Learning To Frame

K and his wife M were in town this past weekend and when they called to say hello, we invited them over for dinner. K and DB went to school together and were meeting after twenty years. The couple has led a very interesting life and I was looking forward to meeting them.We chatted over chai and snacks and then DB did the obligatory tour of the house. He was really looking forward to showing them some of J's artwork that we have framed and hung on the walls of the office. 

He is incredibly proud of the child's artistic abilities and at times acts like an over-indulgent dad of the worst kind. That evening he was having one of his moments. J enjoys the adulation and I am happy for her - I do believe at least one parent must openly demonstrate pride in their child. It is then okay for the other to be a little reticent and keep things in balance. So while DB pulls the stops on occasion, I make it a point never to do so. 

K indulged us and gushed over how nice the pictures were. DB was all smiles and J looked quite pleased with herself. When the three of them left the room to go upstairs, M pulled me aside to let me know that I should never buy new picture frames on the cheap pointing to one example in the hallway. She exhorted me to check out flea markets for better frames I could buy for the same price and definitely mat every picture before framing. It makes all the difference. She had nothing to say about the artwork at all.

I have to admit I was more than a little taken aback.This is the first time I am meeting this person and  had not asked for an opinion on the aesthetics of my picture frames relative to their price point.A child had drawn these pictures between ages seven and nine and we put it up on our walls because we thought she had done a really fine job for her age. It is our way of encouraging her. I did not have the heart to tell M that every picture does not benefit from a mat and when it comes to artistic sensibility our mileage may vary.

Every room she stepped into she had some advice for me on how to improve it without breaking the bank.The conversations with M left me pondering about how we receive advice and information in our lives. She had a lot of both to share and if I could get over feeling hurt by her not noticing J's efforts, I may have learned several things. Maybe because I never allow myself the freedom to indulge J as lavishly as DB does, I am quicker to hurt over perceived slights. If I could reign my emotions in better, I may learn a lot more from the world around me. As a test, I plan to learn the art of matting from M.

A Teachers Value

Recently Ms L, J's 4th grade teacher got engaged. The girls were a flurry of excitement over her sparkling diamond ring. J and friends attended her class last year but continue to swing by to say hello during recess. Not surprising considering how much they loved her. Ms L is in her late twenties, very pretty and has a million watt smile. That in addition to being a wonderful teacher. I was happy for her when J told me she was getting married to her former doctor. 

A few weeks later J told me that she and her friend M were concerned for Ms L. Apparently, she looked sad and did not smile anymore. She cheered up for a bit when the girls stopped to say hello so they made it a point to do so more regularly than they had done before. I was curious to know what a bunch of ten year olds made of the change in Ms L. They had figured she was sad because of the engagement and it burst their bubble a little - looking forward to marriage is supposed to be a happy time. They were doing their part to restore the magic to her special time. 

There is a human aspect to a teacher student relationship that goes beyond teaching and grades. These girls adore Ms L - she combines competence and femininity that they would be well served to emulate. She always took the time to enhance and personalize a boiler-plate lesson plan. Just like her, the kids in her charge were energized and wanted to exceed expectations from them. 

That her former students would treat putting a smile on her face as their recess priority would not count in any evaluation of her as teacher, but that is the highest score a teacher could aspire for. Reading this article by a teacher prompted this post about Ms L.

Slipping Up

As a parent, one is required to dole out punishment in proportion to the offense. Nothing confuses a child more when such is not the case. What seems so self-evident is often hard to practice in real life unless you happen to be the perfect parent. I have slipped up on this rule several time in the last ten years that I have been J's mom. 

Back in the day, I attributed it to unmanaged stress, having too many balls to juggle and no one to help - to err was human . With DB coming into my life and taking on the responsibilities of the dad J never had, I no longer have the same excuses. And yet, I ranted at her furiously for ten minutes straight while driving her over to her friend's birthday party. 

As her life has become more and more "regular" ( two parents, a home instead of an apartment, multiple vacations in a year, a closet full of clothes, more media and electronics than she has ever had ), J has relaxed. Used to be that she thought it was her responsibility to work around the constraints of my "situation". She bore it without complaint or question - at the cost of thwarting the natural flow of her childhood. That has since changed - J now has the ability to be a child and a tween, act up sometimes in ways that drives us crazy. Her offense was just that - she was being her age. I read into in quite a bit more than I should have, did not react until the tenth repeat of the offense. Basically, she had no idea she had been doing wrong until I blew up - suddenly and uncontrollably.

I came home and shared with DB - told him that I felt like a monster for saying cruel and hurtful words to J; I feared that what I said may leave scars for life. He advised not to apologize to her to make it right. "Talk to her about how her behavior disappointed you and that you got really frustrated. Let her talk about how she felt. The love you have for each other is too strong a force for something like this to weaken it" and then when I felt a little better he added "Extend the most patience you have to J - that way you will not have such severe reactions" 

When I tucked J in at night, we had talked about it - she realized where she had been wrong and what she could do different. I told her that we could not pretend that I did not say what I said or that she did not feel what she felt - we had to acknowledge that. Despite my failings, I felt well loved - by J and by DB and I was very grateful for that.

Best In Class

I asked J during dinner last Sunday about her thoughts on the Lady Gaga New Year's eve performance at Times Square we watched on TV. I have given up on understanding such phenoms being that I am too old and culturally out of touch to get what they are all about. She said she didn't much care for it but had this to say about why this performer is so popular. "She is best in class for talent plus weirdness" 
According to J, there are many other more talented singers and definitely weirder people out there. But Lady Gaga tops the talent plus weirdness combo and that's the reason she is so popular. J made it very simple for me "To be wildly popular you have to be the best in class at something". I cannot remember another time I have been so enlightened on popular culture in so few words.

Short and Sweet

When J is in trouble, she launches into a defense that is as improbable as it is convoluted. She is deliberately slow and aims to exhaust. By the time she is done, I might have even forgotten what I was mad at her for and snap at her for rambling endlessly. But there are times when she can be succinct. 

When she reads a new book, I encourage her to talk about it, better still write up a short review. Needless to say, she views these things as  chores she'd rather not do. It is so much easier to get away with "It was really cool !" - a phrase that I hate with passion. This morning, I asked her about The Man Who Counted (a book she has just read) and she had this to say "It is  Birbal meets The Number Devil "

Maybe I can challenge her to summarize books in six non-adjective words. Knowing J, I would be shocked if she does not find a way to wriggle out of that assignment as well.

Mildly Complicit

Recently J told me about a profitable little business enterprise that a kid in her class has been running. He makes paper guns and sells them at a quarter a pop. The paper bullets are sold for ten cents a piece. By her accounting, he has sold at least ten guns.A couple of issues were bothering her - is this kind of activity allowed in school and is it fair for the boy to sell these things for real money.

She does not want to be the tattle tale and report him to the teacher because both the gun and bullet are harmless. Apparently, all the kids know about it but no has taken it upon themselves to inform the teacher. I am guessing like J, they must have mentioned this to their parents, and like me, those parents have not recommended that their child talk to the teacher about this. I find this whole situation intriguing at many different levels. The kids are in the least considering this a little outside the ordinary and  likely talking about this at home. They are not convinced that it is bad enough that the boy needs to reported - there is symmetry in their thought process. If that is true about the adults as well,they maybe chalking this up to a kid being silly and creative, having a little harmless fun -  expecting it will go away once the novelty has faded.

J has not talked about this in the last couple of weeks so it is quite possible that all potential buyers have already made their purchases and better yet reverse engineered it to make their own.This incident had me wondering if we as parents are sometimes complicit in bad outcomes in the lives of our children.As a group we failed to call this child's attention to something that may not be entirely cute, creative or silly. Maybe we have provided tacit encouragement as a group for him to up the ante some more.

Comfort Zone

J can be the life of the party at home but will turn into a little mouse in school. This has been her way for the last couple of years or maybe we have noticed it more since that time - DB and I would love to see some of that fun, vibrant and somewhat theatrical personality she displays at home to make its way to the classroom as well. But that has yet to happen. We recently signed her up for drama class and she is having the best time of her life there. 

Even with that, the mouse at school is yet to transform into something bigger and bolder. I spoke with her guidance counselor this morning and she said something that helped recalibrate my expectations about J. 

Ms K said that no matter how hard you push and how hard you try as a parent, there is little you can do to change  what is innately the child's personality. J may never be able to be her most natural self outside the comfort zone of home. She will benefit from us encouraging her to be more assertive, being front and center of things instead of hiding somewhere no one can see her and most importantly advocating for herself. Yes, the drama lessons will help too. She will do a little of everything that we would like for her to do but it may never be to the extent that we believe she is capable of based on what we see of her at home. This is something we as parents will learn to accept and move on. 

Hearing Ms K helped me in several ways - for one thing, I will not be so quick to be disappointed with J when she struggles disproportionately (in my mind) to speak up, assert and advocate herself. More importantly, I will ask her to take on smaller challenges to build up her strength - I will continue to push as I have always done but more in the form of gentle  nudges than a big shove in the direction I want her to go. I hope in time, J will have acquired the confidence to be bring that much bigger personality she has to bear upon the mouse simply because being her natural self would be more fun and relaxing.

Musical Wilderness

I am just about ten years late to the party but better late than never. For all that time I lived in musical wilderness without an idea of where to find new sounds that may appeal to me. In a time when nostalgia should have been indulged in sparingly if at all, I wallowed in it. I drew comfort from familiar music in times of trouble and while the music recreated it's magic, it brought in its wake memories that I was anxious not to return to. From being one of the biggest joys and escapes of my life music became an unfamiliar, uncomfortable relationship. 

I used to try and listen to the iPod shuffle lists of blogosphere luminaries. Sadly they did nothing for me - apparently our tastes were too far apart. J is itching to discover music just like me at her age - she is constantly looking for recommendations so she can find that magic range of sounds that resonate deepest with her. The music I have grown up with and love is too far away from her culturally, generationally or both - she may grow into it in time but right now she needs to hear something with a modern sound and vibe. Then this past weekend, I discovered Fluxblog (a music blog that has been around since 2002) and I am trying to catch up on missed time. Whatever his criteria and musical sensibility, I am certainly feeling in synch with a lot of Matthew Perpetua's recommendations and that is such a blessed relief -finally someone who can lead me out musical wilderness. I may now be able to help her broaden her horizons as well.

Evergreen Toys

This list of the five best toys ever is the best list of toys I have ever seen. J used to love all of them except the last one - dirt. She is yet to outgrow String and Box. Very reassuring to have an expert (the author) share a lay person's (myself) perspective on toys for children. 

J's dance teacher has a four year old boy who I play with when we are there for her class- it keeps him occupied and out of the way of the dancers.The kid has a designated toy room with at least five hundred toys and yet he inevitably wants to play his favorite game that involves none of them. It takes a piece of cardboard, two dice and two plastic sticks. He can spend a good hour creating  variations of games using just those things. I've asked him to show me how some of his toys in the toy room room work. He grudgingly agrees and wants us to go back to playing his game of board, dice and sticks.

It is as if he wants to escape the excess of toys by going back to basics - he could not get more minimal than that.The most J had was four of five toys and her favorite was the empty spool of thread strung with a bright red cord. She could spend a whole day with that thing and some utensils from from the kitchen to bang together and make noise with. She talked to herself, laughed at something only she knew was funny - she was as happy as could be in control of her world and doing as she pleased with it. Her attention span for a new toy was limited to under five minutes and once she had figured what it was about she never came back to it. I bet the dance teacher's son feels the same way about his toys - he has them all figured out and they mean nothing special to him anymore.

That is precisely the reason the list of five in this article are such a big hit with kids - there is an infinite number of ways to interpret them and introduce them to their imagine play. The objects are not meant to be figured out and forgotten, instead they are there to be molded by the child's imagination to become what they are innately not. Reading this article right after my Disney trip was most refreshing.

All Disneyed Out

Since we got married, DB has been trying to impress upon me the importance of taking J to Disney before she is too old to have never been there before. She turned ten recently and DB decided to go ahead and book us a trip being that I was not warming up to his idea briskly enough and "times are a wasting" as he likes to say. J has never been a Disney animation fan and she is not super adventurous either so I was not sure how well a six day theme park vacation would work out for her. She had the best time of her life and I am so glad DB pushed us to do this for her. But this post is not strictly about the Disney experience.

South of North Carolina, I started to notice something strange about public restrooms. They all had dispensers for an assortment of condoms and "surprise" sex toys and novelties. I don't recall seeing anything like this anywhere else I have traveled in this country. J usually likes to ask DB for a pack of gum at convenience stores and I squirmed with discomfort to see gum placed right next colorful packets of condoms. The adult themed restrooms set the stage for what I would encounter in Orlando but I did not know that then. DB and I had picked out a hotel that seemed reasonably priced and very close to the parks. We congratulated ourselves on finding a good deal on what was very short notice. As responsible parents we even verified that it was a safe and kid-friendly neighborhood.

That evening, when we reached Orlando, some kind of classic car parade was in progress and in the lane next to us were these cars painted in garish colors and set up on oversize wheels. From within them urban music with the most profane lyrics blared out for all to hear. The windows were rolled down and you could also see the music videos playing inside - even if we pretended J could not understand the words, the visuals left very little to the imagination. Police on horseback were trying to get the crowd under control and I was asking myself if this was not the dumbest decision DB and I had made since we became a team.

After what seemed like a lifetime of inching through the traffic we finally made it to the hotel. While DB stepped in to pick up our room keys, J and I watched two troopers arrest and handcuff a young man. J observed that it happened just like they show in the movies - she seemed very impressed by that. By this time, I was willing to lose our reservation and go any place else. DB assured me that the police presence assured us of safety - if I felt the same way the next morning, we would find another place. We decided to go out and grab some pizza - so desperate was our need to stretch and get some fresh air that we decided to brave the crowds outside. The sidewalks were a mess with horse poop everywhere - the cars had thankfully passed and there was one less thing to worry about. On the way back from dinner, we stopped at a store to pick up a gallon of drinking water. While paying for it I could not help notice the irony in pregnancy test kits right next to Disney key chains and yes, more condoms. If this was kid-friendly I was not sure what was not. I have never been so relieved to be back in a hotel room which was just about okay - we were too tired to care and glad to get some shut-eye.

We started with Magic Kingdom the next day and the week was a blur of sensory overload - the rides, the shows and and the food. J tasted Sushi, Ethiopian and Brazilian food for the first time. The weather was beautiful except for a sudden shower one evening while we were at Epcot. DB got sick from riding the Space Mission (Orange Team) and had to be taken to first aid to recuperate for a couple of hours. J said that she felt like she had lost her brain - I shocked us all by having a great time and feeling just fine. Each day, J surprised us by enjoying rides I never guessed she would. By day four she was showing signs of saturation but still soldiered along. I had to admit that Disney helped me decompress - completely. You cannot not be in the moment, enjoying the here and now while you are in its thrall.

I am glad we went - DB and I relaxed like we have not in a long time, J had fun like only a child of ten can have fun so it was perfect for her. I know I will never return to Disney again but it would be a miss to live in America and never have been to Disney.

J's Decade

For as long as I can remember, big changes have happened to me once every decade. The birth of J coincided with the end of my first marriage - those two incidents set in motion a cascading wave of events whose tumult is only beginning to subside now. Each year on J's birthday, I would find myself measuring how far into my "decade of strife" I was and in my heart I knew her tenth would be unlike any before or after. It would spell the symbolic end.

Call it what you will, determination, wishful thinking, visualizing the future as I would have it be in my dream - some combination of all that, but I visited that tenth birthday many, many times in the past. With each visit, I refined what was in and what was not, who was included and who was not not - it would be the year when things would be made "right" by J. 

It would be the year when the waiting for Godot would be over, we could come out of the "phase" that we were in. I was deeply resentful of anyone who so much as suggested that my life may be subject to some limitations being a single mom, but could not deny to myself that J and I lived a little on the fringe - not entirely in the conventional way. 

To that end, I would become a nervous wreck the week of J's birthday party - nothing I ever did felt quite "right"; I certainly had no ability to plan or anticipate the unexpected. Yet to prove that J and I were doing just as fine as any other family, I would get bent out of shape trying to host a birthday party for her that conveyed "normalcy". My anxiety of social situations absolutely peaked around her birthday - getting the day over with was all I could think about. Yet I did not want to disappoint her or have her sense how I was feeling - that would be unfair. 

This year, DB stepped in and made the day seem easier than it has in nine years. We had seven of J's friends over. The had chips and salsa, pizza and ice-cream cake along with pink lemonade and ginger ale. We hosted a bunch of chatty little girls happy to play hide and seek and lounge around the big TV in the basement - no one wanted to leave when the parents came to pick them up. There was absolutely nothing complicated about what we did. We had no theme for the party, no games or activities organized, we cooked nothing - and yet everyone had a great time. 

In years past, I did a lot more and only feel stressed and dissatisfied with the outcome - the more I strove to give the impression that I had everything under control and could pull of what a stay at home mom could (single-handedly no less), the more contrived the results would be. The combination of a home and a partner made such a world of difference - the two things that had been missing for the the past decade. J had a "regular" tenth birthday that had her surrounded by family and friends in her own home - just as I had always wanted it to be. For once, I did not have to try too hard.

Idefinitely Wounded

Since she was a baby, J would unaccountably turn delerious with joy - her exurberance was so contagious that it was impossible for anyone to feel blue around her. Today was one of those days. I pray that she always has the ability to be happy for no reason at all.

Reading this Atlantic article about the correlation between early adversity and depression, planted a little seed of fear in my heart. J has known more than her fair share of "early adversity". I was so consumed by doing all that it took to provide for her basic needs and stay gainfully employed that I was never able to be a real mother to her. My attention span for her was non-existent, it took very little provocation for me to become really angry and I never felt well rested. She learned to entertain herself, make do with very little and make the most of what few opportunities came her way. She learned to survive and thrive in a situation that was less than ideal.

With DB coming into our lives, it fell on J once again to cope with change and uncertainty and all things considered, she did remarkably well. In the last several months, my attention has been divided between a new spouse, career transitition and home buying. J adjusted to my (and our) circumstances as she always has. Today, I paused to wonder what the cost of that adjustment might have been. Seeing her being irrationally exurberant today was a reminder of my responsibility - she has a precious gift that I have to protect and keep out of harm's way. If I failed, I would be identifintely wounded.

Hardening

At the kernel of J is a very headstrong person. She was that even at a few months old. There would be no kicking and screaming to protest but she would resolutely hold her ground and do exactly what she had set out to do. In the last few months, DB and I have noticed a more concerning variation on the theme of "resolute". When we are upset with her for any reason, she switches off emotionally and presents a stone cold persona that nothing can touch. Our words and remonstrations mean nothing to her at that point - it is like we have lost all contact with the child and yet she is sitting right across from us at the dinner table. The snapping of connection is as sudden as it is complete and it leaves us at our wits end. Yesterday DB tried a different way to get to the bottom of this change. After the moment of disagreement had passed, he started a casual conversation with her and soon she had regained her usual animation. Once he had her full attention, he started probing a little into her how she had been feeling lately - about herself, about us as a family and so on.

We were able to piece together quite a bit on what she said. In the early days of our marriage, DB and I would often get into arguments - we are both highly independent and strong-willed people so it took a lot of doing to stop getting at each others' throats. In a snap, all the love, affection and respect would disappear and we'd be absolutely infuriated with each other. Until that time, J had never seen a man around the house, never seen me as a married woman and had no idea of what may or may not be normal between two parents. I had forgotten what it was to adjust to another adult or accept a way of life very different from my own. So here we were, DB and I shaking out a brand new marriage with a completely confused eight year old looking on.

She said, she had no idea what would happen next. She was scared a lot and worried about what the future held for her. She was no longer sure about Mommy because Mommy was acting out in ways she had never known her to in her entire life. The only way she knew to protect herself was to harden, to become tough so  nothing could touch her. She had gone into self-preservation mode and this was the only defense mechanism she knew.

The marriage is a year old now, DB and I have defined the rules of engagement and we don't squabble over every little thing. The communication between us is not perfect but we recognize it right away when there is a problem and make the effort to correct it. The arguments when they happen are not nearly as intense and J carries on treating it like background noise. She has learned to cope, carved a safe haven for herself in past year's turmoil to the point that I feel like I have to re-discover the child I gave birth to.

I was once her source of strength and the person in charge of her life. In the past year fallen from grace. J has seen the weak, vulnerable and often emotionally volatile side of me. The rite of passage DB and I have been through in year one is completely normal in a new marriage except if this had been our first, J would not have been around quite yet to be impacted by it. I will do everything I can to right course with her from here on out but cannot turn the clock back. I hope watching the initial adjustment stage of a relationship and seeing it grow stronger as a result gives her something of value that she can use in her own life - at least that's how I try to rationalize what I cannot change no matter how much I want to

J Speak

Dinner table exchanges between DB and J can be very entertaining. Had to write down a couple of recent ones before I forgot.

DB tells J "Hey J, you are growing bigger". J shoots him a withering look "Did you just insult me and call me fat ?". This coming from some who weighs less than sixty pounds is beyond funny but DB went on to clarify his intent - big as growing bigger and taller. "Well, there is big as in Larry the Cable Guy and tall as in Shaq O'Neal. Which one did you mean ?" J shot right back. This is what happens when you bring a tween and cable TV together - this is pop-culture immersion meeting tween attitude. 

DB asks J "Do you think it's fair that your mom takes my entire paycheck away ?" and she replies "No, it's not. It's a free country but not a fair world". Whatever the provenance of that piece of J Speak, it certainly left us at a loss for words. I am bracing myself for what she will throw at us once she hits her teens. In the meanwhile, I am browsing the self-help aisle seeking professional advice for parents of tweens with tude.

Motherhood

This mother's day for the first time in my life, I was given the full on star treatment that mothers get on Mother's Day. In years past, J would do her very best to make me something special - a piece of art, coupons I could trade for favors like two huggies and such other cuteness. She would worry that she was not doing nearly enough for me because other kids had dads or other adults around who could help them out. I could not assure her one big hug from her is was the best gift I could get and indeed that alone was enough. 

After enjoying a big breakfast made by DB and J, I was out in the world today watching other mothers enjoying their stardom. Somewhere between breakfast, a visit to the fine arts museum and lunch, I responded to one blogger friend's request for six words to describe your mother. Mine were : Sunshine and lightning arrestor of pain. Later in the day another blogger recommended reading a poignant piece on motherhood. Reading these lines in the article was like listening to DB speak in the early days of our marriage : 

Because if mothers don't teach their children how to be happy by example, who will? Maybe a mother's legacy -- along with unconditional love -- should include a lesson in self-preservation. Selfishness

He said the same thing in the context of my tendency to visit the sum total of my life's disappointments upon our then brand new marriage. I had of my own free will decided to give up a decade of my life for J's benefit. In doing so, I had abandoned the pursuit of my own dreams and happiness. Everything for "me" had to be on hold, until J was well situated. As it turns out that process was still not complete when DB and I married. It was only when he started asking me " What do you want to do to make you happy ?" that I realized I was so far gone that I could no longer define it.  My life's purpose was so entwined with J that I could not extricate "myself" from it. Somewhere in that dense tangle of objectives was my personal happiness strand - too trivial to stand alone, choked out of life by everything else.

Instead of rejoicing in the support I now had from DB and making the most of it to pursue my unfulfilled goals, I became paralyzed realizing that "I" did not exist anymore. I would have to work really hard to find this person, remember what she once dreamed about and overcome the dead-weight of inertia to make some of them come to life. Indeed, I had done J and I great disservice in casting myself in the traditional mold of the martyr - like my mother and mothers before her - lightning arrestors of pain. Unlike her, I am a perhaps a little short on the sunshine. While I had never sought the martyr mantle for myself and have a healthy disdain for parents who assume one, I was failing in my fundamental responsibility as a mother - teaching J how to be happy and find happiness.

Speechless

J has recently hit a growth spurt - every time we check she is taller. A little bit of sass probably comes along with the territory as I was to find out recently. On evening, it was way past her bed time and she was still lounging on the couch watching Food Network with DB. After asking her to go to bed about five times in a row and being ignored, I finally lost my cool. "J, I am going to count to three and I want you out of the couch and in your room" I shouted from the kitchen. 

Cool as a cucumber, her eyes still peeled on the TV J says to me "Go right ahead, Mommy. I hope you learn to say your ABCs after that". DB and I could not help ourselves - we burst out laughing. Needless to say, I was not able to make either a witty or stern comeback to that. So, J took her time - about ten minutes longer and then retired for the day.

It occurred to me that she had managed the situation to her advantage - and she is not even ten years old. If she leaves me tongue tied now, how do I hope to deal with what she throws at me a few years out. For the first time, I am beginning to understand how being a first generation immigrant without the experience of having gone to undergrad or grad school in America makes it hard for me to take on J. 

Having had little to no contact with desi society in the last ten years has made J a product of cultural experiences that I have not experienced growing up. She is twice alienated in that she has nothing in common with my background and does not share much with her desi peers whose parents have made a concerted effort to give them the Indian experience abroad.

Saving For J

I was chatting with another mom about saving for kids to go to college. "Have you already started a college fund for J ?" she asked. I did not know how to answer that question honestly. I don't have a fund started for her and will likely never have one. Both DB and I agree that it is a bad idea to give children the idea that their parents will bankroll their education. I tell J that she can go to any college that she can get a full tuition ride to.

The final outcome depends on the amount of hard work she is willing to put in. We will support her in every way possible but she is already getting the message that we will not pay her way to a school of her choice.

So, I may never really put aside money for her college tuition. I would also never allow J to take out a big loan to attend some pricey school. DB is willing to let her work part-time to pay for school. I am not sure I can get behind that idea fully. I'd rather she spent that time and energy to secure a tuition waiver - and focus on getting an education while at school. The other mom sounded skeptical about my idea but admitted it was a bold one. Time will tell if I can walk the talk.

Thwarted Education

The events that lead up to my request for a meeting with J's teachers usually have me anxious even before the meeting. At the conference itself, I find it difficult to stick to my rehearsed talking points and before five minutes are up, I am rambling way off topic at furious pace trying to cover all that I have to say in the twenty minutes I have alloted. My frustration levels run so high, that I can't keep it coherent anymore. Each time, I feel like I failed and should have handled it a lot better than I did. This year for the first time, I had DB to accompany me and that was comforting. We had agreed, if I wandered off-course, he would nudge me so I'd come back on track.

I had wanted the time to understand why J's motivation was diminishing. Why it was that she refused to apply herself to do anything beyond "minimally required" to make a decent grade. It took a while for me to even get them to see that there was a problem, that I was interested in whether my child loved learning and found happiness in accomplishing results through hard work. I was not interested in her grades - good, bad or ugly they did not to me indicate how her education was progressing. The moment of truth came when in response to me saying "I don't want my child to become the kid who learns how to make the grades and loses the love and joy of learning. That is what I am afraid is happening to her", the teacher said "This is ultimately not about what you want, but what she wants"

That left me so non-plussed that I could not summon any kind of response. DB was caught off-guard as well. For a teacher with some twenty odd years of experience to say that the course of a nine year old's education and therefore her life is not up to the parent to decide was so stunning that I had nothing left to say. Would she be advocating for J's voting rights next ? Surely, if she can make such significant decisions about her life, she would be well qualified to elect a leader to represent her. 

I send J to school so she benefits from the social interaction with her peers, learns to work in a structured environment and follow instructions. I don't have any academic expectations from the school at all. What I had not counted on was for this enviornment to diminish her innate strengths, make her less than who she is. So not only is the school failing in its primary goal to "educate" because the teachers equate education to grades, it is also harming her by being the enviornment in which her curiosity, creativity and yen for learning are actively thwarted. And this at what is touted to be one of the best schools in the district. 

What was most surreal about the experience was the hubris of the two teachers we met. They were completely convinced that they were doing an outstanding job educating the kids in their charge, that their tools and methods were absolutely the best. If the kid was not thriving, it was up to the kid to figure out how they could do better. Their process was simply perfect and would not be tuned. I realized when people get to that point in their profession when they turn deaf to unfamiliar ideas, there is no hope for them or those whose life their methods impact. So it is with J's teachers and J. In the private sector, dinosaurs such as these teachers are often let go when organizations restructure and get an infusion of fresh blood from elsewhere in the industry or university campuses.

I have come to the sobering realization that along with educating J at home, I am also responsible for making sure that I undo the damage that the school is doing to her before it is too late.

Work Not Pleasure

For the first time this year, J had to study for a test and the we discovered she had no idea how to study for one. This came as a revelation to me and my first instinct was to panic. DB was a little bemused by the whole situation and asked the obvious "How would you expect her to know what to do when you've never showed her how ?" By the time I was J's age, I was veteran test taker. In India a nine year old does not remember a time when they did not take tests. I must have been taught in my time too but was so young that I have no recollection of it - I thought that test taking is instinctive not much different from breathing. We are now working with J, teaching her some basic skills she will need to succeed as a student.

Reading this article about how the educational crisis in America is a moral and not a monetary one, struck a deep chord in the context of my recent challenges. J's complete unpreparedness for test taking in fourth grade is a telling example of schools making the "mildest demands" on students.

We have gone from a culture where real demands were made on students at home and in school to one where homes and schools make only the mildest demands on children. Instead adults have become eager providers of their children’s natural, but endless, appetite for pleasure. 

The point is not that kids are rotten and teachers are lazy and parents are idiots. Rather, that we have created the wrong child-raising culture and the results are clearly confirming that.  

For parents who are trying to correct course at home, the task is a daunting one. The social expectation of us is to be providers of entertainment and pleasure to the kids.When we do very little of that and try to fill the gaping voids in their education instead, our efforts are met with a lot of resistance. J may appreciate my efforts in later life, but right now Mommy is a mostly an insufferable nag, a demanding task master and just does not know how to have fun. Unfortunately for me, most of my peers are exceptionally good at being entertainers to their kids. Sadly for J, she will grow up feeling she did not have nearly as much fun as most other kids she knows.

Talking About Money

For over eight years as a single parent, I straddled the fine line between talking too little or too much about finances with J. I was determined that she never felt "poor" in a material sense though I frequently over-compensated with emotional comfort just in case she did. To that end, J has never had (and to her credit, asked for) a lot of anything - clothes, books, toys and more. Instead I took time to do bead work on a plain white tee, embellished a jean jacket with embroidery and sewed on colorful patchwork on her jeans - there was a little bit of me in everything that was J's. 

She has always had enough to be comfortable but not to become and extension of my ego dolled up in designer couture. I pride myself on being economical without being stingy but these measures are completely subjective. My friend or neighbor may have an entirely different view of me than I do of myself. DB for instance thinks I don't give the child nearly enough and that this a tender age - my "frugality" may end up hurting her confidence as she is not able to be as well-heeled as her peers when I have the wherewithal to give her a lot more than I do.

As a compromise, J has come into some spiffy new clothes - I notice that she is happy to have them but coming as late as they have in her childhood, she is not entirely beholden to them. I am staying true to my principle of building in her a sense of style that transcends the dictates of peer pressure and fleeting fashion trends. DB says that I am way too demanding of a child less than ten years old and am pushing her to becoming an outlier. I don't agree with the first part of his observation but when it comes to style, I would love nothing more than for J to find a niche that is exclusively her own and cannot be imitated. If that means becoming an outlier, so be it. As we shift and change to accommodate the other's views, J experiencing the shifting tides too.  

This post was triggered by reading this article about what not to say to your kids about money. It was relieving in some sense to know that I have not said any of the supposedly wrong things to J. The issue of clothing and related self-esteem is something I continue to think about - at what point does it stop being about J and become about what her parents want to project about themselves ? What is the best way for J to blend in with her peer groups, without sacrificing her individuality or becoming one of the herd ? 

While I may not agree with DB's assessment, he does give me food for thought and I am very happy for that.