listening to me and writing down facts like 'If John McCain wins the election, my family will be moving to Canada.'"
Once McCain started speaking, of course, no end of hilarity ensued. I can't wait to introduce Sarah Palin to Washington.
"Um . . . Mr. McCain . . . Washington is dead, sir," my husband said.
"What?" I said. "No one told me that! I just had coffee with him yesterday!"
And on and on and on. Before too long, my son came out of the bedroom with his list of facts (I didn't fact-check his assignment, in the interest of letting him get to bed sometime before the new year.)
"So, what do you think of Mr. McCain?" I asked.
"He almost got me," my son said. "I think it's pretty impressive that he spent five years in a prison and didn't come out completely mean and evil."
I declined to challenge that assessment. "Well," I said, "Dad and I have always told people that the only way you and Sissy can rebel against us is by becoming Republican accountants. I guess it was inevitable that we'd part ways."
My son gave me a sideways look. "I said he almost got me. This fish is not taking the bait."
If my eleven-year-old is smart enough to see through the rhetoric of jingoism, let's hope the rest of the country is too. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm audaciously hopeful.
After my son had left the room, my husband turned to me and said, "That's probably for the best. I wouldn't want him listening to me and writing down facts like 'If John McCain wins the election, my family will be moving to Canada.'"
Once McCain started speaking, of course, no end of hilarity ensued. I can't wait to introduce Sarah Palin to Washington.
"Um . . . Mr. McCain . . . Washington is dead, sir," my husband said.
"What?" I said. "No one told me that! I just had coffee with him yesterday!"
And on and on and on. Before too long, my son came out of the bedroom with his list of facts (I didn't fact-check his assignment, in the interest of letting him get to bed sometime before the new year.)
"So, what do you think of Mr. McCain?" I asked.
"He almost got me," my son said. "I think it's pretty impressive that he spent five years in a prison and didn't come out completely mean and evil."
I declined to challenge that assessment. "Well," I said, "Dad and I have always told people that the only way you and Sissy can rebel against us is by becoming Republican accountants. I guess it was inevitable that we'd part ways."
My son gave me a sideways look. "I said he almost got me. This fish is not taking the bait."
If my eleven-year-old is smart enough to see through the rhetoric of jingoism, let's hope the rest of the country is too. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm audaciously hopeful.
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