Mind your own damn business

Grace is a contributor to this blog. This blog is public. Sure, we don't advertise it to our friends and family, but it can be found. So I gotta be careful what I say and don't say.

Same goes for Facebook. Grace and I are friends on Facebook. Always have been, hope we always will be. She's never done anything to make me want to limit my profile to her, and I've respected her "space" in the social networking world.

(That being said, I'm thinking her honest comments on this matter would be priceless ;-) )

Moving on.

While I was growing up in my family, there was this curiosity about my romantic feelings that induced well-intentioned intrusion. My mother would question me about every boy I mentioned. And then she'd speculate about it with my grandmothers. Or my sisters. Or her friends at church. I hated it. It made me never want to date anyone. By the time I was in high school, I avoided discussing boys with my family at all costs. I had one boyfriend during all of high school (it lasted less than two months) and the rest of the time I hung out with gangs of friends. I remembered this feeling of resentment when I came time for me to parent my own adolescent daughter.

When Grace started high school, my advice to her was to have fun and not to get too serious with any one guy. Why? Because what's the point, really? You've got a lifetime to settle down with someone and commit a good bit of your time and resources to them. But you only have one chance to be a teen. One chance to make friends and hang out with them without too many time pressures. One chance to be carefree and find out who you are. In my opinion, the best shot a teen has at figuring out who they are is to do that independent of an attachment to a significant other. I told her that while she's a teen, she should look at romantic relationships and dating as like a best friend you happen to kiss sometimes. You don't start that relationship by someone walking up to you and saying, "let's get together this weekend." You don't have that friendship to the exclusion of others. And you don't hold on to that friendship if the other person isn't being a good friend.

Grace has been interested in boys on and off since she was in 7th grade. In these four years, there have been many episodes of fluttering feelings, heavy beating hearts, excitement and nerves, followed by cooling offs, mellowing outs, and resolutions to "just be friends." All in all, I'm fine with all of it. She seems to be able to identify the deadbeats and steer clear of them, regardless of how many times they hit on her. In the last month, she's been hanging out with one guy, trying to decide if he's someone she likes. Good, just as long as she keeps me up to speed on what's going on.

See, I figure she doesn't want me meddling in her life and getting off on the emotional volatility and possibilities of her romances. The best thing I can give her is a solid foundation to lean on when she needs me. She needs me to protect her, but not in a meddling way. I protect her because I love her, not because I find it exciting. I am not a matchmaker, an advice columnist, a gossip blogger, or a girlfriend. I am Grace's mother. I need to behave accordingly when she is a teenager in love.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only adult in Grace's life. There's lots of people who do get off on her possible romances. And meddle.

A year ago, Grace had her first real interest in a boy that she wanted to go on a date with. Nice kid. She mentioned it to her father. Who said he wanted to meet him. He told his sister. Who flew in to visit without Grace's knowledge. And at an orchestra concert where both Grace and the boy were performing, Grace's father waited to be introduced after the show. Grace's aunt pulled me to the side and said, "I hear Grace has a boyfriend! Was that him sitting to the right? With the brown hair? What do you think of him?" Ahem. Grace was 15 and the boy was 14. I think they are friends.

And then there's the times people meddle on facebook.

The last time Grace had a boyfriend, her father took the liberty posting on his facebook wall that he had just friended the boy as a way of keeping up with who he was. I think he was trying to say something witty about how technology today had completely changed his role as a responsible father. The romance was over a week later, in a quiet way. I don't know whether the boy retained his facebook connection with Grace's father.

Every time Grace puts up a picture on facebook of herself with a boy, my mother calls and asks who it is. Truth be told, most of her friends who are boys are gay. I never know what to tell my mother at that point. And I can never figure out why she asks me who the boys are and never who the girls are.

And then there's the latest event, the one that set my mind to blogging on this topic. A few days ago, Grace wrote on her facebook status that she went downtown with a boy. One of her aunts opened a facebook account less than a day ago. When she saw the status, she wrote, "Your aunt is asking who's [insert boy's name here]?" Subtle.

Is it any wonder teens avoid letting their parents see their facebook profiles? Grace happily accepts friend requests from all sorts of family and adult friends of the family. And she allows everyone to see her complete profile. Both her grandmothers, all her aunts and uncles and cousins, her parents and stepparents, and troves of friends of all these adults. All wanting to get a deeper look into the life of this teen. And comment on it. I give Grace a lot of credit; if I were her, I would have cut most of these people off a long time ago, what with their constant commentary on everything in her life.

Adults, remember what it was like to be a teenager. If a teenager allows you to take a peek into their real life, don't abuse that permission. Respect who they are and don't make embarrassing comments. If you do that, you only reenforce the teenager's desire to limit your access. And some of us parents are grateful that the teens trusts us with that peek.

Meddling, being honest, and how to keep friendships

Grace was at music camp last week. Choir concert, Grace looked and sounded great, I loved seeing her enjoy herself. Last night she told me that there was some drama during her week away. You know, the kind where the girls all talk late at night in their cabin and one girl confesses her undying love for a boy? And then some of the girls decide to intervene, you know, to help the fledgling lovers out? 'Cause their communication is breaking down? Except that by intervening, the girls make things worse. By the end of the trip, the one girl who was in love asked Grace what she thought of her. Grace was more than blunt. She told her she was being bitchy.

Did I mention that Grace didn't know the girl a week earlier? That she's an incoming freshman?

I told Grace she might not want to be so brutally honest with the girl. And that she shouldn't meddle. I don't know whether Grace is going to take my advice.

The whole story threw me back to my own middle school and high school experiences. (I confess, getting an invite to my 20th high school reunion this week helped the speed of my total recall significantly.) Remember when it was so exciting to be "in the know"? To be the one who was the facilitator? The helper? The one who was just trying to make everyone happy? I do. I seem to also recall stirring up quite a bit on controversy. Which was also exciting.

The point is, being the girl who was meddling oftentimes meant I was the one who caused unpleasant situations to come about. In the midst of my conversation with Grace about the situation, I told her that there are precious few times in which it's worth telling someone what you really think of their romantic inclinations towards another person. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I started challenging my own advice.

Is that true? As an adult, there are so many of my girlfriends who have gone through dating and marriage and divorce and cohabiting and reuniting...and on and on and on and on it goes. Most recently, one of my longest-term friends asked me to meet her boyfriend. Her idea was that I am one of her dearest friends, one of her closest and most intimate friends, and someone whose judgment she trusts. She wanted my opinion on the boyfriend. It's not the first time she's asked. Anyways, the end of the story is that I told her I thought he was great. Was that the truth? I ask you a more relevant question: Does it matter what my opinion of her boyfriend is?

Being honest with a close friend, especially about someone they are involved romantically with, is dangerous stuff. When you're in love, when you're physically close with someone, you really don't want to hear an objective opinion on what someone outside of the relationship thinks of your lover. Sure, you want to hear that your lover is great, fantastic, friendly, kind, smart, clever, funny, generous, thoughtful, or talented. That's the feedback you're looking for -- a confirmation that, in spite of your giggling and silliness and inability to see things objectively, you are being wise and smart and making good choices. But when you're in love, when your heart is spilling over with admiration and adoration of another human being, you don't wanna hear anything negative about him.

So here's my dilemma. When is it safe to be honest with a friend regarding a lover? There are clear times, like if he's abusive or extortive. But what if he's just a jerk? What if you question his ethics? What if he just rubs you the wrong way, over and over and over again? What if you just don't click with him? I find myself weighing the value of what I think is best for a friend versus what is really best for that friend. So what if I don't agree with someone's politics or ethics? Or if I find them a jerk? Does that outweigh a friend's potential for unlimited happiness? Isn't it a bit arrogant of myself to believe that my long lasting friendship with someone is more valuable than someone else's relationship with her?

Of course, there is the other side to this dilemma. Live and let live, que sera, sera, and such. It's so easy to stay out of someone's business. So much easier than speaking your mind and risking the backlash. Then the question of what is more important is between my comfort and a friend's well-being.

Where does the line lay? Is there any way to formulate a rule that works in every situation?

I would love to hear the stories out there. One friend has already given me her sad experience, the moral of the story being, NEVER tell someone what you think of their lover. EVER. And the story really was very, very sad. Another friend, one who was separated from her husband when he was exploring the kinky side of middle age, she just reunited with him after six full years of feuding. They are happy as ever. Unfortunately, I was brutally honest with her and way over-involved in their complications. Now I'm wondering if we'll ever get the intimacy of our friendship back.

I'm just trying to figure out what I should tell Grace, you know? 'Cause like every good parent, this really has nothing to do with me (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say-no-more, say-no-more).

This year, it's just about bourbon. And Grace.

Two years ago yesterday, on December 20, 2007, I started this blog with a post about bourbon balls and how furious I was at Grace for eating a slew of them without anyone's permission. That seems like an eternity ago. Let's visit an event involving bourbon that is more recent and far more challenging: what my husband found after Grace's five friends had been over for the night unsupervised.

It was an innocent enough idea. On Halloween night, Grace wanted to go out trick or treating with a few friends then come back to the house for movies, candy, and a sleepover. Our house is set up so that the den can be isolated from the rest of the house. So I welcomed them home from trick or treating at 8p or so, showed them to the den, and closed the door for the night. By noon the next day, all but one friend had gone home and Grace was cleaning up the house. Grace seemed tired and a bit irritable, but there was nothing else notable about her behavior.

The following morning when I came down for breakfast, my husband told me we had a serious situation that we needed to address. On the counter was an empty bottle of Jim Beam. The last time I saw the bottle, it was almost full. We only have one bottle in the house; it gets stored along with the rest of the hard liquor in a inconspicuous chest in the den. Grace knows it's there, but up until this point, I never dreamed she'd touch the stuff. As I stood there staring at the empty bottle, I wanted to believe so much that it was an adult that had drunk the whiskey rather than a group of Grace and friends. Unfortunately we just don't serve drinks that often; the Jim Beam comes out only once in awhile, like when I make bourbon balls at Christmas time. I could feel my stomach sinking deep into my belly. THIS was not a bridge we had ever even come close to crossing previously.

I'm not stupid or naive. Teens drink. Lots of them drink. Lots of them drink a lot. I'd be deeply in denial if I believed that there was no chance that teens might drink in my home if left unsupervised with alcohol. I wanted to believe that Grace would never touch the stuff and never let her friends touch it either if she could keep them from it. But as Sherlock Holmes says, "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." The whiskey didn't vanish or evaporate. It didn't get up on its own two legs and walk out. Someone drank it, and no one who would have drunk hard liquor in high volumes had been in the house for months as far as I could remember.

So we brought it up over breakfast. It didn't go well. Grace was angry, upset. She absolutely denied knowing anything about the bourbon. She pitched a hissy fit. Her irate, insistent refrain was, "I can't believe you'd think that I would do something like that!" Despite all her protesting, I wasn't convinced of her innocence at all since she'd pulled this kind of a fit before, lying like mad, in order to cover lesser transgressions.

Then finally when I had given up hope and started to accept that my young teenager was drinking and lying, she said, "It could have been one of your friends! What about M?!?" Indeed, M had visited for a week this past summer. I had told him to make himself at home during his stay, our home is your home. He spent the week trying to quit smoking. As a result, he ate ravenously...and he helped himself to plenty of hard drinks after work day hours were over. As soon as Grace brought it up, I realized that there was a good likelihood (actually, a much better than average likelihood) that the bourbon had been consumed by M.

I was quiet for a second. I didn't apologize, I just thought for a second. Did I owe Grace an apology? All I did was ask her what happened to the whiskey and she threw a huge temper tantrum. If she was the kind of kid who was always forthright and honest with me about everything, it would have ended there. I would have trusted her and thought of what else could have happened. But Grace has lied to me before. Suddenly, I realized what the biggest problem we had was. It wasn't teenage drinking; it was lack of trust based on a history of dishonesty.

We talked for a few minutes longer at the table about how this whole episode illustrated exactly why it is so crucially important for Grace to NEVER lie to us about anything, no matter how small. Not about a bad grade on a test, not about losing something valuable, not about eating candy in her bedroom after hours, not about ANYTHING. For years I have been telling her that if I can't trust her, all is lost. Finally we had a crystal clear example of why that is the case. My guess is that this episode finally made the point clear to her. Never, never lie. I don't care what you've done, I don't care if you've killed someone, just don't ever lie to me. If there isn't trust between a parent and child, everything else about the relationship will become painfully difficult.

As I'm looking back on two years of blogging, I'm realizing I've grown a lot as a person, a woman and a mother. It's taken a lot of difficult moments to grow, some that I'd rather not ever go through again. Now I've grown to the point where I want my teenage daughter to learn from me by reading and writing with me. At this point, I know I still have growing to do, but I hope to do it in a more interactive way with my oldest daughter.

Grace is going to comment on this after a bit in order to give her two cents worth on the event. I'm probably as anxious as all of you are to hear what she has to say about it.

Regardless, I am reminded at this time that part of why I started this blog is that I love my daughter dearly. In order for me to show that, we have to traverse very bumpy parts of the road. All of you out there have helped me and her through some of these patches. As we keep traveling along, I know there are many more bumps to come. But I don't look at them with quite the same dread I used to. I am cautiously optimistic that all will turn out fine if the two of us keep holding hands during the journey.

I wish Ken Burns had gotten my attention when I was in high school

If you haven't seen it yet, there's a new documentary debuting on PBS this week, The National Parks. It's the finished project resulting from almost a decade of work by Ken Burns, one of the most recognized documentary film makers of our day. Since everything I know about this documentary is from interviews with Ken Burns that I watched last week, I'll save you all the trouble of reading and simply embed two of the videos here.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Ken Burns
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Twelve hours long, divided into 6 2-hour segments. Tonight the final installment is airing. At the start of the week, we scheduled the DVR to record all 6 segments so that we could watch them as we had time. (Yes, I figured out how to use the DVR, that wonder of modern technology that lets you watch a television show whenever you like and pause it in the middle too.)

I've gotten the chance to watch the first two hours so far, about the beginnings of the National Parks at Yosemite and Yellowstone. As I watched it, I started remembering my high school lessons from US History. Vaguely. John Muir, that name sounded familiar. Wasn't I supposed to know who that was once upon a time? It seems like I was supposed to have read something about him that I didn't and then there was a question on a test that I didn't know. Nez Perce sounded familiar too. I knew it referred to an indigenous language of the Americas, but I seemed to remember that there was some other important thing about the people group that I should know. But I couldn't call it up.

As a junior in high school, I took US History as an AP course. It was what you were supposed to do if you were headed to college. I took it and I never cracked higher than a C in the class. Worse, I didn't learn much about American history. It wasn't until long after I finished my BA that I started wanting to understand the history of the country I grew up in. I realized that it affected my daily life. I needed to know what had happened in the tract of land and to the people who lived there, regardless of their citizenship and ancestry.

As I watched the first installment of The National Parks, I started wishing I could have seen it as a high school student. Maybe I would have had a chance at understanding why history mattered. Maybe I would have paid attention long enough to realize it was an interesting story.

I really found myself having a lot of regrets about how I approached my education.

And then it occurred to me: I can't go back and change my own high school experience, but I can influence Grace's experience. Grace is taking AP US History this year. I could suggest to Grace that she watch the series on the National Parks. She could enjoy learning about the history of the United States instead of trying to reconstruct the stories from the dry text in a thick, heavy coursebook.

I must say, so far she's taking the course a lot more seriously than I did. She seems to understand the ideas more fully than I did, too. When I suggested that she watch the series, she responded well. The next day she watched about an hour of the first show and took notes.

Once again, I'm realizing that Grace is a far more mature person than I give her credit for. And she's a far more mature person than I was when I was her same age.

Homecoming is here again.

Tonight. Tonight's the night.

It's Homecoming at Grace's high school.

Last year I had no idea what Homecoming meant, what the event entailed. This year, I was prepared.

There's a football game, yes, but who really cares about that? Grace especially doesn't care given that she's on the swim team and they had a meet scheduled at exactly the same time as the Homecoming football game.

The most important event, of course, is a dance. A semi-formal. Grace, unlike most girls, goes to a dance and wants to dance. She wants to be wild, be goofy, take pictures, eat, and have A LOT OF FUN. BOOOOOOOO, she says to the girls who go to these events and look and act like princesses, not daring to do anything to muss themselves. A dance is for letting down your hair and HAVING FUN.

Now that you get the picture, here are the essential points I have learned since last year.

#1 - It is very important that you pick out a dress that makes you look spectacular. It is also very important that no one else pick out your spectacular dress.

Grace and I set out a day, a Saturday three weeks ago, to go shopping together for a dress. The two of us with baby Stella in tow went to the mall on a mission. Once we had located the motherload of dresses at our favorite department store, we grabbed as many dresses as we could find and Grace tried on at least thirty. We narrowed it down to eight, and then two. Finally, she decided on a purply-blue satin dress with silver accents. Low cut in the front, yes, but not in a way that looks slutty. It's technically a halter top, but the back has this fantastic look where two straps come from her nape down to the sides of the dress. Like backless with some flair. She said it didn't look like a typical Homecoming dress, the kind that people would expect you to buy (ergo, no one else is likely to pick out the same dress). She also bought $16 silver ballet flats with a big sequined flower at the toes that make the dress stand out and look fun. And that you actually dance in, as opposed to just look dressy in.

Stella behaved perfectly through the whole process.

#2 - You have to weigh the pros and cons of going with a date.

Grace mentioned to me this Tuesday that she might be going to the dance with a date. Now you must realize, Grace has never actually been on a date before. I asked her for more details. Well, she said, it was a friend of hers, someone who has a girlfriend who goes to another high school, but they may be breaking up, but that doesn't matter because Grace and this boy are just friends, and in the end, who really would think much of it anyway? By Wednesday she told me there was no date because she decided that the whole situation was just too complicated. Last night, she told me that several boys had asked her to the dance, but she turned them all down because she didn't want to have to spend all night with one guy when what she really wanted to do was party with her girlfriends. OK, then.

#3 - Corsages are not obligatory.

Last year, at the last minute only hours before the dance, I remembered that Grace would need a corsage for the dance. I called four florists from my office before one would agree that they could get it ready in the space of three hours. I agreed, paid through the nose for it, and it was beautiful. It matched her dress perfectly. I brought it home, my husband gave it to her, and she smiled for pictures with the lovely attached to her wrist. Then she quietly slipped it off before we left for the dance, leaving it on her desk at home. She put it up on display after the weekend as a souvenir. My husband was hurt. She explained to us that it's really weird to wear a corsage if you don't have a date. And though it might be nice to have a corsage and a date, see the discussion under #2.

So, my life is easy. No corsage to worry about this year. Or ever, for that matter, since I only have daughters.

#4 - When you get ready for the dance, it is way more fun to do this with friends.

I have this old-fashioned, idealized notion that every time my daughter has a formal event to attend, she will be close by so that I can relish in her getting ready process and can take an endless number of photos before she actually attends. In the sitting room, by the front door, in a scenic location both in the front yard and the back yard, a beautiful pose, a silly pose, posed with my husband, posed with me, and on and on and on the list goes.

Well, Grace doesn't really have all this as part of her idealized night of Homecoming. She wants to get ready with her friends and go to the dance with them too. The only way for both me and her to have our way is for me to host her friends and let them all get ready at my house. So two of her friends are coming over this afternoon and they are spending two hours getting ready together. Grace wants pizza and other refreshments on hand. I am surprising her by providing Izze, a beverage far too expensive for every day consumption.

I'll take pictures of all three girls in the sitting room, by the front door,...

#5 - Parents should be cool and trust teenagers who have never dreamed of doing anything dangerous in the first place.

'Nuff said.

Happy Homecoming, all you sophomores at Grace's high school.

Honest Scrap Award

ONE MONTH AGO, Crys at Modifying Motherhood gave me an award. I thanked her right away and thought, 'thank goodness I have an idea for an upcoming post.' Um, yeah, right. I don't think "upcoming" translates into ONE MONTH LATER. But Crys is a great sort of person, or, rather, I imagine she is face to face since she seems to be a great sort of person as I see her through her writing. So I'm sure she understands that I don't mean any offense by taking ONE WHOLE MONTH to accept this award and pass it on.

Here goes.

Crys gave me the Honest Scrap Award. Sounds nice, eh? I'm supposed to list ten things that you probably didn't know about me. Then I pass the award along. Easy 'nuff. Here is my list:

1. When I was in high school, I was in love with England. I wanted to travel there. I wanted to move there. I thought everything about England was amazing. I knew every single fact about the British royal family and the Beatles that there was to be known.
2. When I was in middle school, around 1984, I thought Michael J. Fox was about the most amazing thing in the entire world. I would have done anything to see him in person. I couldn't imagine that anyone was more fantastic. Then the crush waned. Then about 1998 I told someone how much I liked him as an actor. And that person said, 'yeah, but what has he done lately?' Oh. My. And now? More than ten years later? I respect him and love him even more. He is, in the language that Mrs. G would use, my secret boyfriend.
3. I was a cheerleader in middle school. I would have done anything to be a cheerleader forever and be an 'it' girl. When I tried out in high school I was cut for the squad because I couldn't do a split.
4. I tried yoga for the first time when I was 24. I was really good at it. I apparently am very flexible. I never really did yoga after that. I should.
5. I bite my fingernails. And my toenails.
6. I love Project Runway. I find those designers very talented.
7. I don't understand poetry at all. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't have the ability to understand it.
8. For reasons I cannot explain, I don't like U2. I can't think of any song by the band that I like. I saw them once in concert during their Pop tour and I was bored. And I was completely burned that I had paid so much for the tickets and driven 100 miles to see the concert.
9. In middle school I made up my mind that I was going to go to college at Florida State. There I would major in music and minor in mathematics. I planned on becoming a piano teacher.
10. The only beer I enjoy drinking is Bell's Oberon, only available during the summer.
    

There you go. Now, to the passing onward. I, Heather at Comparative Childhood, do hereby bestow the Honest Scrap Award to:

CDP, aka Aunt Dahlia, at (parenthetical)

Amy at Welcome to Amy's World

Melissa at Buddha Mama

Go visit their blogs! They are very entertaining!

Should the arts be censored for teenagers?

The following post has been amended as of October 13, 2009, with changes and comments immediately following. A follow up post on October 16, 2009 addresses these amendments.

Last night I attended the first PTA meeting of the school year at Grace's school. I have been involved in this organization since before Grace finished 8th grade. Last year was my learning year, we could say. That is, I learned that organizations that have no profit margin or dollar amount placed on time tend to harbor lots of endless conversation and controversy. After a few months of participating, I learned how to protect my time and, to some extent, how to diffuse the energy from never-ending debates.

Last night there were several controversies. There was a 30-40 minute interrogation of the principal over her lack of sufficient communication to the school community after the first day of school regarding a potential criminal matter at a bus stop. Then there was more discussion regarding her past failure to post the daily announcements at the school's website. A last minute controversy began over how much of a voice the students have in matters like what type of food is served at the Homecoming dance and how much they should be emotionally supported by the PTA. And then one very concerned parent brought up the theatre department's choice of an annual school musical -- Annie Get Your Gun.*

The last parent, new to the school since her daughter is a freshman, expressed great disapproval of the musical. It glorifies the use of firearms and requires that we introduce weapons as props in a play. Further, women and native Americans suffer the ills of discrimination and inequality throughout the libretto.

Fair enough, these are valid points. And fair enough that the parent brought up these concerns at this point even though auditions for the musical began yesterday afternoon. When all is said and done, it's very unlikely that the theatre department will change their choice at this point. Consequently the discussion becomes one of values and opinions, rather than one that will effect real change. Still, the discussion rankled me. I was irritated. I was annoyed. I thought this woman was doing it for show, putting on airs so as to establish her superiority in the pecking order that is the PTA.

It was only later that I thought, why do I feel this way?

It was censorship. It's the idea that teenagers can't handle information.

For the purpose of my discussion here, let's abstract away from the issue that the school musical is an extracurricular activity that the kids are not required to participate in. There are plenty of things that students are exposed to in the name of education that could be construed as inappropriate along the same line of reasoning. If you've ever been in education, you know the laundry list of literature of all genres that has been subject to censorship in the curriculum. What is worse for students to read: Annie Get Your Gun or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? What about The Catcher in the Rye? The Taming of the Shrew? (Or God forbid, Kiss Me Kate.) The question of whether teenagers can handle discussion of sensitive issues has been out there for quite a long while. Some believe that all of the aforementioned titles should be banned from a school's curriculum. Others err of the side of liberalism and say none of it should be censored. And then there are the curious cases in which people nit pick on a case by case basis, reaching inconsistent verdicts for each work.

It bothers me considerably. I don't think that the school or the government or any other board should be censoring material. I think that's the job of parents. If my daughter is deeply involved in a theatrical production that has themes I don't agree with, I can take the opportunity to talk to her about those issues. That's my take on the issue.

When I was a senior in high school, I was the student director of the school's production of Oklahoma! Weapons, discrimination against women, yeah, they were in there. Heck, it was my great-grandfather's double-barreled shotgun that was used as a prop by Andrew Carnes. That's right, an actual firearm was used as a prop.** In one of the final scenes, we directed Will Parker to lasso Ado Annie and pull her to him, an act demonstrating that he had indeed won her over. No one objected. When Grace was in 8th grade, her middle school put on The Sound of Music. There, in middle of Act I, Leisl swung her body back and forth flirtatiously towards Rolf while singing the words, 'I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do. You are 17 going on 18; I'll depend on you.' I was concerned for the actress playing Leisl and hoped one of her parents took the opportunity to talk about her place in the world as a young woman. But still, I don't think the play should have been censored because of these lyrics.

If students don't encounter these works, these works that were contemporary in their time but that now are rightfully deemed discriminatory, how will students learn about the history of these issues? How will they develop the ability to recognize subtle forms of discrimination when they appear? How will they come to appreciate the progress we have made (or haven't) as a society? In short, if students have no access to these works, how will we begin a discussion with them about the issues they raise?

I don't know if my stance makes me a raving liberal or a staunch conservative. Since I want a hands off approach, that should make me conservative. But since we're talking about social issues and I'm advocating full access to information, that should make me a liberal. Who knows. But that's my stance and I'm sticking to it.


*I want to be sure to note here that the theatre director chose the 1999 revival version of the musical to put on, a revision of the script and libretto that significantly reduces the level of racial and gender-based discrimination. I'm not sure the objecting parent knows this.

**Granted, the barrel of the shotgun wasn't aligned correctly and the whole weapon weighed about 35 lbs. I doubt anyone could have used it effectively as weapon, much less even pick it up.

AMENDED ON OCTOBER 13, 2009
I received an email from the parent who voiced concern about the choice of Annie Get Your Gun as the choice of dramatic musical at Grace's high school. A colleague of hers found the blog on October 12 and forwarded her the link to this post. She notes several inaccuracies which I correct here. I always strive to accurately represent things here since bloggers get a lot of criticism for not checking their facts. In the interest of presenting the facts more accurately, please note the changes below. My apologies for any misunderstandings for any and all readers that may have occurred as a result of these errors.

• The child of this parent is a sophomore, thus she did know about the choice of the musical the previous spring. The concerns she raised in September have been brought up since last June.
  
• To clarify that my first impressions of her at the meeting were indeed incorrect, her motivation in bringing up these concerns at a PTA meeting was not to "put on a show, airs, or establish my superiority in the pecking order of the PTA." Rather, she is extremely busy and would prefer to be minimally involved in the organization.
  
• She was aware that the revised version of the musical was selected by the theatre director before making her objections.
• She reiterated in correspondence with me that she strongly disagrees that parents should have a "hands-off" approach as I advocate here.
  

A quick quiz on the ethics of teenagers

Short answer question

Instructions:
Read the following situation. Once you have completed the reading, consider the question. Give a thoughtful and complete answer, including the ethical premise for your choice.




Situation:

It is the last week of summer before the school year begins again. You are on the varsity women's swim team at your high school. You are a sophomore. You are trying to do well this season and earn a varsity letter. Two weeks ago you started pre-season training with your team. Pre-season training is a strain on the schedule -- morning and afternoon practice every weekday along with a morning practice on Saturdays too. WAY more work than optional summer training.

You are also a very social gal, one who wants to enjoy the last week before school starts. You've got lots of friends because you're gregarious like that and all. Last weekend you contacted a bunch of friends and convinced them to make plans with you. All the friends are exuberant and you set the date to go downtown the next Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday, Sept 2nd, that is, and shop, do Starbucks, take goofy photos, and generally kick the dirt up with your heels one last time as you all bid summer adieu.

And then reality hits you. Tuesday morning you look at your calendar. Even though your swimming coach has canceled the last two Wednesday afternoon practices, she's actually holding the practice this Wednesday. Wednesday, Sept 2nd, that is. The same day you have scheduled with your friends to go downtown.

Damn. You made an assumption based on precedent without checking whether the precedent was now a permanent arrangement. Now you have a date with a bunch of friends to go downtown for the afternoon while your coach expects you to be at practice swimming laps. In preparation for the meet on Thursday, tomorrow.




Question:

What do you do?


What DO you DO?!?




Possible Answers:

What I would have done when I was 15:

I would have explained the situation to my coach and said it was a mistake, admitted I was wrong, but gone ahead and kept my date with my friends. It's unclear to me whether in the long run I would have continued to think that this was a good choice.

What Grace did this week, now that she is 15:

She talked to her coach at the morning practice on Tuesday. The coach was not pleased. Despite this, she came home and told me that she was going to go ahead and go out with her friends anyway. Then Grace thought about it some more. She talked to her coach again at her afternoon practice on Tuesday. The coach reiterated that it was 'highly recommended' that she attend the practice the next day and, consequently, cancel her plans with her friends. Or at the best, reschedule for another day. Grace came home from practice and started calling her friends and rescheduling.




Right now I think the plan is for Grace and her friends to go downtown Friday afternoon (when practice really IS canceled) and shop, do Starbucks, take photos, and generally kick the dirt up with their heels one last time as they all bid summer adieu.

Once again, she proves she is better than I.*

* Every time I make a choice between "I" and "me" at this blog, someone notes when I make a mistake according to the prescriptive rules of English grammar. I don't really adhere to those rules here at my blog, but since it always seems to come up, this time I'll defend myself. In "she proves she is better than I," the use of the pronoun "I" could be questioned -- isn't "I" the object of the comparative marker "than," indicating that it should receive accusative case and be pronounced "me?" In actuality, the object of the comparative marker "than" is the entire clause "I am good" in which the adjective "good" is obligatorily deleted and the copular verb is optionally deleted. Since "I" is the subject of the clause, it must receive nominative case. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Update on homeschooling

When I was a sophomore in high school, while studying the Renaissance as part of World History, I was assigned to write a short report on the Italian architect Brunelleschi. I remember little else about the architect except that he designed the dome for Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. It never occurred to me at that point in my life that I might get to actually see the dome.

As if our family life did not involve enough ups and down and turnabouts, my husband and I decided the last couple weeks to do something a little unexpected. Not crazy, just unexpected. We thought we'd take the family to Italy for a semester. My husband had been pursuing teaching abroad for the winter and spring of next year. I encouraged him to do this, since he hasn't gotten the chance to travel for a sabbatical. The one snag of course was that going would mean he would leave our family behind. Me, Grace, and our new baby. Not the end of the world, but not what we really wanted either. So we started working on the unexpected plan -- taking the whole family to Italy for a semester.

No problem for me. No problem for the baby. But Grace. How do you work in a semester away when a kid is in high school and still make sure she stays on track to graduate? People do these sorts of things, there must be a way to do it. I contacted her guidance counselor and asked what we could do. He was more than enthusiastic and helpful. He said, no problem, he'd contact one of his colleagues at one of the other high schools in the city. The solution? Grace could do her studies at home using online resources already approved by the district, and while she was here in the states, she could still participate in swim team, orchestra, sit in on classes that would be good (like language classes and an AP course). Once we went abroad, she could continue her homeschooling using these resources and supplement using anything we wanted that seemed of use abroad (hello, AP World History).

We didn't tell Grace. We wanted to wait until we knew everything was a go. I was pretty sure she would go for it because she had been begging us for weeks to let her do an exchange program abroad during her sophomore year. That was out of the question because, oh my god, do you know how much those programs cost? But still...Italy...in the spring...I didn't think it would take too much convincing.

I started thinking about all the amazing benefits and possibilities. Our family, by that point the full four of us, could travel together and live away together. We could spend 4-5 months together. Grace with a new little sister, me with my two daughters, my husband with his daughter and his stepdaughter together, my husband and I, away from the hub bub of our typical American life. We'd get the chance to be in a new place for longer than a few days or a few weeks...we could actually get the chance to settle into a place and get to know it, a place that presents new perspectives and new experiences.

Under these conditions could I take up the task of homeschooling? Oh, yes. Sure, it would be a change of pace and something I'd have to begin planning for. But the chance to have one year just to give it a shot, spend time together, do learning in a way that Grace wanted to rather than how a teacher wanted to...that is irreplaceable.

Just about the time everything was settling down and the guidance counselor was pulling together all the information, we hit a glitch. The project abroad had been downsized and we no longer had the opportunity. Some other year in the future, maybe, but not now. But at that moment I realized what I had lost. It occurred to me that my family, one that is still in the making, has precious short years before the oldest child becomes an adult. The chance to sweep the whole family up and go on a venture together is slipping away from us.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to have that experience without the actual act of going away physically. I'm realizing that it's very important for me to have the family bond. I'm trying to figure out how to make the most of every day, every holiday, every birthday, every moment.

Ciao, Italia.

More unexpected news. Well, at least coming from me, it is.

I started this calendar year by throwing you all for a loop and announcing I was pregnant. That was such unexpected news, given my previous constant rantings about having only one child, a teenager, and you all have been great with that change in tone of my blog.

And then shortly thereafter I started in on my two month or so rant about Grace's diagnosis with ADD and what all that meant for her medically and at school and beyond. Again, you all were great. You gave me so much encouragement and advice.

So it seems I have come to another completely unexpected turn in my life. Most likely, for Grace's sophomore year of high school next year, we'll be doing homeschooling.

No, really. I'm not kidding.

I've never even considered doing this before, much less actually plan to do it and go through with it.

Just call me Dr. Homeschooling Mom.

It's a long explanation, and one that's worth dishing out. If this actually goes through, I'll fill you in when the details are settled. If it doesn't work out, I'll still give you the abbreviated explanation.

As you can imagine, any thoughtful advice is welcome and sought out by me at this juncture.

boody shorts and other things not to fight for the right for

I think my husband phrased it best a few nights ago: "These students are fighting for the right to dress up like whores and have their classmates ogle their asses." And that was after six days of discussion about the dress code shake up at Grace's school last Friday.

It happens in every middle school and high school every year. It happens no matter how conservative or liberal the dress code is, including those that have uniforms. Sooner or later, the students decide they want to push the rules, the school administration responds, and the students grumble and complain.

Last Friday the school administration at Grace's high school pulled several students out of class, all women, and cited 30 of them for dress code violations. The violations? Short shorts, micro minis and tube tops. The school has a policy that skirt and short lengths can't be higher than the tips of the fingers. All the parents of the cited students were notified. Students were given the option of changing into suitable clothing they had in their lockers, waiting for a parent to bring them a change of clothing, or walking home and changing clothes before being allowed to return to classes. A fourth option, which only one girl took, was to wear an extra-large t-shirt with the words "Tomorrow I Will Dress For Success" brandished across the front over her clothing, concealing the violating garments.

The student body has been outraged ever since the students were first removed from classes that day. The students discussed the matter in every single class. During lunch when some of the students returned to class, students stood on the lunch tables clapping, yelling, hurrahing, and, well, hooting. By the end of the day there was a petition written and signed by over 100 students (about 20% of the current student body), to be delivered to the principal directly. One student stepped forward as a reporter for the school paper and asked for "student victims" to contact her directly so she could address the matter in the next issue of the paper. Over the weekend three different facebook groups were begun by students protesting the matter. They had lovely and creative names like "OUR HIGH SCHOOL's dress code is RETARDED" and "OUR HIGH SCHOOL's rebellion." The rebellion group suggested every student come to school on Monday wearing short shorts, mini skirts, or showing some undergarment (all dress code violations) and label the protest "Dress like a Ho Day."

The school board communications officer released a public statement, as did the principal. The local newspaper picked up the story and posted a short bit on their online site. Five hours later, it was filled with over 50 comments, all from students of the high school or other local high schools.

I wish I could say there was some good critical thinking evidenced in these multiple expressions of protest. I wish I could say that this whole episode was just a difference of opinion between the school administration and the students. I wish I could say that the actions of the students reflected careful reflection and thought. I wish I could say my daughter wasn't one of the most outspoken members of the outraged constituency.

*Sigh.* Here are the more troubling facts as I see them.

• All the facebook groups were started by male students. And some of the male students can't help but comment about how they want to see the girls wearing these kinds of clothing.
• The girls are defending their right to wear these clothes using arguments like their right to self-expression is being stifled and that the dress code does not allow them to be comfortable in school, a year-round climate-conditioned building.
• There are numerous comments made by students about how it is impossible for them to buy shorts that meet the school dress code requirement, and that the dress code is old-fashioned. Here's a sample quote from one of the outraged youths: "Times now are COMPLETELY different from when the teachers and staff were young. Now it is next-to impossible to get shorts mid-thigh. This may seem irrelevant but its not cool to wear shorts much longer then your fingertips....we just want to fit in...ever heard of peer pressure?"

If you're like me, you're reading all this and just rolling your eyes. The arguments are rife with problems. Like, isn't nude photography a form of self-expression? And, so, I guess all the teens and adults with jobs are being oppressed by not being able to wear whatever makes them comfortable due to company dress code policies? Or, what can we say about adults who lived through the haute pants of the 70s or the lace tops over bras of the 80s, that they are COMPLETELY out of touch? That succumbing to peer pressure and dressing a certain way solely because your society dictates that you should are qualities to be aspired to?

But more than this lack of mature logic, I'm troubled that these students, these predominantly female students, see themselves as advocates for themselves by making these arguments. In reality, they're fighting for the right to dress provocatively in their primary place of business, their school. Even when Grace talked about it with me initially, she said that even though she wouldn't dress that way because I wouldn't let her, that doesn't mean that other girls shouldn't be able to.

Why do young girls not see how duped they are? Why do they never consider that the societally-dictated fashion standard that they are supposed to conform to is not helping them?

By the way, I have to include here the best comment I read by a student BY FAR:

"This was a very stupid move for the staff. If they want to interrogate us and treat us like 2 year olds, they should know that there will be consequences for their actions as there are for ours. We are hormonal teenagers who want to make a point, AND WE WILL MAKE A POINT!!"

*Sigh.* At least I can tell you that Grace didn't author that comment.

Parents' rights

This is going to be along the lines of setting a few basic things straight. Things brought up by the Palin family drama.

In case you haven't caught the recent news, Bristol Palin, teenage mother of 3-month-old Tripp, has broken up with Tripp's dad, Levi. Bristol, young and not yet in possession of a high school diploma or equivalency, is living at home and asking for help raising Tripp from her family. Lately Levi has been saying he's not allowed to see his child as much as he likes. And to add more drama to the situation, Bristol's mom Sarah not only backs up her daughter's decision not to let Levi see the baby more often, she says he's a liar about stating that the family knew the two teens were having sex and that he was allowed to stay at the Palin household in the days leading up to the birth of his child.

When I put it like that, it sounds like a great weekly drama series, huh? And think, I didn't even have to mention the part about how these people are getting their more than 15 minutes of fame out of the whole thing!

As I understand it, here are a few problems with the scenario from a legal standpoint.

• The father of this infant son, Levi Johnston, has a legal right to see his son. He has that right whether or not he is in a relationship with the child's mother and whether or not he is deemed responsible or honest by the mother's family.
• In fact, as many have pointed out incorrectly, he has a right to see his son whether or not he can afford child support. Family courts in the United States are quick to point out to those who don't understand this idea, the right of a parent to see their child is in no way affected by a non-custodial parent's ability to pay child support. The two are not contingent upon one another. Quite the opposite, a custodial parent (Bristol, apparently by default, in this case) can be held in contempt of court if they refuse visitation to the other parent on the basis of non-payment of child support. Don't get me wrong, parents should provide financial support to children. But this is not part of the picture when discussing whether parents should be able to see their children.
• The grandparent of a child has no pre-eminent right to decisions about that child's welfare over either of the child's parents. So in this case, Sarah appears to be overstepping her boundaries. It appears that she takes her own decisions and the decisions of her daughter, the child's mother, to outweigh the decisions of the child's father.

Hm.

Are we to believe that fathers are unimportant? That they should be kept out of sight? That they should only be permitted to see their children when a mother says it's ok? No, no more so than mothers should be treated this way.

Where are the pro bono family attorneys in Alaska? And why isn't one of them representing this father? A father who is being deprived of the right to see his child? A father who is being forced to allow all decisions regarding his child's welfare up to the other parent? Um...am I the only one here who thinks that most of the media is focused too much on who the players are and not enough of basic rights of parents, no matter how young they are? Why are the rights of this father, who is a legal adult, less important the rights of this mother?

Regardless of whether you think this family are a bunch of rednecks or the most moral family on the face of the planet, clearly they are in need of some intervention from the state family courts. Children's parenting should not be left up to their most wealthy and most powerful family members.

***A brief disclaimer - yeah, I'm a blogger, and yeah, I'm writing about Sarah Palin. That puts me at risk for being called a liar. But she's already called me and my kind a bunch of liars, so what have I got to lose? Nothing, but I think this young baby has a lot to lose if no one says anything. Since clearly no one in Tripp's family seems to understand the legality of custody, I figured someone had to say something. Hopefully even while Sarah's going around calling everyone a liar, she'll realize that her grandson would do best to have a father who's allowed to be involved.***

Handling the boys, part II

A few days ago I gave you a summary of one example of how Grace deals with boys who won't leave her alone. Since the whole interaction was happening over facebook, there was some chance that this was someone other than who they seemed, like a stalker trying to trick her into meeting her someplace. But this was unlikely since he was also facebook friends with a ton of Grace's other friends who also go to his high school. Feeling like this whole episode was somewhat innocuous, I related the tale to my husband much as I did here, as a story exemplifying her good sense. He didn't laugh. He countered with a cautious admonition: Make no mistake, this boy is a stalker. Just because he's 15 doesn't mean he's not. He just hasn't refined his craft yet to qualify as a stalker by the legal definition.

It made me pause and think.

Of course, I couldn't mention the whole thing to Grace. There was really no reason for me to be going through her mailbox. And beyond that, she hadn't done anything wrong. She was just being harrassed over facebook by a guy she'd never met and dealing with him appropriately. Why should I butt my nose into that?

I got a little nervous the next day when I saw on her facebook page that she had accepted his facebook friend request and that he had commented on her wall something about her being pretty and sweet. Still, I didn't mention it to her.

Turns out, that girl is smarter than I give her credit for. Since he wrote this comment on her facebook wall last week, she not only unfriended him, she blocked him. This means, for all intents and purposes, he can't "see" her on facebook anymore. Not her, her comments, her pictures, pictures of her, nothing. She disappears from facebook from his perspective.

It's a bold move for a teen to make. Though my blocked list on facebook is 30+ strong (at least), I'm not in the age range of people whose social status is determined largely by my facebook behavior. My understanding is that for a teen to block another teen on facebook is a pretty serious move. My guess is that she didn't make a big to-do over it; she just got fed up with the whole situation and solved it, not mentioning it to anyone.

I am shocked. And I am so happy. Grace gets another point for clear-headed thinking. Wow.

And in case you're wondering...

No, I Do Not Spend Every Single One Of My Days Logging On To Grace's Facebook Account And Looking At Every Single Activity She Has.

How the grades go

Grace, my husband and I met with her vice principal and another teacher at school a week ago. This was the follow-up meeting to our first meeting in January to address Grace's troubles in school. Originally the meeting was scheduled for mid-February, but at that time it was clear that she still had not figured out a way to keep up with her work and keep track of missing assignments. By the end of the term, she had managed to complete all her missing assignments and her grades for term were actually not bad at all.

However, there was a lingering problem that no one seemed to be able to solve. Tests. Quizzes. Examinations. We couldn't figure out what to do about it. Her Algebra teacher, very dedicated and helpful, was throwing up her hands in befuddled confusion. The basic idea is that no one could seem to figure out how Grace seemed to know something at one time and then completely forget it a very short time later. So our meeting a week ago was focused on figuring out this answer to this unsolved mystery.

Though it may seem obvious, the strategy we settled on was to have Grace take control of the situation. When she found out a closed-book exam would be given in any class, she has to find out from the teacher what specific concepts will be tested, what the format of the test will be, and how long the test will be. Her task at that point is to prepare a review sheet and have her teacher look at it, adding things she may have left off. The final step is for Grace to find or create a practice test that is as close to resembling the actual test as possible. The afternoon/evening before the test she takes the practice test just like it was the real test. Whatever she doesn't know, she then finds the answer to and commits it to memory.

It assumes that nothing will keep her from learning, that there is no learning disability that would hinder this process (aside from ADD which is being treated medically).

I'll admit it, I was nervous leaving that meeting. We arranged to let 4-5 weeks pass and then meet to review what the results were. At that point if it was still clear that the tests were a problem, then we'd have something concrete to go on. I guess I didn't realize that getting assessments done at the high school level takes a lot more work than it does at lower grades. My biggest fear walking out of that meeting was that Grace wasn't capable of doing what she was being charged with. My husband said I shouldn't worry, that he felt she was quite able to do it and that if she valued the results that would come (good grades), she would do it. Still.

One week later. Grace has taken a test or quiz in four of her five classes this week. The results?

Science: quiz, 93%
English: quiz, 90%
World History: quiz, 100%

and...


AND.....

.....

Algebra: test, 95%

That's right, friends and neighbors, for the first time in FOUR YEARS, Grace passed a math test. And not only did she pass it, SHE GOT AN A.

I know that it's not like everything is fixed and we'll never have troubles with her schoolwork again. I'm sure we are on a peak now and the valley will come. But GOD ALMIGHTY, I cannot BEGIN to tell you how awesome of a feeling it is to realize she took four exams in a row and got an A on every single one.

The next time I start complaining about her here, someone remember to slap me upside the head comment-style, ok? I think everyone else had confidence in her, including herself, except me. And for once, I didn't voice my skepticism to her. She is a victor, my friends. She knew it, she just made a point of letting everyone else know it too.

****Of course, maybe this was all a result of her getting her hair cut. What do you think?****

Handling the boys

A couple weeks back someone who knew Grace at a younger point in her life asked me how she was. I told them about transition to high school and how that affects her social life. I told him about the most recent school dance at her school. He wanted to know whether Grace had a date. I said, "No, she's just not that into boys." I explained that she's definitely into putting up posters of celebrities and gossiping with her friends, but when it comes to actual boys, she's pretty wary.

And that's pretty much true. Her friends are into having boyfriends and going out on dates and all the rest, but she's not interested in that. For a while I thought that it was just that Grace ran with a group of kids whose parents were like me, so there was no chance 14-year-olds were going out on dates. But that turns out to be false. A little while ago when I was driving Grace and her friends to the mall, one of her friends was talking about her boyfriend. She was trying to explain to Grace and the other girls why she hadn't broken up with him yet. And then she quickly realized, I was in the car and listening to the whole schpeal. She asked me please not to tell her mom. Then she explained that her parents don't allow her to go out on dates. I asked for clarification -- she's going out out on dates with this boy...and her parents don't know about it? She's a pretty nice girl and with pretty attentive parents. I wanted to know, how is she getting out of the house at age 14 to go on dates with a boy without her parents knowing? She explained that she would ask them to drop her off somewhere, saying she was meeting friends. Only she wasn't meeting friends, she was meeting the boyfriend.

There's a great aside I have to interject here. I told Grace's friend that I wouldn't tell her mother, but I also told her that she needed to be careful and make sure she was safe. That was the most important. She completely misunderstood me. She quickly replied and told me that they weren't messing around or having sex or anything. I assured her that I was sure she wasn't because this group of girls was pretty smart and knew that wasn't a good idea at their age. No, I was talking about her physical safety, given that her parents were left in the dark about where she was and what she was doing. If no one knew where she really was and who she was really with, that meant she was on her own to take care of herself. I'm not sure she understood the point I was making.

So Grace is well in the loop when it comes to boys and dating and all the rest. She just doesn't want it for herself.

I suppose this might be evidence she actually listens to me and takes my advice. I told her at the beginning of this school year that if I were her, I would just stay aloof for all of high school. I explained that she could have just as much fun going out with groups of friends and having boys who are her friends as she could if she has one exclusive boyfriend. She listened, but I figured it went in one ear and out the other. Well, it turns out I was wrong.

I can imagine what's going through your head about now. You're wondering how I would ever know whether my daughter has a boyfriend. Maybe she has a boyfriend at school and she's just very careful about talking about it. She's not as careless as her friend was in conversation with me.

That's a good point. I've assumed for several years now that she has crushes. She had one last spring. Didn't turn into anything except a boy who is her friend. And I know she's kissed a boy before because she told me she did. She even went on a "date" while at camp last summer to the dance at the end of the session. And she gets hit on a lot. Sometimes she's oblivious. Most times she catches it because the boys are so bloody obvious at this age. But what's great is when you can catch her in the act of defusing the hit.

A few days ago, a boy she doesn't know sent her a note on facebook. They probably have a ton of friends in common on facebook because he goes to another local high school that a bunch of Grace's friends also go to. In the message, he went straight for the kill: "hey are u very outgoing cuz ur cute." She replied thanks, but do I know you? And then came the reply: "no but I wanna be friends are u busy this weekend?" She got right to it. Yes, she was busy, and she doesn't mean to be rude, but she doesn't go out with guys she's never met before. She goes on about her reputation and how it would be really awkward if she were known for meeting up with strange guys for dates because she wants to move to NYC and be an actress and all.

The exchange goes on for 12 more messages in which she strings a wild tall tale about how her father's family has this really raunchy reputation that she's been trying to live down and she's not going to ruin it now, and how she doesn't mean to be rude but she only meets friends at church and school and volunteer events and stuff, not over facebook, and how he really doesn't want to get her annoyed because she can be really pissy when she's annoyed. If the guy's really a stalker, he's not going to convince Grace to meet him somewhere. If the guy's just a freshman who wants a date, I don't think this is going anywhere.

Don't Ask How I Got Access To This Entire Dialogue And Left No Trace That Anyone Had Been Snooping Through The Private Inbox Of Grace's Facebook Account.

How to get over the hurdles

Sometimes in academia, I feel like I don't fit in. It's not all the time, and it's not a big deal. But it has to do with the typical person who chooses a career in academia and how that is a stark contrast to me.

I was not a valedictorian. I didn't get any special awards when I was a student. I didn't get on the high honor role or earn scholarships to college. I was just an ordinary girl. Most people thought I was smart, and my family told me I should work hard. For the most part, I spent my entire educational career at the bottom of the top. Get it? Yeah, I got into the honors classes, but I was at the bottom of those classes. And I got into the honors program in college, but I dropped out within the first year.

This is not what the typical person in academia is like. They are who you'd expect they would be -- very bright, very successful academically, and very driven. Like all professions, personalities vary. Some people are arrogant, while others are humble. A few are out to prove something, but others are more aptly described as curious knowledge seekers. There are workaholics and people who take their breaks and vacations and weekends without any guilt. But overall, they all succeeded academically.

There is a certain group of people in academia though, not so different from myself, that irk me. It's those that come from a privileged group -- smart, affluent, successful, mentored -- and the belief among these people that all they've achieved is directly related to who they are and their hard work. Let me explain. I went to private school all through grade school and high school. I used to find it so funny when the school publications would go on and on about how much higher the average SAT scores of the student body was than the country average. Really? You charge outrageous prices for tuition and require an entrance exam for admittance, and you thought that the average scores would be, well, average? Of course not. If the school's student body had been a fair cross-section of the county's population, then I could where this would be quite impressive that the scores were so high. But it wasn't a cross-section at all. They did the same thing with percentage of students who were admitted to four-year colleges, got scholarships, etc. I know, it's PR, they have to do it because they have to sell the school to prospective students. But it sets up a deceptive image in the minds of the students there. They start to believe they are better than average, and it's all because they have been pushed harder, they have worked harder, and they just did it better than everyone else out there. Those who didn't do as well as they did just didn't work as hard or weren't as smart.

Vicious, isn't it? No mention of how much harder it would be if you were trying to achieve these academic accolades while also working 20 hours a week to help support your family and living in a less than savory neighborhood. And you hadn't gotten the chance to take private music lessons. Or traveled to Europe when you were 14 with your school chorus. It's easy to see how these students didn't see that their higher achievement over other students didn't exactly boil down to who was brighter and harder-working and more deserving. I sure didn't see it that way.

I wasn't exactly a member of the privileged class. Though my parents both graduated from college and my dad made a good living, we didn't exactly come from elite roots, you know? We were raised to work hard. We got piano lessons and such, but my parents didn't treat it like something that we had to do to stay ahead. They encouraged us to work hard and they made opportunities available. But if we said we didn't want to take the lessons or be on the sports team or go on the youth group mission trip, they didn't insist. When my sisters and I applied to college, we didn't really have any legacy to rely upon. My parents and teachers didn't know any big people who would write a letter of recommendation for us to guarantee our entrance into the college of our dreams. We just put our SAT scores and our transcripts into an envelope and mailed them off to colleges hoping we'd get in. And we really believed it came down to who was the best. Little did I know at the time how sorted to situation becomes as to who gets in and who doesn't. Who succeeds, who soars to the top because of who they are and who soars there because they truly are dynamic, this is all a mixed bag. The bottom line is, colleges want to admit students they know can handle the work and that are likely to stick with it to the end. Once that criteria is met, they are fortunate to consider questions of who is likely to bring valor back to the institution. Like it or not, students who are well connected tend to meet these criteria. So if you are not well connected, you have to compete with the rest of everyone who's just trying to look as good as they can on paper and convince a board of admissions that they've got what it takes.

You'd think with as much exposure as I have had to colleges and admissions and all the rest that I would be perfect at looking at my daughter objectively and helping her steer her way through the educational process. She wants to go to college, there's no question about that. But she's not your typical honor roll, eager beaver student. It occurred to me when she was very young that I would need to think outside of the box with this one. She wasn't going to make it to college by playing by the rules. Despite this enlightenment, so to speak, I regret to say I've come at the task in a somewhat naive way. When it comes to Grace's performance in school and her grades, her interaction with teachers, the way she dresses, the activities she's involved in, all of it, I think inside the box. I think, you have to work hard and get good grades. You have to take the right classes and soar above the rest. You have to go, go, go and not stop because it's hard to get where you need to go. And the message she's gotten, loud and clear, is that mom wants good grades and success. If there's not success, mom will probably not be happy.

During the last few days, I was reflecting on my feelings towards people and their success in my own field. I often times find myself listening to someone's tales in academia and tiring of the overabundant evidence of privilege. I think to myself, what have you overcome in your life? What were the challenges put before you? It gets tiring. I sometimes meet undergrads and read their personal statements on scholarship or grad school applications. I'll hit one that cites all the ways their great family, great school, great community, great activities, and great teachers have made them so excited about learning. And I think, that's kind of boring. What did you do other than receive all this greatness? What did you draw on that was inside you that I can see? In the end I think, I want people who are interesting to be at the university. I want the people who have faced a challenge and overcome it. I want my professors to be people who have gone to the other side of the mountain and back.

I'm not tooting my own horn here, because I'm not sure how well I fit this description.

And then suddenly, like a gift from heaven, it occurred to me. I want someone like Grace to succeed at college. She's the kind of person who has faced some real challenges and overcome them. She's failed classes and kept her chin up. She gets a lot of negative feedback, and yet she's never thrown in the towel, never given up on school, never said her effort doesn't matter, nor changed her life plans because she thinks she can't achieve them. She is passionate, and despite everything negative that gets thrown at her, she perseveres. I've said here that I admired her confidence. I've said that I thought she aimed high. But I've never realized that these qualities are exactly the ones that make her the kind of person you want to keep around.

She's faced a diagnosed disability, discrimination, a broken home, tough financial circumstances, the illness of a parent, and move after move after move after move. She's traveled the world, but not the posh world. The third world. And she completely takes in the whole experience and thinks it's normal.

In the end, she looks great to me. I mean, really, it's shocking to me when I think about what her life has thrown at her so far and how much she looks like girls in her school who have lived in the same tree-lined suburb since they were conceived. I realized at the beginning of the swim team season this fall, Grace was the only member of the team who didn't live in an owned home (we were renting an apartment at the time). It doesn't seem like much, but of course when a sport requires practices 5-6 days a week and early morning pick ups and $50 suits that must be replaced every 3 months and year-round training and team fees, it weeds out a lot of the single parents, financially-strapped families, and others. I just use this as an example of how the rich get richer, and if Grace is diligent enough to keep on keeping on despite not having certain privileges, well, hurrah for her!

So that's my great thought of the week. My kid is not someone to worry about in the long run. She's facing challenges and tough challenges they are. But in the end, she is a great person who will triumph. Like everyone, she'll face moments when she feels like she doesn't measure up. She'll have to decide whether to quit or keep going. But so far in her life, she's done pretty well. And who am I to tell her that she can't do something when she believes she can do it?

One. Last. Assignment.

It is the last week of the term. This is pressure time, folks. My girl, the freshman who lives in my house, has to make sure every single assignment is turned in and graded and that she got correct credit for it. And she needs to study for finals and take them this week too. It is not an overstatement to say that she has never succeeded at doing this before. But with a little help from her family, her teachers and administrators, her doctor, and a significant amount of effort and determination on her part, she's actually pulling it together. We may actually get to see a grade report that is (mostly) clean.

Do you believe me? Do you really think that this is going off smoothly and without a hitch? I didn't think so.

Last night Grace and I took one last look together at her online grades. Her score on every single assignment she does all year long in on that website. Every single comment from a teacher. Every absence or tardy. All looks good except for three assignments. One she had a good explanation for, but was dragging her feet on working through. Another one she said she just forgot about. And there was the third. An assignment in Algebra. Grace's favorite subject, the one she loves, the one she anticipates with glee every day, the one she wishes she could just learn more and more every single day. (Not.)

This one assignment in Algebra is the last one that's not done. The score has been online as a "0" for a month. Every time I ask her about it, she swears she's done it and that she turned it in and that it must just be in her teacher's inbox. I don't think she's lying. I sincerely believe she believes that she did the assignment the night it was assigned, turned it in, and her teacher just never graded it. In fact, I believe her so much that I believe she may be accurate in her recollection of the facts. Still, a zero is a zero, and when your grades aren't hot, you can't just stick it to the system.

My husband and I have explained to her many times, just do the assignment again and make sure your teacher gets it this time. It can't hurt. It will give you more practice at something you struggle to understand. You will get credit for the work. And you won't have to worry about it anymore. But she was steadfast in her determination to demonstrate that she already did the assignment and that her teacher just must not have graded it.

Last night at 8:30p, after we had identified this assignment and the other two that were missing, I told her to go upstairs to her room and complete all three assignments. She said she had all the materials and information she needed in order to complete them all. And off she went. Three hours passed. I was going to bed and I decided to check and find out whether the assignments were actually completed. Nasty one that she was dragging her feet through? Done. One she just forgot about? Done. And that one last Algebra assignment? Not Done. Not Even Started.

"I'm going to check in my teacher's box tomorrow and find it!" she protested.

And then it dawned on me. I told her that it was irrelevant whether she had done the assignment once before. I told her this had absolutely no bearing on whether she should do it now and turn it in. The interchange lasted about 60 seconds. At the end of it, she crashed onto her bed, tore open her algebra book, and furiously started going through her papers to get a piece of paper and start the assignment. 45 minutes later, done.

God Almighty.

The weekend is here.

This was a long week. Not as bad as it could have been, though. After writing about how crazy the week looked, I took a serious step backward and cut things out. For instance:

• I canceled the meeting at Grace's school for this morning to talk about her grades with school people. I realized that since she was not on top of things yet, it would be a waste of time. I emailed the assistant principal and the guidance counselor and discussed new ways to help Grace. This was more helpful than the meeting would have been, I think, and much less time-consuming. And less stressful.
• I didn't make Grace a cake or even cupcakes to celebrate her birthday at home as a family. She was completely fine with this. We really did pull out the leftover Sara Lee frozen cherry cheesecake from Valentine's Day, put 15 candles in it and sing 'happy birthday,' then Grace said she'd prefer a piece of the leftover Coca-Cola cake. She put three pink birthday candles in the slice and we sang again. She was completely happy with the whole thing.
• I smacked myself on the forehead and remembered for half a second that I am not a single parent any longer. I have a husband who is an amazingly sacrificial step-parent to Grace, and he is so good at it that I forget it many times. I'm not making this up or exaggerating the situation for effect. To give you an idea, he gets up every school day morning with her, makes sure she gets up in time to get ready, makes her lunch, and makes sure she gets out the door on time. I often times am sleeping in and don't even know she's out the door until after I wake up. I never asked him to do it, he just started doing it because he knew it was the best thing for Grace, for me, and for our budget (packed lunches instead of school-bought lunches). That's just the beginning of the ways in which he goes over and above what any parent would do, so much so that I don't even remember how wonderful it is. Noticing my stress early in the week, he piped up and told me he could easily run some of my errands for me given my busy week of appointments and other demands at work.

All this to say, though it didn't seem like it here as I was writing, our family took some time out to reflect and take stock of things.

I decided to let Grace have her birthday party tonight. This decision came after a good deal of reflection, a lot of which centered around fathers, including stepfathers and my own father's parenting of me, and my grandfather's (his father) parenting style as well. The short of it is, I came to Wednesday night going to bed and asked my husband what our decision was on the party. Without pausing he said, "She's having a party; it's not even a question to cancel it." The explanation of this position will take a lot of words, so I'll save it for next week. But suffice it to say, I feel very calm that it is the best decision.

Given who I am, one thing I was blessed by was my own father's demeanor and approach to life and parenting. I'm so grateful for this that it grieves me terribly to watch Grace have such a crappy dad. We all get blessings and bummers, and Grace and I got completely different ones in the father category. I wrote yesterday about the tension I sense that Grace has in not wanting to be close to her stepdad while also chasing her biological father to extreme lengths in order to get him to have a relationship with her. I wrote this in light of my continued reflection on her lack of the kind of relationship that I had with a father. There's much more to be written, but it'll wait 'til after the weekend.

For now, my husband is going to Sam's Club this afternoon to get pizzas for tonight, and we are picking up Grace's ice cream cake at Baskin Robbins on the way home. Grace is cleaning up the house after school today before her friends arrive. Then Grace and her three girlfriends are going to go shopping for a couple hours. I'm planning on getting a haircut while they are shopping. Afterward, we'll all have pizza and snacks at our house, and then a sleepover. Probably a fire in the fireplace. I may even get more than 6 hours of sleep tonight, more than I've gotten any other night this week.

Just so you know, since I'm sure you all want to know, as of yesterday afternoon she finished and turned in 9 of the 10 missing algebra assignments. The last one she is having difficulty understanding and her teacher is meeting with her at lunch today.

I hate this

I am a little angry. I'm frustrated. I'm disappointed.

Grace lied to me, and in a big way. It's not the first time she's done it; I doubt it will be the last. But I'm really disappointed.

About four weeks ago, Grace had 13 outstanding assignments to do in algebra. There were missing assignments in other classes, but algebra was the one that really kicked her butt. She stopped doing homework in the last term, failing partially because she didn't do the last 10 homework assignments. But once the term is over, you're off the hook. Not so with this term. 13 missing assignments still out there.

When I met with Grace and her administrators/teachers at school four weeks ago, we all brainstormed on a way for her to just get the work done that she didn't want to do. The point is, she had to figure out a way to get herself to do it, not a way for us to get her to do it. Yes, we would monitor the process to make sure it was working for her, but she needed to do it. So Grace made a master list of all the missing assignments, then put a column to check off when the assignment was done, and another one to check off when the assignment was turned in. She also made a different chart for herself to use every day at school to keep track of her daily assignments, whether she completed them, and whether she turned them in. In short, she came up with a system where she could check every minute of the day whether she was on track. Every week, she turns the charts in to her guidance counselor. She said she'd show me the charts at the end of every day.

Throughout these weeks, she's reluctantly showed me the charts. She really doesn't use them during the day. I would check her grades online, and the missing assignments (most of them) remained. Yeah, she got better and kept up with the daily assignments, but the missing assignments seemed to persist. The information on her charts often wouldn't jive with what was online.

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Me: "Did you do these math assignments, Grace?"
Grace: "Yes, I did them this weekend."
Me: "Did you turn them in?"
Grace: "Oh, I was waiting until they were all finished to turn them in."
Me: "No, turn them in now.

A following day:

Me: "Grace, did you turn in those math assignments you completed?"
Grace: "Huh, what? Which assignments?"
Me: "The assignments that you told me that you completed that still show as missing on your grades online."
Grace: "Oh, um, no, I didn't turn them in today because we got really busy."
Me: "Turn them in tomorrow."

A subsequent day:

Me: "Grace, remember those assignments you did that you never turned in? They're still showing as missing on the online grade site."
Grace: "Oh, I forgot them in my locker and I didn't get a chance to turn them in."
Me: "Grace, turn them in. Tomorrow."

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If you have ever had a teenager of your own, I'm sure you can imagine that there have not been only three discrete clean conversations like this, but rather more like 10-15, or 20, in which she gets mad because I'm using a tone of voice that isn't nice, and I get mad because she's not making sense and not clueing in to the big picture. She's also less than respectful during these conversations. I was at the end of my rope by midweek last week. She swore the 13 missing assignments were all completed, but that five were still in her locker because she kept forgetting to bring them to class, and the rest had just not been graded. I told her to resolve the situation by the next day OR ELSE.

The "or else"? She didn't get to be in the talent show on Friday night. See, she auditioned for the talent show without asking permission. And she spent an entire day after school at a rehearsal, a day when she was supposed to go to the math help center until work gets under control. She spent a lunch hour on another day, a lunch hour that she was supposed to meet with her math teacher, in the library printing out the lyrics to the song she was singing in the talent show. Despite this distraction, my "or else" seemed to do the trick -- when she came home on Thursday and told me yes, she had turned in the assignments, and all was well in the world of algebra.

We all went to the talent show on Friday night. It was ok. I won't say it was great, but it also wasn't bad. She came home, gathered her things to go to her father's house for the three-day weekend, and bid me adieu.

Then I got the email from her math teacher. Grace is missing ten assignments. Ten. Not one, not two. Not even four or five. Ten. In a bit more than three weeks, she had completed three missing assignments and turned them in. And the worst part? She went through an amazing amount of work to deceive not only me, but a huge number of other people, into believing this wasn't the case. She turned in those charts to her guidance counselor, see, so that he can also see whether her system is working. So he's got in writing her verification that she did this work. And turned it in. Only she didn't.

I called her on the phone at her dad's house on Saturday. I told her she'd better get those ten assignments done this weekend. And I told her to tell her father exactly what was going on. The result? She came home last night with two assignments done and lots of excuses, I-thought-I-turned-it-ins, I-forgot-to-turn-it-ins, and it's-in-my-lockers.

There are many levels on which this drives me crazy.

• Grace knows she's lost her permission to audition for plays at all this year. Her colleagues in theatre are doing all the cool stuff that kids get to do, like work up special bits and compete at states, do special performances, etc. But she's not getting to do it because she needs to concentrate on her core subjects before doing extra stuff. She's also lost permission to go to performing arts camp this summer. Whatever. Despite all this, she's still not getting her act together and just doing the work.
• She lied to me. Instead of just doing the work and turning it in, getting the monkey off her back so to speak, she went through great efforts to make it look like she had done the work when she didn't. What is the point?
• Grace demonstrated a poor level of priority-setting. It never occurred to her that since she was so much behind where she needed to be, and since she had lied to everyone about it, maybe she shouldn't do the talent show. Yet she chose to do it, and waste another entire week without doing the missing work, some of which is over two months late now.
• If she doesn't do the homework, then it is difficult to assess whether she's having difficulty taking tests independently. I explained this to her, I explained to overwhelming importance of getting caught up. Yet still, no change in her actions.
• Her stepdad and I have been working overtime to encourage her to nip this thing in the bud. We've said that we believe in her; we've told her that we're helping her through a process of ending school as a nightmare and the beginning of it being something she "gets;" we've done tons of monitoring to make sure she has time and space and resources to get her work done. Yet still, on "getting the work done," we're seeing little change in her attitude.
  

My resolution? Summer school. It's unlikely she's pass algebra at this point unless she has a complete change of heart, but she has the option of summer school. But since she's only needing this because she chose not to do the work when given the opportunity, I'm going to let her pay the $250 tuition, and I'm going to make sure that the summer school term is during the time she spends with her father this summer. If she doesn't have the money in time to pay for tuition, or she doesn't pass the class during summer school, she'll just repeat 9th grade.

Yeah, I'm in that mode of "let the kid learn life the hard way." It happens every school year about this time, so I just feel like I'm right on schedule.

I would LOVE to know if this will ever stop. I would LOVE to know how to get the kid to change her ways, insomuch as her ways are pretty destructive to her ability to get past this stage of life and education she hates so much.