Three Things

LB is the kind of kid who will just come out with a topic of discussion in the middle of dinner, or in the car, in a way that makes you wonder, “What did I miss? Where did THIS come from?” Yesterday at dinner she announced that she was irritated with “K” from her class because he had been insisting that the black kids in the class HAD to call themselves African American, since they were most decidedly NOT black.

A black girl took offense to this and apparently there was a long, loud discussion about who should be allowed to call themselves what and who should not be allowed to dictate this. Eventually the two took it to the teacher, who explained with only moderate success, that K didn’t have the right to insist that anyone call themselves anything.

LB has identified herself as black for some time now. She included herself when she said with some emphasis, “If we want to call ourselves black then we should be able to! It’s not up to K to decide.”

We took the opportunity to make sure LB understood that SOME people DO call themselves African American, and prefer NOT to use “black” as the identifier. She’s ok with that, but for now, she is black and she’s proud. Perhaps it’s been her listening to James Brown from her daddy’s CD collection that’s behind this.

Whatever she calls herself, there are some people, sadly, who will never see anything but a nigger. It’s such a hateful word I don’t even like to type it, but I have a reason to do so-Lee found himself stopping in a convenience store outside of city limits the other night, where a toddler still in diapers pointed to him and shouted, “Look Mommy, a nigger!”

I’d like to be able to say that this was so startling that we’re stunned and shocked, but the reality is that there have been racial incidents enough here in the city that we wouldn’t expect that in the country it would be any better. Though I have to say, I’ve never known of one so young being groomed to hate, not up close and personally, anyway.

Lee told the mother on the way out of the store, “Nice word you’ve taught your kid.” She had no reply.  I would guess that if some foolish relative was responsible, she’s have apologized and tried correcting the kid. That she didn’t says quite a lot.

But at least, where we live, work and play, such overt prejudice isn’t common. And tomorrow LB and I will be going to a community event where she and other blacks, along with anyone else who cares to attend, will celebrate their history. It’s called Juneteenth,  which originated in Texas to mark the date (June 19, 1865) when that state finally freed the slaves, more than two years after Emancipation. It’s a day of celebration that’s moved to other states as people migrate, and in Seattle, assorted Texas natives have grown celebrations here.

This event, held at the nearby community center, will include dancing by the dance crew founded by Lb’s former dance teacher. He’s gone to LA to seek his fortune as a dancer and chorerographer, but he was recently back for a visit and the crew lives on. It should be quite something-we saw them practice the other day, and even at about 75% full-out dancing, they were very impressive. In costume and at 100% full force, they should knock the socks off of everyone.

Watching these teens gets me every time. While I read comments in the paper and on certain blogs about “teens today” and how we need to fear for our future, I watch these kids rehearse for two and a half hours without pausing, doing the same impossible move again and again and again until they get it right. I watch them quiet down and meekly get in line when their mentor and coach tells them that they can either do it right or sit down.  Knowing that Coach T, even from a distance, still expects them to stay in school, go to class and do their work, I’m comforted to know that for every little kid being taught to call people like them hateful names, there are 10 more moving up into adulthood as good people.

We stayed late at that practice, and we’ll stay late at the Juneteenth event. The next day, Lee will be taking LB to the African American Legislative Day being held in town, where she’ll get to meet elected officials of color. We want LB to continue to be proud of her heritage and skin color, and to see that from dancers to politicians, she has many role models.

Teach Your Children Well…

Teach your children well…

 

LB is a teaching assistant today. That’s right-even though she is only in third grade, she is helping her former kindergarten teacher with his class. This all came about because LB’s “Auntie” who’s a substitute teacher, often takes long-term jobs at the school where LB’s former first grade teacher now has a kindergarten class. They got to talking and one thing led to another, resulting in this plan for LB to go in occasionally to help out. The first time was last week. I don’t think it’s something we could do when school is in full gear, but with the final day of school less than a week away, there isn’t much going on.

 

Last week, LB ran her own reading group-for the beginning readers, she said, the ones who still need help sounding out words. She also, to her delight, got to teach some math using the classroom microphone. “Auntie” peeked in on this part of LB’s day and was just blown away seeing her “baby” acting like a grown up.

 

Although LB had the chance to sit with the teachers and eat lunch with them, she chose instead to sit with “her kids” and help them (don’t you know those little kindergarteners need watching?). But the highlight of her day came at dismissal, when she got to call out bus numbers in the microphone. What little kid wouldn’t want to do that?!

 

It wasn’t all work and no play-LB got to go out to recess, and more importantly, make the rounds of the school with Auntie to meet the teachers and administrators of color. Auntie feels, and I agree, that it’s important to see successful people who look like her doing their jobs. She made a point of telling me this morning that they’d so the same again today. “We want it to rub off, you know,” she said as I go ready to leave.

 

This isn’t LB’s only foray into the working world. A few weeks ago, Lee’s office had “Take Our Children to Work Day”, an all-encompassing multi-department function with activities galore. LB got to play CSI, spend a little time at the front desk, and pretend she was a councilwoman.  The kids got a script to follow and the person directing the event hand-picked LB to read the part of the person who reads the actual proclamation that it was “Take Our Children to Work Day”. Then the kids did a mock hearing on allowing cell phones on public transportation, in which they were allowed to offer their own, real opinions. It seems that LB, who couldn’t be more desperate for a phone of her own, thinks talking on them on a bus shouldn’t be allowed.

 

They repeated the meeting in the afternoon, allowing the kids to change roles, and in this one, LB played an analyst, reading some data to the council. All of this was caught on the county’s TV cameras-one of these days we’ll be getting a disc of the kids in their glory. Fortunately, the public was spared this-only REAL meetings are televised, and they can seem long enough!

 

Right now, LB wants to be a doctor, although that changes often. She DOES love pretending to teach, and certainly had a good time in a real classroom. I’m not sure she’s ever expressed a desire to go into public service. If it means getting on camera though, she might get behind the idea.

When I was a kid, they had no such thing as “Take Our Children to Work”, although my siblings and I all worked for my father at his drugstore at some point. Lee and his siblings got to see their father at work sometimes when they brought him lunch during the summers, but in most cases, you sure didn’t skip school to play at working.

 

As long as LB isn’t missing something epic, I’m all for the occasional skip to see snippets of how the real world works. I think it’s important for her too, to meet blacks and other people of color doing jobs where there’s a certain amount of prestige.

 

When LB was in kindergarten, as part of the school’s Martin Luther King celebration, some of the classes had each child stand up and talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up. The school LB was attending then was almost 90% minority.

The little kids-the kindergartens, the first graders, talked about becoming doctors and lawyers and business owners. One girl wanted to be a microbiologist.

 

Unfortunately, statistically, the minority kids aren’t the ones becoming doctors and lawyers and dot-com millionaires, not in numbers, anyway. Those kindergarten dreams give way over the years to more muted dreams, and as I watch some of Blondie’s minority friends struggle with high school, sometimes, to no dreams at all.

 

But when adults rally around them, kids can do amazing things. Blondie has friends who have faced incredible adversity and haven’t just made it, they’ve thrived. Some have scholarships, some are going to make their own way without parental support, some, even with parental interference, have succeeded.

 

But it can only help when we are there for our kids, when we support them and help them find their place and their dreams. It’s nine long years before LB walks down the aisle to get her high school diploma. We have no idea whether she’ll be headed to medical school, a major in government and political science, a teaching degree, or something she hasn’t even though of yet. But we’ll be there every step of the way.

LB is not a Little Kid

LB’s class has a weekly writing assignment of two paragraphs, in which they’re asked to write about anything from homework assignments to favorite holidays. This week it’s about how they think they look to young children, and how they can influence them.

 

LB thought this was curious, because as much in a hurry she is to grow up, she still thinks of herself as a kid not so far removed from the “little kids” she had to write about. I told her to look at it this way: her three-year-old cousin spent the day with us on Saturday, and didn’t he seem much younger and well, littler? And, didn’t she just last week help out her favorite “auntie” corral a bunch of “crazy preschoolers” during the school assembly?

 

After thinking about it, LB had to admit that yes, as a soon-to-be fourth grader with little kids under her wing, she isn’t so little after all. But I sensed a bit of wistfulness as she talked about it, and how she can positively influence her cousin (who thinks she walks on water) or the preschoolers.

 

I guess at eight, she isn’t a preteen yet, but neither is she what I’d call a “young child”. She’s stuck in a sort of middle where one day she’ll be playing dolls and the next belting out lyrics as the next pop star wannabe. One day she’s all about the comfort of an old t-shirt, and the next, trying to get permission for colored lip gloss.

 

One of the cool things about having three kids widely spaced is that you can watch vastly different levels of maturity going on right in your own family. I watch LB struggle with how “big” or “little” she is, and I watch Blondie get ready to launch-two weeks from today is graduation. She’s already begun thinking about what she will or won’t bring to college, while making sure there will be a place for “Tee Tee” her favorite stuffed animal.

Then Mac calls and talks to me about a new business venture he and his roommate may have, and I can almost see him shaking his head over his middle sister’s flightiness about returning his DVD’s.

 

I know some mothers who can’t bear the thought of their kids growing up. The first day of kindergarten they were sobbing messes, or the idea of their kids leaving home scares them silly.

 

I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little sad about Blondie moving out, or that I can barely lift LB anymore, but it’s exciting to see them become the people they are—even when curfew is missed or the teacher gives you a look that you KNOW means someone is in trouble that day.

 

Raising kids is like reading a great mystery book-you might THINK you know what will happen in the next chapter, but it’s always full of surprises.

Making New Friends

We went to the  “Global Whirlwind” event sponsored by the diversity committee at LB’s new school. We won’t be school parents there for sevreal months, but we are already members, holding true to our promise to be the change we want to see. Doing so has had several consequences, all of them good.

For one thing, we are getting to know other parents beyond just passing in the halls. This is especially important to us since most all of the kids will be arriving and departing by bus, so the chance to just chat with other parents on a daily basis won’t be as common as it is where LB currently goes to school. There are two reasons the school is so dependent on buses-one is that there’s almost no parking at all nearby, and the other is that it draws from a city-wide pool. In any case, we’re on a first-name basis with a dozen parents and their kids already.

It’s hard to not fall into conversation as you wipe down tables and set up craft materials. I’m very shy in real life, so it’s hard for me to just chat with total strangers. But given our common goal of making the school a better place for kids of color, conversation happens. It’s a lot easier for me than just chatting up some random parent about what the kids did in class yeaterday or how about that book their reading.

LB, being a VERY social person, immediately made several friends. She dragged one girl over to us and said, “My new friend wants to meet you.” The kid stood there with a deer in the hedlights look and politely said hello and shook our hands. By the end of the night a whole group of kids were playing tag around the room as parents put away materials and tables. We couldn’t leave until LB said goodbye to her “tag friends”. While the school’s makeup is largely white, the diversity committee is anything but. So LB already has friends who look a little more like her than not.

But there was a good turnout among the Caucasian families, and some even hung around till the very end, long enough that LB met some of them too. It was good to see that at this event at least, the divide between races that we’d heard about didn’t seem to be present.

We also met an African American parent who has two children at the school. Thus far, most of the parents of color we’ve met have had at least one negative experience or opinion to share with us. This parent had only positive things to say, and like all of the parents we’ve talked to, black, white or Asian, said the children had had a great education.

Apparently it’s not common for parents to join a committee for a school where their child is not a student. We were complimented often on our early commitment, for being there, for bringing LB. I always give the same answer when someone asks about this: we want to be part of the change we want to see. We want to be able to say when next year a parent of color asks if they should send their child to this school, to do it, without reservations. 

Next up: a summer picnic, date to be determined. But first, the final meeting of our scrappy committee. We’ll talk about plans for next year, what events to sponsor, and how to reach out to other families like ours-those with family members of color and new to the school but who haven’t yet  joined us.  Meanwhile, I’ll continue to be reminded of that old Girl Scout song about making new friends. In this case, it’s the new friends who are the “gold”.

Friendship and Race

Some years ago, I was a member of a small, private email list for a group of mothers who’d given birth at about the same time. We shared our kids’ firsts-walking, talking, teeth, etc. and we supported each other through separations, divorce, new jobs, moves, and so on. Most of what we shared, though, was the everyday stuff of life.

 

LB was the only biracial child of the group, and I was the only one in a mixed marriage. Sometimes it was clear that the other women just couldn’t relate to what I was saying-my situation was so different from theirs that I may as well have been on another planet.

 

The time that LB cried and wished she was white like me was one of those times. The other women assured me that LB just wanted to look like her mom, as any kid would, but it was more than that, and I knew it. Blondie never wished for brunette hair, and her girl cousins didn’t wish away their red hair, or their curly hair, or their straight hair. LB wanted to be white, because, she explained, “White people are better”. She was three years old.

 

As with any online format, we moved on from there, but I was left with the disquieting feeling that this wasn’t going to be the first time I didn’t get through. I was right. Another situation came up where the poster talked about her niece wanting to go to the prom with a black kid, and the girl’s grandmother, who was raising her, I believe, refusing permission. The girl was thinking of going anyway. But my fellow list member felt otherwise. She should just let it go and make grandma happy, she thought. Why make waves?

 

Again I clashed with my friends. Keep quiet? Make waves? Fifty years after segregation ended it was ok to let a racist old lady call the shots about one’s prom date? I argued rather forcefully that the niece was the one with common sense, that she should, indeed, be allowed to date the young man in question. Again, I wasn’t getting through. This time, though, I was left feeling more than disquieted. I wondered if maybe I was dealing with people who, in reality, wouldn’t want MY child dating one of THEIRS.

 

I bring this up because last weekend was the prom for Blondie and her classmates. She went with several other couples, and not one of them was a same-race duo. Blondie and her best friend, who are as white and blond as they come, went with their black boyfriends. The other couples were Asian and black or mixed race. I’m sure within the school population itself there were same-race couples, but no combination even registered as a blip on the schools’-or the kids’ radar. And I’m proud of the fact that Blondie didn’t see it as a problem either.

 

It probably won’t come as a surprise that our group of mothers fell apart soon after the prom incident. It started going seriously downhill when a few of them thought that my advocating for teaching our preschool and kindergarten-aged kids about segregation and the civil rights struggle would “ruin their innocence.”  Since LB’s innocence had already been “ruined” by real-life comments about her skin color, I found their position difficult to accept.

 

I’m not in touch with these women any longer, and there are times it still hurts. I was “removed” from the group after one too many hard-edged positions on what they felt was a support-only list. I guess that for some people,  there’s no place for discussions of race  among friends. I’d by lying if I said I never missed them. But I remind myself that they are the ones missing out- about another way of seeing things, of watching, if only from a distance, LB grow up. And as Blondie left for her prom with a boyfriend as dark as she is white, I thought of those women, and I knew I was right to speak up the way that I did.

Honoring Latte Bebe

The church I attended growing up held the kind of service to which you could set your watch.  We started at 10:30 and were on the way home by 11:30. With only minor changes from week to week, services were exactly the same from start to finish, and the fathers who “celebrated” them were special holy men that you didn’t just approach to talk to. Those are only a few of the reasons I am no longer a member.

Things are different in LB’s church. The pastor is a family man who wears regular clothes for the service (once, a team jersey for his favorite football team!). It’s not unusual for services to vary widely from week to week and sometimes veer far from the intended order of service on any given day. Things happen spontaneously, and I like that.

Another thing this church does is recognize the accomplishments of members. With the end of school coming up, lately there have been announcements of honor rolls, college acceptances and even a woman getting her seminary degree. Yesterday it was LB’s turn.

LB’s aunties and her adopted Nana are longtime members who thought it would be a good idea to put LB’s recent school acceptance into the pool of acknowledgement letters.  I wrote up a couple of paragraphs explaining what she had to do (pass a series of tests at 98% or better) and how the school she’ll be going to differs from the other public schools here. My sister-in-law told me to include a copy of the district’s acceptance letter.

The plan called for Nana to take care of submitting it, but when LB couldn’t find her, she walked right into Pastor’s office and gave the papers to him herself. I never even saw my pastor’s office when I was a kid. The office was guarded over by a crabby old lady who didn’t like people coming around.  The service began and I sat with the in-laws and LB went to her junior usher duties.

It was one of the longer services. People got baptized, communion was served, there was at least one spontaneous song and many announcements. The clerk of the day read off a number of announcements, from an upcoming youth day outing to asking for applause for a young member starting college next year.  The deacons sang a rousing chorus of “Alleluia”, and eventually it was time for Pastor to speak.

Usually, what he does is start his topic with a little anecdote or joke. Yesterday, he shuffled some papers and called for LB to come to the front of the church. She was all the way in the back, manning the door to let visitors in and out. She walked the entire center aisle, all eyes on her. The hue of her skin makes it hard to see a blush, but she couldn’t have been any redder.

“This child,” Pastor began, “will start next year in the 4th grade at “L” Elementary as part of the Accelerated Progress Program.” He went on to read the rest of the paper, concluding with a call for everyone to celebrate her achievement. The room erupted in applause.

After the STANDING OVATION, Pastor waved his arm. “AND I want you all to listen to this,” he said, “Here are her scores. She got a 98 in Verbal, a 94 in quantitative-folks, this is out of 100%. She has a 98 in composite and a 98 in reading. And,” he said, pausing dramatically, then adding a raised voice, “A 99 in mathematics!”

The place went crazy, cheering and shouting and clapping for LB. As she walked back to her post, people she didn’t even know reached out to hug and her congratulate her.  And as we left church later that day, people *I* didn’t even know hugged ME to congratulate me just for being LB’s mother.

Heady stuff, but not uncommon here. An eighth-grade boy got the same response a few weeks ago, with the biggest cheer for “being polite to his mother”.  New babies get a pretty strong reaction too. This church is LB’s village, and I get to go along for the ride. Like the new babies and the college-bound high-schooler, LB has more than her dad and I rooting for her-she has a whole community, one that hopes and dreams right along with her. And I’ll take it.

Hot Seat Time

In about an hour and a half, Lee, I and several other parents will be meeting with the school district’s leader of the advanced learning programs along with the principal of the school where we’re sending LB next fall. In preparation for the meeting, I reread the report released last fall about the program. Once again, I was not encouraged.

Having now met some of the people staked with making the recommended changes, and having signed on to send LB into the fray, though, the report has a different feel. Because the meeting will focus on diversity issues, it gives Lee and I a specific focus for both statements and questions.

The essence of the statement I plan to make is this:I grew up in a middle-class white neighborhood, went to an all-white private school, and the closest I ever came to being bullied at the elementary level was being called a teacher’s pet. HOWEVER, I knew that if I had a real problem, I could go to the teachers, and certainly my parents knew that they could. This report makes it clear that children of color at the school in question are bullied because of their skin by both students and TEACHERS. Further, it says that neither they, nor their parents have found a “trustworthy” response from some teachers and administrators.

My question is: The report says that teachers, administrators and counselors  involved in this program should receive cultural sensitivity training to appropriately address this issue and formulate a proper response to racial bullying. WHAT IS BEING DONE so that my child won’t be on the receiving end of racial harassment? And, what are you doing so that parents like us feel HEARD?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Teach Your Children Well

We’re down to 6 weeks from tomorrow before Blondie gets her diploma. Last weekend we got up at an ungodly hour and drove into the rising sun to attend a local orientation for college. Although the school charges more per orientation when they’re held off-campus, the cost is offset by any airfares we’d have had to contend with.

Parents take note: refusing to stop for coffee at 6:45 a.m. could have unintended consequences. Poor Blondie had to have her photo taken and take a math placement test before 7:30 in the morning, and doing so hours before her normal Saturday wake-up, sans coffee was nothing short of torture for her. At least the photo came out better than her driver’s license, though that’s not saying much.

One of the bonuses, though, of doing an off-campus orientation, was that Blondie and I were in a group of only 20 or so other students and their parents destined for the business school. This allowed for pretty much personalized Q & A time for all the details you could possibly want.

Then Blondie went off to do her own class registration while I joined all of the parents in learning what life in college is like. There wasn’t much different from my own days at UConn, except for the almost year-long sunny, warm weather and the fact that all dorm rooms come wired for internet and cable. There was the not-quite hard-sell computer package presentation-funny how several of the professional schools have specialized packages rather far above the baseline cost-Blondie’s included.

While Blondie is my first going off to college, she’s not the first to leave home. Mac joined the Navy at 18 and went off to “see the world”. I was sad to see him go, of course, as I will Blondie, but you know, they come back grown up, and that’s pretty cool. Much as I look back with a little pang on their days of playing dolls or trains in their little toddler clothes, seeing them navigate adulthood has its own promise.

I couldn’t help feel for a helicopter mom who asked question after question of the presenters-what about drugs and drinking, what about parties, what about safety, what about keeping tabs on the kids, who reports them when they disappear? Even the statement that the campus has its own police force and a call box within view of every walking point on campus didn’t reassure her. I hope she does ok next fall when it’s time to drop her daughter off!

Mac dropped by last night to see if his new DVD would play on our DVD player, since it wouldn’t on his Playstation. He ended up staying for dinner and playing dominoes and Go Fish with LB, along with teaching her how to make a working catapult from Play-Doh. My son the engineer.

Now that he’s 23, he seems more like a young father to LB than an older brother, but it’s so heart-warming to see him patiently teach her the rules for dominoes and how to make a counter-weight out of purple Play-Doh. And by the way, apparently I need to buy LB the science kits he had when growing up. He’d be happy to set them up with her.

LB was just three when her brother left for the Navy. She really doesn’t remember a time when he lived at home full-time. With Blondie it’s different. With her, there isn’t a time LB remembers when Blondie WASN’T here. The visits back home to her dad are temporary. Other than those times, LB has always gotten up with Blondie there, and watched her get ready for school at the same time. She is often in bed by the time Blondie comes home, but still, there’s place at the table and a bedroom down the hall with Blondie’s name on it.

That’s all going to change. Arizona is far enough away that Blondie won’t be coming home on weekends. The school breaks are fewer, and no doubt Blondie will split them, at least fro awhile, between her father and I. Eventually, she’ll spend more time on campus than she will with either parent-that’s how it works. I remember it clearly from my own college days.

Email, IM and cell phones with unlimited minutes will help keep us all connected, but when you’re 8 and you think the sun rises and sets around your sister, that’s not the same.  Like her sister next fall, LB too, will be going through a time of change.

But it’s not fall yet. For now, LB and I are working out the details of the graduation cake I’m making (let’s just say if it turns out as planned, I may never top it); planning both the “real” gift and the joke gifts (still useful, mind you, there’s limited space in a dorm!). I’m also working on how I’ll design Blondie’s card-I gave up years ago buying cards-they never say what I want, and why buy a blank one to fill in when I can go to a craft shop and buy any number of beautiful papers.

Even Lee got into the act-making the suggestion that I use a photo of Blondie going to her first day of pre-school along with a senior photo-an most excellent suggestion. I remember it well-Blondie’s hair had more strawberry in it than it does now, and it was up in a “high pony”. She was wearing a blue corduroy jumper with a pink blouse and white stockings with her beloved saddle shoes, a style she wore every first day of school until 3rd grade. In the picture, she’s reaching up to the handle of the VW Bug, her empty backpack on her back, as if to say, “Come on! Let’s GO!” as she squints into the sun.

Let’s go indeed. She’s always been in a hurry to go. And now it’s really time.

Musings

LB starts the dreaded WASL test today. It’s the Washington state version of the No Child Left Behind standardized test requirement. She’s in third grade and has been hearing about this test (and fretting about it) since she started kindergarten. She seemed ok this morning, having learned that it will begin with reading and include less math than reading, which is her strongest subject. She was also glad to learn than kids who fail are not kept back solely because of this test-unless one is in high school, where failing it means you do not graduate.

Kids are already tested throughout the year on core subjects, and I do not see the point of such a high-stakes test, to the point where teachers spend two weeks teaching the kids HOW to take it, not so much WHAT they’ll be tested on! And don’t get me started on the high school level test, where kids with a 4.0 could actually risk not graduating if they fail.

It’s not likely, I know. But Blondie has classmates who missed passing one portion of the thing, despite being in advanced classes. One kid was dealing with problems at home, another was an ESL student. Luckily the state has decided to allow kids to take special prep classes and retake this test, but I would like to see it gone altogether. If a student is passing his or her classes and the tests in those classes, why add this test on, which is graded by anyone with a college degree the scoring company hires off the streets?

Ok, ok, moving on…

The brown baby dolls are getting heavy play at home these days. LB has a huge collection of dolls (thank you Goodwill) of many races. Sometimes there’s a mix in her play, other times she goes with all-white or all black. We’ve been lucky in that of the dolls we’ve found or LB’s received as gifts, that the shades of brown vary from dark to very light-like real people.

Lately LB is busy with her American Girl Bitty Baby we found for a dollar (!) at Goodwill. She’s the tan one, just like LB’s American Girl nine year old. She’d smack me if she was here, because once again I’ve forgotten what this baby’s name is. They all have names and histories; I love LB telling me the backstories she creates.

The larger dolls do not wear doll clothes, which are expensive and usually junk. We buy real baby clothes for pennies at Goodwill, so these “kids” are always wearing the latest fashions. The other day we found a three-piece outfit for LB’s only boy baby doll (I KNOW his name-it’s Daniel). The outfit included dress pants, a white button-down shirt and a vest. Naturally, LB had to dress Daniel in it immediately and pretend to take him to church. I believe my “grandchild” was very well -behaved in his new outfit.

Speaking of church, we attended LB’s church to hear her sing in the choir last weekend. She’s one of the older kids now, back in the last row so that the little kids, who can’t quite carry a tune or move in unison yet, can see the choir director better. I’m not especially religious, but I always get a thrill out of hearing these kids give it their all.

As it was youth day at the church, the service included recognition of accomplishments by youth members. This isn’t something I grew up with, and I was very touched by the way a boy who’d gotten into the high school of his choice, with a high GPA, was given a standing ovation and the well-wishes of the entire congregation. “And he’s polite to his mother, too,” the pastor added. That too got a round of applause. “It takes a village” really means something there.

LB will have her moment in the sun in a few weeks when she is honored for getting into the advanced learning program for next year. The recognition will include that she’s one of the few non-Asian children of color to make the cut, and that she’s planning to join the diversity committee to make sure kids like her have a voice there.  It’s pretty powerful to know that you have a whole church membership behind you.

I’ve discovered a favorite old show on a cable station-anyone remember Quantum Leap? It’s on at our house in the late afternoon, and an episode came on in which the hero was transported back to the 1950’s as a black man in the south. I was going to record it to watch later, but LB wanted to see it. 

She went about playing with her toys as the episode unfolded, but I could tell she was paying attention. She saw a white hospital try to turn away an injured black child, and the hero getting jailed for insisting otherwise. At at the end, she saw the man’s white employer sit at the lunch counter with him as he made a small stand against segregation. LB had tears in her eyes. She looked at me, but didn’t say anything. Then she shook her head and went back to her little pets.

There was an article in today’s paper about a program in which people who lived those times are passing on their stories to minority high school students. I think that’s a great way to make it real for them, to make sure that they get it regarding what options they have in front of them now. We are fortunate that in our own family LB can get some of this history first-hand.

I’m reminded of the person who insisted we don’t need to “burden” our children with this information, what with it being ancient history and all. But it’s BECAUSE it’s a part of our history that we need to pass it on, as far as I’m concerned.

Prom tickets go on sale tomorrow at Blondie’s school. She’s going with her boyfriend, a black student. A letter just last week to one of those self-help columnists was from another senior in another school. She too was white and wanted to go to the prom with a black student. Her parents refused. And THAT is why racial history isn’t ancient history.

“Tell me a story.”

LB just loves to hear stories about when her father and I were young. For that matter, she loves to hear about her aunts, uncles and much older cousins too. And their dogs. And cats. If I had fish stories she’d want to hear those too.

LB’s grandparents being long dead and gone I think has made her just desperate for any link to them, their kids, and any other family members who aren’t living close by. That would be all of my family, and some of Lee’s. The stories help her connect, because as much as she appreciates her adopted grandmother and her adult cousins, she wants to know the real grandparents and the cousins from when they were her age.

It doesn’t matter to her whether I’ve told the story once or 15 times, she’s always asking to hear it again. Her favorites are the one where my sister’s phobic dog nearly passed out from fright when she tangled with a mop and the one about how my father used to answer the phone at his pharmacy. She likes the one about Lee’s brother getting his hair seriously over-straightened by their sister and the one about Lee getting a terrible sunburn at a time when he didn’t know black kids could get one.

Family photos fascinate her. Of course, all of my old photos are of the paper variety-no digital photos here, and she’ll happily sit for hours and look at her big brother’s curly mop of hair and her older sister’s “old fashioned” dresses. She looks with love and longing at her grandma and grandpa and asks me to tell her again which dog was which and whose house the photo was taken at.

Lee’s got far fewer photos. His older sister has most of them, I’m told, but at a time when cameras weren’t cheap and getting them developed was expensive and required two separate trips to a store, there just wasn’t the chance for his family to get all that many done.  The photos I’ve seen are mostly of special occasions, and since his parents died when he was young, there aren’t many of him with them at all. Looking at them is so much more poignant for LB. I have boxes and boxes of photos. Lee’s are few and very special to her.

I wish-how I wish-that my parents were still around. Especially now as Blondie gets ready to graduate, I wish they could be here. They have found a way to get out here for the big day. My mother would make some of her wonderful chocolates and my father would probably give Blondie a package of pecan sandies, a little joke between them. Lee’s family will be here with bells on, but it’s not going to feel the same to Blondie-I know that.

I wish my folks could see LB as she wears a skirt of a newly discovered fashion type-madras, which was all the rage decades ago. My father loved it-had a blazer, at least two pair of pants, a shirt AND a straw hat with madras trim. I assured LB that he did NOT wear all those at once! He’s sure love her little skirt though.

I wish they were here just so that I could bring LB over some weekend, just to visit, or to enjoy one of mom’s spaghetti dinners. I wish most of her cousins didn’t live hither and yon. And it would be nice if at least one or two were younger! There’s just not much in common a 24 or 38 year old has with a third grader.

For now, though, we’ll get out the pictures and LB will beg me to “tell me the story” about Cousin A or “the (great)  grandma who painted” or the time Grandpa hung the arrows wrong”. Or, for the 37th time, the story about the dog and the mop. I wish to this day I’d had a video camera. I’d have won the funny video contest million-dollar prize for sure.