two feet in.

In the Eyes of Our Children

In his Mideast Dispatches Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily have recently reported on what is happening to education in Iraq under war and occupation.  I'll share some of those details in an upcoming post.  For now, here's a bit from a recent piece on children:

Ahmed Ghazi has little reason to stock Christmas toys at his shop in Fallujah. He knows what children want these days.* "It is best for us to import toys such as guns and tanks because they are most saleable in Iraq to little boys," Ghazi told IPS. "Children try to imitate what they see out of their windows."

And there are particular imports for girls, too, he said. "Girls prefer crying dolls to others that dance or play music and songs."

As children in the United States and around the world celebrate Christmas, and prepare to celebrate the New Year, children in Iraq occupy a quite different world, with toys to match.
...
"Children are the most affected by the tragic events," Dr. Khalil al-Kubaissi, a psychotherapist in Fallujah told IPS. "Their fragile personalities cannot face the loss of a parent or the family house along with all the horror that surrounds them. The result is catastrophic, and Iraqi children are in serious danger of lapsing into loneliness or violence."

The difficulties of children have become particularly noticeable this year. "The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the U.S. occupation," Maruan Abdullah, spokesman for the Association of Psychologists of Iraq told reporters at the launch of a study in February this year. The report warned that "children in Iraq are seriously suffering psychologically with all the insecurity, especially with the fear of kidnapping and explosions."

My own daughter is five years old, and yes, inhabits a very different world than the children in Iraq.  However, she is becoming increasing aware of issues surrounding war, peace, and inequity -- that these different worlds exist within our shared world.  She does not see the images on the nightly news, but she does listen to the radio with me (and she listens more closely than I had thought), we attend anti-war events together, and I try to talk openly and honestly with her about my perceptions surrounding justice and injustice. 

A few weeks ago she, on her own, made the picture above and those below.  I was on my way to a peace event, and she asked me to give them to people there.  Here, for the New Year, I give them to you.

 

 

One Right Thing

Monday morning, my sweet kindergarten girl, Rosie, was anything but sweet.  In that usually crazy time of making coffee, getting breakfast, feeding animals, packing lunch and backpacks, dressing kids and myself, she started the 45-minute long temper tantrum from hell.  She wanted breakfast, she didn’t want breakfast, she wanted to wear her cheetah skirt, she wanted to wear her purple pants, she missed her out-of-town friends, she missed her grandparents, she missed her teacher, she wanted to go to school, she didn’t want to go to school, and on and on.  There was no pleasing her.  I think the reasons came down to being on the outgoing edge of illness, and not wanting to let go of the hugely-fun-for-a-five-year-old weekend that had just passed.  But, no temperature, so I put my foot down and said that she was going to school.

Then, she didn’t want to ride the bus.  This time I wavered.  Driving her would mean that I’d have to stay for the first 15 minutes of the school day for family reading time.  Family reading time is nice, but it also gets me to work a good hour after I’d otherwise arrive.  I had lots of work, not much time in my day free from meetings to do my work, and frankly, I was tired out from the hugely-fun-for-a-five-year-old weekend that had just passed.  It had not necessarily been hugely fun for me.  So, I put my foot down and said that she had to ride the bus.

Her temper tantrum subsided, but, let’s face it, my girl looked sad.  As we went to the bus stop I tried playing the usual little verbal games and singing the cute songs that always bring a smile.  Nothing forthcoming.  I figured as soon as she saw her best friend Q. at the bus stop, she’d be fine.  They’d hold hands, skip onto the bus together, and she’d wave goodbye with a smile.  Q. didn’t come. 

The bus arrived, Rosie pulled her backpack (which is nearly as big as she is) on, and climbed up into the long yellow school bus.  She walked to the seat on the far side of the bus that she usually shares with Q. sat down, turning away from me.  She didn’t smile.  She stoically looked out the window holding tightly to her “I’m going to do my best not to cry” face.  Wanting to be a big girl, but needing me.  The bus pulled away into the foggy morning.  She didn’t wave goodbye. 

I got in my car and drove down the hill toward the university and the calm of my office with the image of her sitting alone, trying not to cry, in my mind.  Instead of turning left into the parking lot, I ended up heading right and driving further down the hill to the school.  I parked, and waited in front for the bus to arrive.  Rosie was one of the last kids off, still alone.  She almost didn’t see me standing there and waiting.  Finally, a glimmer of recognition, a glowing smile...

Rosie:  What are you doing here?
Me:  You didn’t wave goodbye, so I thought I’d check to see if you were doing okay.
Rosie:  Will you come read with me?
Me:  Of course.

I got to the office an hour late, I spent most of the day in meetings, I didn’t finish my work.   But, my daughter smiled, we read a picture book about autumn together.  I saw her, perhaps for the first time as separate and alone, and then pulled her closer to my heart.  And I slept that night knowing that in this job of raising kids, I've done at least one right thing.

Equal Cookies For All!

My kids don't watch TV very often, but I must admit to the occasional non-work morning when I really just want to drink my coffee and read the paper for a few minutes before play-doh, trains, park excursions, and dress-up.  On such days, I've often tried to convince my daughter to watch Sesame Street for just a bit, only to be greeted by an adamant NO by the-only-child-alive-who-doesn't-WANT-to-watch-TV. (Actually, that's no longer true -- when she turned 4 a few months ago, TV was suddenly cool.)

However, even Sesame Street bears close scrutiny.  Here's a little vignette from Paul Street on ZNet:

Flipping through the television clicker one morning, I recently I happened upon "Sesame Street" (SS), the venerable educational PBS series for pre- and early grade-school children. 

The morning's lesson was on the just and inviolable nature of socioeconomic inequity and the sanctity of private property and possessive individualism.   

At the point I clicked on the program, two very concerned and mature adults --- a black man and a black woman, both in their 40s it appeared --- were listening with raised eyebrows to a blue puppet animal ("Cookie Monster" perhaps) who had just designated himself "Cookie-Hood." "Cookie-Hood" was a play on Robin Hood. 

"Cookie Hood" had just come to the alarming (for him) realization that "some people have lots more cookies than they need" while "other people have no cookies at all." 

That's a prescient observation in the industrialized world's most unequal and wealth-top-heavy society, where the top 1 percent owns at least 40 percent of total wealth and more than 1 million black children are growing up at less than half the federal government's notoriously low and inadequate poverty level.

The solution, "Cookie-Hood" announced, is to take the surplus cookies away from the wealthy few and give them away to the poor, cookie-less many. Imagine! 

"Hooray!" the other puppet animals shouted. 

The two adults were not pleased.  "That," the father figure sternly intoned, "is stealing." And "stealing is wrong," he elaborated, "because it means taking something that doesn't belong to you." 

No room, of course, in the SS script for why the cookie-less exist in the first place: because of societal dispossession, repression, and, well, theft.  No room for moral outrage at the fact that masses of cookie-less are born into a world they never made where billions go hungry and ill-housed while a wealthy minority lives surrounded by extravagant opulence.  No sense of justice in the demand of equal cookies for all. 

"Cookie-Hood" felt sad and ashamed.  He thought he'd been doing something good and just, but really he'd been doing something wrong.   

He'd been stealing cookies that didn't belong to him!  Bad cookie puppet!!

The other puppet animals were confused.   

What to do now?  And what about the cookie-less?

Not to worry!  Sesame Street's wise and benevolent adults had a solution.   

The solution is....currency.  Puppets and people don't have to steal cookies from the rich because, the father figure explained, "we can all go to the store and buy cookies." Yes, all of can us get as many cookies as we want with a magical medium called.....drumroll...ta-da....MONEY.

Because everybody's got money, right?   

Money is equality. 

Who needs Robin Hoods when we've all got that great universal leveler and destroyer of hierarchy and inequality called money.   

Three cheers for money!  Hooray for the means of exchange! 

"Cookie-Hood" (Cookie-Monster?) was happy because he remembered that he just gotten his allowance.  He held up a little bag of coins and shouted, "Hooray, let's go the store and buy cookies."  

He wasn't worried anymore about whether other people have enough cookies. Now he just cared about getting his own.  He knew that other people get money (allowances) too. 

Before going to the store, however, Cookie-Hood had to take back the surplus cookies he'd stolen from the privileged few.

I suppose this should come as no surprise from the show that used to be "Brought to you by the letter..." but is now brought to you by... McDonald's.  Hurray for capitalism!

My September 11th

On September 11, 2001, I went shopping. 

I didn't pull close to loved ones, I didn't strive to understand, to educate, to do anything other than watch the twin towers burn, then get in the car and drive out to the suburbs to buy baby clothes.   

I was hugely pregnant, full of expectancy.  That September morning my friend and I drove in silence, listening to endless radio descriptions of the devastation.  Arriving at the store we found that it was, unsurprisingly, closed.  People were burning in New York, the lives of hundreds of thousands more were already numbered as the war gears in Washington churned into action, and we two pregnant woman stared into the window and could not quite understand why the store was not open for us – after all, this horrible tragedy was happening so far away. 

I am not a shopper, never have been, and really, this tale is not about shopping.  It is about knowledge and responsibility, bearing witness and being engaged with the world beyond our own doorstep.  In this, it is a story about how I failed, and about how many of us fail day after day to recognize that we are part of a larger humanity.  And, too often when we do recognize the injustice in the world, regularly perpetrated by the hands of our own government, we remain mute.  We listen to the radio, shake our heads in disbelief and anger, and then go shopping. 

Truth is, I'd been tuning out, in slow progression, for many years, as I became increasingly cynical and wrapped up in my own life.  I wanted the best for my child, just like any parent.  However, I failed to recognize that I not only hold responsibility for my own, but for all.  I failed to see how the best for my own child has nothing to do with baby clothes, and everything to do with confronting our fears, fostering human connection, and building solidarity across fault lines of race, class, gender, nationality, religion.  It has everything to do with recognizing the continuity between one’s own family and our responsibility towards the creation of a loving human family.

I view my shopping trip on September 11th as a personal failure, but I also increasingly see how the failure was not just my own, but one that lives in each of us.  As long as we allow the existence of near and far, of nation-states, and borders – as long as we stay within our own zone of knowledge, comfort, and understanding, those fault lines will remain.  Fault lines that crack and splinter, rifts that eventually rupture to tear us apart.  What will it take for us to see humanity as a whole, rather than as subdivided entities, as “us” and “them,” as one or another person being wronged?

We are all wronged until we are able to collectively recognize and articulate the continuity of tragedy, which stretched long before September 11th, and lives on today in Iraq, in Niger, in the destroyed lives of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward.  This continuity of tragedy is fueled by Martin Luther King’s interrelated triple evils of poverty, racism, and war, and by each of our blindness and indifference to our role in this poisonous relationship.  In his Beyond Vietnam address, King spoke of the need to send a message to the world, one of longing, of hope, of solidarity, and commitment:  “The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”  This is a choice that requires we do more than bring our bodies to the streets as we did on February 15, 2003, and then retreat back within our own lives, back to our own form of shopping trips for baby clothes.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I was searching for an orb, a smooth, unfractured sphere – for a wholeness that I, and we, have not yet achieved.  As I searched, I became increasingly fearful that I wouldn’t be able to find this orb, or perhaps that if I did, I would not have the strength or courage to carry it home.  For to find that orb, and hold it in our hands with awe and reverence, requires that we take action.  We must bring our bodies to the streets on September 24, 2005, and then keep them there as we each strive to understand, to educate, and to express not only our outrage but also our love.  The time to break silence is now.

Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie, and Revolution of Heart

Several different currents that have been flowing through my brain came together today with the tragic news of the death of activist Marla Ruzicka.  Thus, this posting may seem more like a bunch of random thoughts rather than anything coherent.  I'll do my best to make sense, but if I don't succeed, then so be it.

I only knew a little about Marla and the important work that she did in her life before yesterday, but her death -- much like that of Rachel Corrie in 2003 -- touched me deeply.  Don't get me wrong, my sadness does not only get called out by the deaths of young, white, female activists, but there is a certain sense of identification that I feel with these women.  And, in their faces, I also see my daughter -- or maybe I see the kind of spirit, determination, courage, empathy, and love that I hope she carries with her out into the world.  I hope this for both my children, for all our children.  But, in Marla and Rachel's faces, I especially see Rosie.

Perhaps I sometimes stress too much about whether or not I've got what it takes to be a good parent.  Those worries are decreasing as I gain more experience in the job.  But, in my thinking about parenting, I have become quite fascinated by the paths that people's lives take, especially the influences and experiences that drive people to take action towards a more just and humane world -- to make this pursuit their life's work as did Marla and Rachel.

A few months ago, I read a piece by Rebecca Solnit, and one quote touched upon this fascination.  She wrote: "Some activists are born into their disposition and vocation, but many of the most passionate lead ordinary lives until some injustice or atrocity strikes them like lightning and they are reborn dedicated."

What might it mean to be "born into" the disposition of activism?  What role do parents, family, and community play in building this disposition?  How can I help to nurture, as Dorothy Day said, a "revolution of the heart" in my own children?  This is a challenge that each of us must take on if we hope to achieve Marla Ruzicka's and Rachel Corrie's vision, if we hope to honor the lives of all victims of war, oppression, injustice.

One thing I know for sure -- there is no sure-fire recipe for doing this.  It is unlikely that there will be parenting books written on the topic.

Another thing I know, however, is that I do have the power of my own voice and  my own actions, working collectively with others, to serve as both example and guide for my children.  Awhile back, Robert Jensen, in his indispensable book, Citizens of the Empire, provided me with another beacon:

I have heard many parents say that their contribution to a better world is to raise their children with progressive values.  That's all well and good; better to have children with progressive rather than reactionary role models.  But I think these folks misunderstand not just their moral obligation, but the nature of progress, individual and collective.  We don't fix ourselves in isolation.  We don't build decent lives by cutting ourselves off from problems just because they are complex... Part of the solution is always to be found in the bigger struggle, in which we all have a part.

So, much of this was on my mind as Rosie and I looked at the above photo of Marla Ruzicka with a young Iraqi girl.  As is typical, Rosie wanted to know all about each of the people in the picture, and so I used my best make-it-comprehensible-to-a-three-year-old language to try and explain.  I told her that Marla was somebody who tried to make the world a better place, and that she had helped the little girl in the picture, whose family had died in the war.

I then told her that Marla herself had died in the war, and Rosie grew still as she carefully studied the picture.  She asked me if helping the girl is how Marla did good things for the world.  Yes, I said, but also because Marla helped many other people as well.  Silence again.

"But now, who will help the little girl?" she asked.   

I replied that hopefully we will all work together to help that little girl, and many others like her.  I wanted to add that we will do so by speaking truth and taking action against war, occupation, economic injustice, and our country's self-serving role in driving these horrors.  That part might have to wait a few years, though -- at least until Rosie turns six. 

Boys will be boys?

A few weeks ago the New York Times had a piece about bloggers who are also parents, and who choose to write about their children.   They termed the baby blog as the "online shrine to parental self-absorption."  In some cases I might agree, but since most of the parents covered in the article were indeed, mothers, the parental self-absorption thing bothered me.  Were the majority of the profiled bloggers men, somehow I doubt it would have been termed "self-absorption" -- rather, these blogging dads most likely would have been praised for being able to capture the nuances of their children's development in vivid prose.  It would read something like:  "So attentive, so  caring, so devoted to their children, these dads are a benefit to fatherhood for their honest sharing and openness about their parental struggles and triumphs." 

Since I do strive to be as self-absorbed as possible at all times, I figured I should do some baby blogging of my own.  I've also been besottedly in love with my own particular children this week,  and so will now engage in some shameless parental self-absorption, as I wonder out loud about my son's new found obsession with trains. 

I- is 18 months old, doesn't yet walk (and let me tell you that a nearly 30 lb. kid that doesn't walk is a giant pain in the... lower back), and knows about ten words.  His newest is choo choo, and as the concept of just what a choo choo is not yet planted firmly in his brain, he calls anything longer than a car, with wheels, that moves, a choo choo.  Buses are choo choos, trucks are choo choos, trains are too. 

He scoots around the house, holding a toy bus in one hand, and a piece of train track in the other, repeating his blissful choo choo mantra.  He'll even search out the two books in the house that have pictures of trains, and can be found off in a corner caressing them in a manner that, well, doesn't seem quite right for an 18 month old.

What has been most interesting to me about this choo choo obsession, however, has been the near universal response whenever I mention it to someone:  "Oh, that's a boy thing.  Boys are into trains."  It is true that my daughter, while enjoying a good train now and then, has never been obsessed.  She can take them or leave them, and would probably be non-plussed if she never saw a train again.  And, if you Google "train obsession" you'll find  links to lots of self-absorbed parents who are worrying about their own little boys and trains. 

I am not worried -- if I- likes trains, then so be it.  But, I am fascinated as I grapple with this whole cultural conditioning vs. innate tendency dialectic at work on the floor of my living room.  If anything, I- has been much more exposed to the stereotypes associated with girls, as his big sister's obsession is to dress up in a tutu and dance to the Nutcracker.  And while he's generally happy to don a necklace and sequined cap, he's so far indifferent to the tutu.  Note, however, that he wants nothing to do with the cap in the above image.  That's an example of his self-absorbed mama forcing him to wear it for sake of image to put on her own online shrine to self-absorption.

I'm not willing to ascribe the train obsession to the nature end of things, but the seemingly spontaneous development of I-'s interest does give pause.  Do we all have a bit of Lawrence Summers in us, and it is just that some are more willing to go public than others? 

"Tell more about earthquakes and the water that comes."

This image of grieving at a mass burial site in India was on the front page of the paper this morning.  My three-year old daughter, R., was fascinated by it, and thus began a long explanation about earthquakes, tsunamis, and the disaster happening far from our home. 

R. has since been concerned all day, often climbing up into my lap and asking me to "tell more about earthquakes and the water that comes."  I can see how these concepts are really too big for her to be able to fully understand, even when explained ten different ways.  And, I sometimes worry that her partial understandings, and misunderstandings, might be more than a three-year old can handle. 

Compared to many contemporary kids, R. is probably quite sheltered from actual images of death and destruction -- whether natural disaster related, war related, or otherwise.  She does live through war...  and does not see television news broadcasts, though we do listen to a lot of news on the radio.  Lately, I've even been tempted to turn that off, as she is getting more and more attuned to what she hears. 

Who can say, though, what a three-year old can handle?  Perhaps the more accurate question is what must children of all ages endure due to issues of inequality, injustice, and inhumanity? (and I do count tsunami victims in this group) 

I certainly do know that I live with great privilege to be able to decide what my kid sees and hears and what she doesn't, and it is a fine line to walk between my instinct to shelter and my belief in the importance of teaching. 

I want her to be a part of the world -- not to stand apart from it -- and to always act from a place of care and empathy and trying-to-understand.  So, when she asks questions, we answer them in as honest a way as possible.  I try to tell her what I see as right, and what seems very wrong in the world, and hope that bit by bit her understanding will increase. 

true, part three

read part one here, and part two here

During my junior year in college there was an anti-apartheid political action on campus.  The Students Against Apartheid organization had constructed a shanty in the middle of the Cut, our college’s version of the university quad, and protestors camped out there day and night for several months in an effort to force university divestment from companies doing business with South Africa. While I knew of the anti-apartheid movement, I had not been particularly politically aware or involved before that time.  One night, however, a friend asked me to go to the shanty.  A former South African political prisoner, poet, and university professor, Dennis Brutus, would be speaking. 

My memories of that evening are somewhat like remembering a dream:  certain images clear and vivid, and others murkier, denser, unsure.  I don’t remember which of my friends I went with, but nonetheless can vividly recall sights and sounds, as well as how I was changed by the experience.

It was dark, and about thirty of us gathered around the simple wooden shanty in the middle of the green lawn, candles flickering, students walking past on the nearby paths on their way to their dorms, the library, or computer labs.  The night was clear and brisk.  Dennis Brutus sat in the middle of the circle of students and talked about South Africa, about the divestment movement, and read his poetry:

O let me soar on steadfast wing
that those who know me for a pitiable thing
may see me inerasably clear:

grant that their faith that I might hood
some potent thrust to freedom, humanhood
under drab fluff may still be justified.

Protect me from the slightest deviant swoop
to pretty bush or hedgerow lest I droop
ruffled or trifled, snared or power misspent.

Uphold – frustrate me if need be
so that I mould my energy
for that one swift inenarrable soar

hurling myself swordbeaked to lunge
for lodgement in my life’s sun-targe –
a land and people just and free.

It was in that space around the shanty, with the soft-spoken poet-activist-professor, that God finally became something tangible for me:  something that I could feel all around, guiding our small group of students to reach out to other human beings, to expand our knowledge and understanding of the world, to work towards justice, and to build our own capacities of empathy and love. 

It wasn’t as I expected it would be – there was no great voice booming down from above saying, “Here I am!”  Rather, the experience was like revisiting that feeling that I’d had in my heart since childhood, but with a sense of assuredness, understanding, and peace that I had not yet been able to feel.  God is here, I thought to myself, of course God is here.  In that circle of people I was finally able to release myself from the rational pull of my brain, and trust what I had sensed all along.

Now, nearly twenty years later, those God-faker feelings from my childhood still haunt me sometimes.  When R. asked me to tell her about God, my first reaction was that I was not qualified to reply – after all, I still don’t belong to any organized religion and would be hard-pressed to cite more than a few lines of scripture.  No one has ever actually taught me about God, so how can I have any kind of legitimacy to explain God to her? 

While I considered what to say to Rosie, I thought back to the night with Dennis Brutus and about how I’ve tried to live my life since then – in a manner that, while not always consciously evoking God’s name, has been guided by the same spirit that was present that evening.  If some people consider me a God-faker due to the fact that my only understanding of God comes through my ever-stumbling and sometimes-succeeding attempts to build love, empathy, and justice in the world, then so be it. 

So, as R. and I left the labyrinth and began to walk back home through the foggy afternoon, I quieted my doubts and explained to her what I know to be true.

true, part two

part one is here.

My clearest memory of committing a God-faux-pas happened when I was about eight years old, during a visit to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.  I had never seen anyplace so beautiful, and felt like I could hardly breathe from excitement when my parents, sister, and I walked through the front entrance.  Here, I thought, is the place where God lives, and I was eagerly awaiting some kind of sign or signal that he/she/it was in there waiting for me.

Rows of wooden pews dominated the center of the building, and around the perimeter were shrines for various American saints.  We began to walk, stopping to look in each shrine.  The banks of candles in front of each saint’s statue fascinated me, and the people who lit them seemed like they must know God well.  I quickly decided that I could not leave the cathedral without lighting one of those candles myself.  I felt sure that by doing so I would understand God, and the anticipation was almost too much for me to bear. 

The procedure seemed simple enough.  Take an already lit candle and use it to light another candle, and then say your prayers.  I waited until my parents had moved several saints ahead and made my move.  Slowly, so that I would be sure remember each moment, I picked up the front candle and moved to light one of the others.  As the hushed sounds of the cathedral flowed around me, I closed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for what I imagined would be some kind of signal from above.  

“WHAT are you doing?!”  My mother’s annoyed whisper pierced my reverie. 

Apparently, I was not aware that you were supposed to give a donation if you wanted to light a candle, and my parents were not happy.  They quickly pulled me outside to the front steps of the cathedral and tried to explain what I had done wrong.  I don’t remember their words, just my own shame.  As I watched the traffic and pedestrians flowing past on Fifth Avenue I felt sure that all those anonymous people knew that I was a God-faker.  I remember my body shaking and my tears flowing, not so much because I got in trouble, but because I felt like I had been so close to understanding when I was inside that church, and God now seemed very, very, far away.

When I was thirteen years old, I took communion.  Nobody called me on it this time, but it was later reported to me that this was another big God-related error, since I’d never been baptized nor had confession, or a first communion.  It was Christmas Eve, midnight mass, in The Netherlands, where I was visiting family friends.  When it came time for communion, I got up and followed everyone else into the line, and my presence was neither noticed nor questioned.  As we moved slowly closer to the priest, I carefully watched each person’s actions as they received their own communion.  Like at Saint Patrick’s, it seemed like a simple enough process:  close your eyes, open your mouth to get that small white thing, then move your hands in a cross-wise fashion on your chest.  Making the hand motions looked like it would be the hardest part, and I tried to memorize exactly what everyone else did. 

As the priest placed the tasteless wafer on my tongue, I didn’t get a chance to feel filled up with God because I panicked about crossing myself correctly.  Up-down-over-left-right- what was the order again?  Did I do it wrong?  Was the priest glaring at me?  Had I been found out?  My face burning, I hurried back to my seat in the pew and slouched down, upset with myself for messing up and sad that I had again missed what I thought was my big chance to understand God.

At that point, I started to really question whether this thing called God existed at all – after all, if he/she/it were real, then why couldn’t I experience what others seemed to be able to feel?  And why did my own life seem so lonely and lousy?  However, I was not ready to give up hope yet, even after repeated disappointment when it came to trying to understand God.  So, I continued my search by sticking with the route of organized religion, as this seemed to be the most likely place to find what I was looking for.

As a teenager, I left the Unitarians behind, and decided to try out the Methodists.  I began going to church with my friend Jenny and her mother each week.  My parents were a bit taken aback by this move, but they decided to humor me in my religious quest.  The Methodists, however, didn’t last long, as I was never able to feel at home in the stiff, emotion-less services that characterized Jenny’s particular congregation.  I ditched them after about four months and decided that I was Jewish.

After all, as far as I knew, I was Jewish.  True, we hardly ever celebrated Hanukkah, or the High Holy days, but we did have a Passover seder, at least during the time that my grandfather was still alive.  I loved the ritual and tradition that went into the seder, even our family’s get-through-it-as-quickly-as-possible-so-we-can-eat version.  I felt confident calling myself Jewish, and hoped that claiming my religion would help me figure out God a bit more easily.

What I didn’t know is that Judaism is a matrilineal religion, and my Jewish side of the family is my father’s.  It didn’t matter that I was Jewish enough to have been murdered in the Holocaust.  I was not Jewish enough to be married by most rabbis, and not Jewish enough for my Jewish grandmother to really consider me a Jew.  When, as a teenager, I found this all out, I felt saddened and cheated out of an identity, a religion that I felt was mine, and out of finally having some kind of legitimacy to figure out God.

So, in the first few years of college I gave up on organized religion, and put God on the back burner of my life.  I wore black, sometimes claimed to be an atheist (though not with much conviction), and read Nietzsche.  But, alone in bed at night, I still did something akin to praying – though I didn’t admit to myself that I was praying.  I had conversations with the God that I hadn’t yet figured out, but hoped was around somewhere, listening to what I had to say.

part three soon

true, part one

There is a labyrinth in a church courtyard around the corner from our house – a maze set in bricks on the ground.  My daughter, R., and I go there sometimes.  I slowly wind my way though the maze, trying to get her to follow behind me, but she usually wants to cross over all the boundaries and go straight to the middle.  She is simply not that interested in my adult explanation that the journey is why people walk the labyrinth—that following the path gives one a chance to be quiet with their own thoughts and dreams.

Lately, however, R. has been obsessed with What, Who, Why, Where, and How questions.  The last time that we visited the labyrinth I was in the middle of my usual monologue about staying within the lines when she suddenly interjected, “Mama, what do the people think about in the lab-rint?”

I paused for a second, “Well, maybe about their lives, or about the people that they love, or maybe about God.”

She was quiet, a puzzled look appearing on her face, before asking, “Mama…What’s God?”

Suddenly I felt so much like a parent — I was about to impart upon my daughter her first impression of God, at least since she has become a creature who can remember things.  True, as a just-barely three-year old, her memory is still in formation and not always reliable, but it still felt important.  I experienced a stab of fear.  Can I really answer this question?  Am I ready for this responsibility?

Thinking back to my childhood, I am not able to remember my parents ever talking to me about God.  They must have done so at some point in my upbringing, but religion was such a non-issue in our family that it didn’t happen often enough to sink-in in any meaningful way.  My father is Jewish, my mother, I believe, grew up Episcopalian, but neither one has any ties to their religious background. 

However, when my sister and I were young my parents decided that it was time for us to have a religious education, and they began to send us to the local Unitarian church each Sunday morning.  While we “went to church” my father shopped for hardware at Hechingers.  He almost always waited in the car for us at the end of the church driveway, and we would stop to get Big Macs on the way home.  Sometimes he would actually attend the “grown up” service, but whatever happened in that part of the building was a complete mystery to me.

At the Unitarian Church I remember holding hands in a circle each week as we sang, “Here we are, all together as we sing our song, joyfully…” and not much else.  We had a few youth group sleepovers, and may have even staged a play for the adults.  I basically liked my time there, but felt unsatisfied, as the thing that I really wanted to learn about – God – was not particularly high on the agenda.

For as long as I can remember, the concept of God has been something that has felt clear and true in my heart, but not always in my mind.  Like my daughter now, as a child I was searching for the details:  what, how, and why?  It became evident early on that my family wasn’t going to provide much enlightenment on the God issue, or about religion in general, so I realized that I was going to have to figure it out on my own.  And in my search, I made a few mistakes. 

part two soon

 

Is it a bird, a plane, or a bellybutton?

There comes a point in every kid's development when you, as a parent, realize that two-way communication is possible -- that your child might *actually* understand what you are saying to them, and may be able to act accordingly.  With my daughter the first time I remember this happening was one day when I asked her to go to the bedroom and bring back a book to read together, and to my amazement she did it. 

My son had one such communication breakthough today, not long after our hike in the park.  It went like this:

Me:  Where's your bellybutton?

I. smiles, pulls up his shirt, points to his bellybutton, claps his hands, and says Yay!

Me:  Where's your nose?

I. smiles, pulls up his shirt, points to his bellybutton, claps his hands, and says Yay!

Well, we're almost there.  I guess you shouldn't try to push these things too far too fast.

"What did the dark kids dress up as?"

Ah, such a Berkeley kind of afternoon:  a few Sundays ago at the Ashkenaz Dance Club, my three year old (she’s the short one in the striped shirt) in Asheba’s mosh pit. 

R. has seen Asheba perform several times in the past, and has a personal connection to him through my husband B’s school.  She knows and loves Asheba’s music, and is always excited to see him.  This time, however, it took her almost a half an hour to venture near the stage, and even then she was reluctant to dance – normally one of her favorite things to do.  Very uncharacteristic behavior.

Later, on the way home, I asked her why she had been so shy.  She replied, “Asheba’s skin is dark, it’s not light like ours.”

R. has, in the last couple of months, become fascinated with skin color.  Though she has been around people of color all her life, it has started to sink in that humans come in a range of hues and tones:  some lighter, like our family, and some darker like Asheba.   

These days she often asks, “Which one of Isabella's mamas has the darker skin?” 

Or, when B. was talking about the Halloween parade at school, she wondered, “What did the dark kids dress up as?”

R. is interested, she’s curious.  She is opening up to all the diversity in our world, and as of yet remains oblivious to the social baggage that is attached to race in our society.  She doesn’t see skin color as anything more than it is, doesn’t connect it with stereotypes or value judgments. 

Whenever she asks one of her skin color questions I realize how much my reaction may influence how she grows to understand difference and diversity.  We try to provide her matter-of-fact kinds of answers to her matter-of-fact kind of questions:  “Naomi has darker skin, Holly has lighter skin.” or “There are lots of kids with darker skin, and they dressed up as lots of different things.” 

However, I’ve seen White parents who respond to these questions in a very different manner.  Embarrassed that their child is openly talking about skin color, the parents may try to deny differences or to end the conversation.  In the grocery store awhile back I heard a young White child, around R’s age, say to her mother, “Look, it’s a brown lady!” 

The mother was mortified and responded in a hushed voice, “Shhh, we don’t talk about people that way.”  Her daughter was talking about skin color, and the mother heard race.  I couldn’t help but feel that the tone of the woman’s voice, and the silencing of her child’s inquisitiveness could only help that little girl to feel ashamed about her observations, thus maybe closing down future chances to have real conversations about race and difference.

I know that R. will have to confront the issue of racism in her lifetime – we all do.  No matter how enlightened, or non-racist that we think that we may be, it is a simple fact that racism permeates our society.  It is in the air we breathe, there is no escaping it. By not silencing my daughter, by responding to her questions as openly as possible, I hope that I set the stage for her future participation in honest, fearless conversations around issues of diversity and across cultural difference.   For it is only through such dialogue that we can hope to clean the air, to create ways of being together that honor all of us.

only 54 shopping days to go

R. and I ventured out to Target today with the goal of buying a few bags of Halloween candy to hand out this evening.  In order to get to the part of the store that had the Halloween supplies, we had to first make our way past the larger than life-sized Sponge Bob Square Pants display, and then navigate through, yes – the Christmas section.  I don’t know about you, but I sure am feeling rushed with only 54 days to go, so was pleased to have the opportunity to pick up some 3-D reindeer and a light-up wall Santa.

I’ve been trying to downplay the Halloween thing as much as possible, even to the point where I feel a bit guilty about it.  R’s preschool, Pickles, had a costume parade on Friday, and since she usually doesn’t go to Pickles on Fridays, we conveniently skipped the parade.  Now all weekend long she has been talking about the Halloween parade that she doesn’t know has already happened without her.  I didn’t feel like dealing with the parade, so we didn’t go – an executive decision made with no input from my daughter.

However, more and more as a parent, I am discovering (usually the hard way) that it is *so* not about me anymore.  On an intellectual level, I knew that before having kids, but the depth to which it is true can only be understood through the trials and tribulations of trying to negotiate life with children.

Take the whole holiday/consumerism/popular culture/media thing.  All it takes is one trip to Target with a three year old to find out just what you are up against.  When we walked in the front door R. ran up to the giant Sponge Bob and exclaimed, “Mama, I LOVE Sponge Bob!!” 

Well, this was news to me since, as far as I know, R. has never seen the Sponge Bob television show.  As we wandered through the store we saw clothing, costumes, shoes, toys, you name it -- all advertising Nickelodeon or Disney characters.  Sure enough, my daughter knew each and every one of them, even though her exposure to them in our home has been minimal.

It is a fine line that I find myself trying to navigate.  On the one hand, my daughter finds these shows, toys, and characters compelling and wants them in her world.  However, as a parent, I don’t particularly want them her world.  I know about repulsive product development and marketing tactics that drive kid culture.  These “products” – whether they are TV shows or toothpaste – represent corporate domination of our lives and minds, and often perpetuate stereotypes that I actively strive to overcome with my children.

But, we don’t live in a bubble.  I know that in spite of my best efforts, R. is probably going to want to play with Barbies and see the latest Disney movie.  As Halloween gets folded into Christmas, which then blends into Valentine’s Day, and seamlessly on towards Easter, and it all gets wrapped up in shiny Pokemon paper, I hope that I can at least help my kids to be more mindful consumers, to eventually see the bigger picture beyond the marketing hype.  I’m still not quite sure how to go about doing that, but I suspect that it will involve my opening up a bit more to my children’s world and talking with them about what they find important.  While I won’t be buying them the Bratz L'il Mall or the Barbie Cool Crimpin' Styling Head anytime soon, I know that I will be attending the preschool Halloween parade next year.

oakland sidewalk

R. and R. found this hole in the sidewalk while we were out for a walk yesterday. 

Me:  What do you think is down there?
My R.:  The long, long sky.

I like contemplating the idea of Oakland as portal to the long, long sky.