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.

Contemplating with Myself

Wow.... I haven't posted anything for a while. I feel like such a slacker ;)

The other day on facebook, I wrote on some friends' walls... note that I hadn't talked to these people in about two years... and (shocker!!!) they wrote back on mine. The problem is that I don't really want to talk to these people anymore... I mean I do and at the same time I don't. I mean they're still my friends and all, but it's awkward now, 'cause I hadn't talked to them in so long. I feel like some kind of facebook stalker.

So, I haven't wrote on their walls yet, 'cause I don't really know what to say. I mean at the time when I first wrote on their wall, I thought i was a great way to regain and restore a old and dying friendship... but in actuality I realized that I have like NOTHING in common with these people any more.

I feel kind of guilty though, 'cause I should write on their walls 'cause they wrote back on mine. But I don't really know them anymore...

Speaking of friends on facebook, my cousin friended me on facebook. So, I was like "yea. sure. He's my cousin and all." Note that he is only 14. He messaged me today and asked me how I was and stuff like that.

But then I realized that their are things that on my facebook that I don't think I really want my younger cousins seeing. I mean, I don't have like drunk pictures or like porn on my page... it's just that I'm the oldest cousin. There are pictures of me on facebook that are mildly inappropriate in a sly kind of way. For example:

This is a picture from summer camp '09.

I don't want to de-friend him though, 'cause he is my cousin and all and I want to keep in touch with him. I mean I am friends with my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles on facebook. If THEY hadn't said anything yet, I don't think I should go making a big deal out of it. I'll let it go and see what happens.

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.

Me, as described by my teenage daughter

A few months ago, a friend of mine on facebook tagged me on a question series for moms. I have grown a little weary of reading these things by other people and I am far too private to consider actually doing them myself. But this one looked like fun. Since Grace went along with the whole thing gleefully, I'm posting it here for fun.

The idea behind this thing is that you ask your child a bunch of questions about you, their mom, and they get to supply the answers unedited. I think the original intent of this thing was to get cutesy answers from preschoolers. You know, like asking how old your mom is or how tall she is? When I got it, I couldn't help but get Grace to answer it. I thought the perspective of a teenager would give the set of questions a new life. I was happy to tag all my friends who also had teenagers in the house. The result was that the early childhood cutesiness and love of mom was warped into something a little twisted, but still full of love for mom. Also, I love that Grace and I did this whole thing through messaging on facebook. Seriously, we never spoke a word about it to each other in person until the text was posted.

I give it to you all for fun. If you want to try it yourself (and haven't done this yet), just ask your kid the questions and write them down exactly how they respond. Grace told me I could put it up on facebook, so long as I did NOT change her answers. Too funny.

Without further ado, here it is as originally published.

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by Grace, 181 months (heh, heh. I love that I'm still saying how many months old she is)

1. What is something mom always says to you?
"What's your goal Grace?"

2. What makes mom happy?
Chocolate, a happy house

3. What makes mom sad?
bad grades

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
i dunno... i'm just a laughable person XD

5. What was your mom like as a child?
smart... she still is smart

6. How old is your mom?
37

7. How tall is your mom?
5 something

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
read, facebook, be with family and friends

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
work... the usual

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
being fabulous!!!!!

11. What is your mom really good at?
being a mom!!!!!

12. What is your mom not very good at?
singing

13. What does your mom do for her job?
she's a linguist

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
chocolate!!!!!!

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
she's MY mom

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
i dunno, i don't think as my mom as a cartoon type.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
watch movies

18. How are you and your mom alike?
we both play musical instruments.

19. How are you and your mom different?
she's heather, i'm grace... enough said

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
she says "I LOVE YOU." it's pretty self-explanatory
(I have to interject here, I wish you could hear her say this. The capital letters and the period are intended to convey a tone of sarcasm, as in, 'duh, what a stupid question!')

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
she likes to travel in general.

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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.

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.

An unplanned ending to my sequence on fatherhood. Grr.

Grace has finals next week. A little important, could we say? Why yes, they are.

Grace is taking medication every day for ADD. It is important, as per her doctor's orders, that she get regular and adequate sleep, and eat regular and adequate meals.

Grace has a chronic disorder that gets exacerbated when she gets sleep-deprived and goes a few days without healthy food. It lands her in the ER and she needs about 4-5 days to recover fully.

A few weeks ago, many of you witnessed my ire as it was evident that Grace had gone away to her father's house for the weekend and neglected to do several school assignments. Actually, it was the third weekend that she had spent at her father's house in a row that I had told her to make sure she did the missing assignments and she failed to complete them.

Since that time, you can imagine that I have had some attempts at communication with Grace's father regarding the importance of regularity in Grace's life. Let's not get into the details and just leave it at this: he has unequivocally assured me that her time with him is organized, balanced, and normal in every single way I would hope for her time to be. Lots of words have passed. No hint that there was any disagreement with what I had laid out.

Additionally, there was scolding of Grace (by her father in front of me) that she was sneaking behind her dad's back, doing things she wasn't supposed to. Like staying up surfing the web, watching late night tv until wee hours of the night, and concealing homework she might need to do.

Did I tell Grace's dad going into this weekend that it was an especially important weekend, given finals next week? Hell, yes. Once over the phone, once in person, and twice in email. In the last three days. Did I explain it clearly? Oh, yes sirree. Was there any possible miscommunication? No, none. Absolutely none. Grace's dad and her stepmother are not only able to help her be disciplined in her daily schedule and in doing her school work, they were committed to making sure nothing interfered with what Grace needed. This weekend or ever in the future.

Here goes.

I just got a message from Grace via facebook as part of an ongoing thread she and I have had going today. It was date stamped 11:14p. She explained that she had studied a bit this afternoon, then went to the mall to go shopping. But most importantly, she wanted me to know that she was staying up to watch Saturday Night Live. Until 1a. On the weekend of daylight savings time spring forward, which means she's really watching tv until 2a. I replied and asked her PLEASE GO TO BED and DON'T STAY UP WATCHING TV.

I'm just now realizing that it was her father's snowjobbing me so well that kept me married to him for so many years despite all warning signs that he was a functionally-absent husband and father.

As a last note, I throw this one thought out there. I'm realizing that Grace, while visiting with her father, will never choose to do the "right" thing rather than the fun thing. Because her father is a fun times guy who's enjoying life despite his lack of taking care of his responsibilities. And for Grace to choose to do something different while she is with him could mean risking the close relationship that she strives to acheive.

a little rain

When I was a girl growing up in South Florida, we got a lot of rain storms. Since this was always the case, I didn't realize they were out of the ordinary rain storms, storms that would cause most people to panic a little. I just grew up thinking that a rain storm always involved big, heavy torrents of water, gusts of wind, and brilliant flashes of lightning followed by loud claps of thunder.

Rain storms didn't scare me or bum me out. It just meant a day to stay inside. The rain was always the fiercest during the summer, and during the summer we had nothing but free days on our hands. If we woke up and knew there would be rain, the open day of possibilities suddenly became more adventurous. We'd watch tv (as long as the power didn't go out) or play board games or cards. My sister and I loved playing Barbies on rainy days. (Barbies is a post topic I have been holding off on, because my sisters and I were a little obsessed with the whole enterprise as kids.) Rainy days were the best. We had battery-powered radios that we weren't supposed to use unless there was a hurricane, but if the power went out on a rainy day, wasn't that a good enough reason to pull them out? And listen to our favorite Top 40 hits on WHYI, Y-100 at 100.7 on your FM dial?

You could write letters to all your friends and relatives. You could makes crafts and paint pictures. You could read a book that had been stored away in the back of your closet forever and suddenly the rainy day stuck inside gave you the curiousity to open it up and find out what it was about.

Rainy days were the days you got to dress down, sit under a blanket and laugh at funny jokes and silliness so hard your sides hurt. Rainy days were when you sat at the typewriter and wrote a story off the top of your head. Rainy days were the days when you pulled out a tape recorder and made up pretend radio shows and interviews and then played them over and over until you couldn't forget the dialogue.

The rain has been falling all day here in Michigan. It's a huge break from the freezing temperatures and large amounts of snow we've gotten through this winter so far. Despite the warm swell, people are complaining because it's rainy, foggy, windy, and overcast. What kind of a switch is that? People are saying it's like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

But I'm saying, bring it on! The wind just picked up and I can hear the rain beating harder against the window. It's supposed to go on like this all night. I can't think of something more wonderful.

figuring out the next generation

I like to think of myself as being in touch with my daughter's generation, sensitive to the changing world.

In a word -- hip.

But, it happened. I encountered something among Grace and her friends that really threw me for a loop. I mean, something that really confused me and I didn't quite know how to interpret it.

Update on facebook -- if you are a teen, you make it a goal to get as many friends as possible on facebook. If you have fewer than 100, you have got to be more social. 200 is decent. The teens who are getting elected homecoming queen? Try over 500. It is quite a feat, I have to admit. Adolescence is a time when everyone is petty and mean. You might ask someone to be your friend on facebook and they'd reject you. Just thinking about the whole thing makes me so grateful facebook wasn't around when I was in high school.

Grace has close to 400 friends on facebook. Granted, a large part of that is due to switching schools three times in three years. But she is a rather social girl, one who tries not to be in cliques or alienate people. One of her facebook friends was a very popular, very high profile, very privileged young woman she knew in 8th grade. She has over 700 facebook friends. Well, this girl posted a video message to one of her girlfriends on her facebook page. For those of you unfamiliar with facebook, this means every single on of the 700+ facebook friends could view this video. It was about 3 minutes long. She was in bed, listening to slow music, and expressing her deep, adoring, affectionate love for this girlfriend. She said she missed her. She said she wanted to snuggle with her. She said how much she loved her and loved spending time with her and couldn't wait to see her in first hour the next day at school. It went on and on and on.

I was thrown. Has it become commonplace among this generation for all expressions of emotion to become public to everyone they know? I've heard of people proposing marriage in a very public way, but this is something altogether different.

I asked Grace about it. I said, is she joking? Grace said she couldn't tell. I asked her, how do you know how to react to something like this? She said she would usually just ignore it. I asked her, what if someone said all these things about you on facebook? She said she'd kill them and then un-friend them on facebook.

Alright, let me just assure you guys, I'm not freaking out, just completely confused by the whole thing. I'm going back to my freshman year of high school and trying to imagine what it would have been like if the gossip had traveled at the speed of light. I feel the groan deep in my stomach just thinking about it.

Confounding variables

So ADD it is. Apparently things are ok for now in the treatment of that disorder. The main thing we are trying to focus on improving at school is completing every assignment and turning it in on time. Actually, turning it in at all, but if Grace can finish it and turn it in on time, all the better.

And then, an old reminder rears its ugly head. Tests and quizzes. Examinations.

I'm one of those moms who has had too much experience in education and psychology and teaching. I see the grades and the numbers and the performance and I can't help but start evaluating the whole situation. Then I start forming hypotheses. Then I get in the picture and start trying to problem solve. I've said it before -- I'm one of those parents who asks a lot of questions, and wants good answers. I'm not pretentious or rude or patronizing, I just figure if I know the jargon, then meet the educators where they are and talk to them in a way that I know how to. Also, I want to include my daughter in the process and have her understand the jargon, not just have things being said about her and have the words and ideas zoom right past her because they are not being said in a user-friendly kind of way.

Back to tests. Grace is really really bad at being tested. This has cost her a lot in classes with teachers who place a heavy weight on test and quiz scores. English in 7th grade -- F because she never passed her weekly vocabulary tests. Math in 6th grade -- complicated as to why she didn't do well, but mostly attributable to a teacher who ruled with an iron fist and placed a big weight on tests. F. Same in US History in 8th grade. I studied with her for three hours one night for a test. Next day? F on the test. Science in 8th grade. Saved by labs and the science fair. But tests? Straight Fs. Now she's meeting her match in Algebra. Her teacher says she's so frustrated because Grace will know a concept and roll through the problems one after another right in front of her. Then on the test? F. And I don't mean a subtle F. On the last round of tests in Algebra, she got 1 point of 30. That's right -- she scored a 3% on the test. Two performance tests in orchestra this term. Performance, which she ain't bad at. Score? F...and an F.

Then came theatre. The shining light in her day. The class she loves. The class she cannot stop talking about. First test - F. Second test, given yesterday -- F.

Am I frustrated? Yeah, you could say that. It means this is outside of ADD, for all intents and purposes. If she can't transfer the knowledge she has in her head into an examination setting, she's sunk. Really. She probably won't be able to graduate. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I am facing the possibility that something else is going on. Which means more evaluation and testing. And more changes. And things Grace may not like.

I talked to her honestly and openly last night at dinner. I told her I was frustrated and scared, scared because I didn't know how to help her. I told her I was nervous because I wasn't sure she was aware of the problem. I asked her, please, come to us for help! Go to your teachers! Ask them for help! Ask them for information. Ask them exactly what will be on tests, ask them how they will format the test, ask them precisely how you should study, ask us at home for help, get into it!

Then I sent her an email this morning. I told her ideas of how to study. I told her, make a blog. Don't publicize it, just make it. When you're studying for something, just put all the facts in there, make them come alive. Think of different ways to present the ideas.

Or memorize the facts and act them out like you're on stage.

Or draw a picture on drawing paper or on the computer. Use any media you like. Like think, how do I visually present a quadratic equation? How could I use the picture to learn what I need to remember?

Or...

or...

or...




I feel like I'm trying so hard, Grace is trying in her own way, and we are both failing. Quite literally. I told her last night, we do this every year, right? You start the year and try to do it on your own. Somewhere around Christmas time, it comes out that you're not pulling it together. Then we go into massive intervention mode. Somewhere in the spring we all get exhausted and give up. Then the end of the year is horrible, maybe there's summer school, and we start over again the next fall. Then I asked her, how can we stop doing this? How can we nip this in the bud and get everyone else out there to realize, you are a smart person who can learn and be competent?!!?

Suggestions are welcome. For the educational problem Grace is facing and for the emotional problem of mom.

On the bright side of this, my kid is damn talented. Everyone who's seen her blog agrees -- she's a damn good writer and very good at figuring out how to put together a layout and make it aesthetically pleasing. And all this with absolutely no adult intervention. No adult pushed her to do it or helped her with it in any way. She's making a PSA for her English class right now. And she's doing a really good job. Still photos, video, audio (speech, music, and sound effects), all put together into a 2-3 minute project. Really good. She's amazingly sensitive to putting together her outfits and being stylish. And as you all know, I am not the one who bestows gifts of designer trends. She shops secondhand shops and puts it together in her own way, her own creativity of combination and judgment. And it looks great. She creates visual art on her computer that is far beyond her years. She's got the goods, ladies and gentlemen, and that's why it kills me to see her held back by a system. HOW TO GET PAST THE SYSTEM, I ask. HOW?

Screw that head on straight-like

You know, raising a teenager can get downright discouraging sometimes. You focus so much on what's not going right that you hardly notice what's not going wrong. Day in and day out, I tend to focus on things that are still lacking, the ways in which my daughter still needs to mature before adulthood, the instances of her poor judgment.

In the last few days, however, I have had some eye-opening moments regarding teens and behavior and respect and all that. It was a few examples of other teens around her. When I stopped to reflect on the episodes, I realized Grace is pretty well-behaved and respectful of me.

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Event #1 - I was waiting in the guidance office at Grace's school when one of her friends walked in complaining of illness. He asked to call his mother for a ride home. The phone conversation with his mother was...shockingly rude. Within the initial 15 seconds, he was speaking to her in a tone I hear, but don't tolerate. You know, where every so often a word is emphasized and spat out with a rising intonation and some venom? It was something like this:

"My stomach hurts, I have a headache, I feel nauseous, my back hurts. I feel bad, Mom."

If it had been me on the other end of that phone conversation, I would have told Grace to either lie down and go back to class when she felt better, or just to go back to class. My opinion is, if you feel well enough to be rude, you don't need me to come pick you up from school. But more than that, I thought, what kind of a jerk kid tells his parent that he's sick and wants to come home with such attitude? Does feeling poorly give you a free ticket to mistreat people?

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Event #2 - This one I didn't witness, but WOW. This is way out there in the NO WAY category. While staying after school last week for help with math, Grace and some of the other students heard some commotion outside in the hallway. They saw the school's police officer run past and then heard some sort of altercation. The story broke the next day at school. One of the girls Grace knows was re-entering the building after regular hours. The police officer told her she couldn't do this. She sassed back, to which the officer replied he would need to call her mother. The girl threatened that if he called her mother, trouble would ensue. Sure enough, when the mother arrived, the girl physically attacked her mother, trying to strangle her in the hallway. That was when Grace saw the police officer run in the hallway. During the next day's gossip, Grace said she bet the girl would be put on probation. The reply was, she's already on probation; she's going to juvie.

When Grace relayed the story to me, she included that she thought the girl's mother should have seen it coming, since she's so permissive with her daughter. Grace said that even though the mother knows the girl smokes and the girl's boyfriend drinks, she doesn't do anything to stop it. Grace told her friends, moms need to be strict and like nazis, not all wimpy and put up with stuff. I asked Grace, am I a strict nazi mother? Grace said I was, but in a good way. Now, I'm hearing this story and I'm thinking to myself, I'm sure there are MANY things in this relationship that would benefit from some changes. I told Grace, it sounds like there's a lot of things that this girl and her mom need to work on. But mostly? I was struck by Grace's take on the whole thing. She said the girl was badly behaved, but Grace paid much more attention to the rumors about how lenient the mother was, and Grace made sure to make her opinions known about her disapproval of that.

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Event #3 - Not 24 hours after the 'she's-going-to-juvie' episode transpired, the mother of one of Grace's friends called. She said her daughter was very angry at her. The mom had found some chatting she didn't like on a virtual world website and told the daughter there would be no more visiting the site. As I was talking to the mother, I could hear her daughter raging and screaming in the background. Her mother was calling because she suggested that her daughter call a friend and talk through her feelings, rather than raging around the house. Grace was out shopping at the time, but I had her call her friend back when she returned.

Again, I didn't listen to the phone call, but got the replay the next day from Grace. The episode went like this. The girl got her online account taken away. She was angry, so she went to her bedroom, turned on her stereo, and blasted it as loud as it went. Grace asked, why did you do that? Her friend replied, I just wanted to annoy them all! Grace replied, I don't think that's going to get you your online access back. Then her friend said she was going to go on a hunger and sleep strike. Grace said, I gotta be real with you, I think that's a really stupid idea. You're just going to be sick and you still won't have your online access back.

The next day on Sunday afternoon, the same friend called and wanted to know if they could get together today (Monday, a day off of school). I thought to myself, the kid throws a major temper tantrum and completely disrupts the household for hours, raging, screaming, and the next day she's allowed to go out with friends? Huh? Not in my house. In my house, you pull those kinds of stunts, you can forget any hope you have of getting together with your friends for quite a while.

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OK, all this to say, I wasn't just taken aback by other kids' behaviors. Grace has never tried to physically assault me, but she has definitely spoken rudely and thrown temper tantrums before. So it's not like these kids are so different than her. I won't even begin to suggest that somehow Grace is better than other kids in her behavior. What struck me was Grace's reaction to all these events. She didn't just think to herself, parents suck and being a kid sucks and it's all unfair. No, she was outspoken about her feelings about parents and teenagers -- and that it's not the parents' fault that teens are rude.

I gotta be clear about this: I'm not patting myself on the back. I think there are plenty of parents out there who work hard at getting their kids to behave who don't get the respect they want from their teens. They read books, they go to counseling, they try all manner of technique. What I am pointing out is that Grace has a good head screwed on to her shoulders. And I'm grateful for that.

Way back when

I know I'm getting old when I start having thoughts like this.

Last Friday night, after the ultrasound-when-we-heard-the-slug's-heartbeat-and-thought-holy-shit-we-really-have-a-viable-pregnancy, the one we have that is much more independent called my cell phone. "Can you pick up pizza on the way home?" After a short discussion, my husband and I decided this would be fine, called the location of a local franchise on our way home and ordered 2 pizzas with our favorite toppings (feta cheese and fresh tomato slices on one, pepperoni and mushrooms on the other. You have to decide which pizza was Grace's pick.)

After stopping by the pharmacy for prenatal vitamins to nourish the slug*, we hurried along to the pizza shop. It's used mostly for delivery and take out, but they also have a few booths there where you can actually dine in. It's not posh and there's no table service, but still, you can come in and have pizza and a coke with your friends if you like. As we stood there waiting for the cashier to get our pizzas off the warmer for us, I started looking around. The cash register is a computer. The menu display of the wall is prefabricated and full of colorful promotions. The music was being piped in through a satellite relay. And suddenly...I felt old.

Do you remember being a kid and the way things worked made sense? A cash register was just that -- a machine that kept the money. You knew how much you made at the end of the day by counting it. And the inventory was accounted for by going to the stock room with a pad of paper and a pencil. The music in a pizza place was selected by tuning into a local radio station and either playing it loud on a boombox or, if it was really a schnazzy set-up, by setting a microphone next to it that was hooked up to the store's built-in PA system. The menu at the place was on paper menus, or if it was on the wall, it was made from a white board with those individual letters and numbers. They even came in red and green.

In a few short years, the whole world has changed. I know every generation watches this happen around them, but it just seemed so drastic to me as I stood there in the pizza place. I look at the world around me and I realize, the world I grew up in doesn't exist anymore. Grace and I were talking about Barbara Walters the other day and I was explaining that her role in news and reporting didn't start with The View. I explained that Barbara Walters was the first woman to be a news anchor on a major television network in the US. But then I realized, the significance of that achievement is completely lost on Grace. The world in which people wanted to be home by 5:30p so that they could watch the national news at 6p and have dinner afterward at 6:30p, this world doesn't exist anymore.

It makes me sad. I realized standing there in the pizza place, it's not that I've grown older and that I can't experience my youth anymore, it's that the world of my youth is gone. I can't find it anymore. Everything about the world now is new, shiny, improved, and different. I find myself going back to my hometown and wanting to sit under the big tree in front of the library just because that's still the same tree and hasn't changed. The library still smells the same too, but the system of borrowing books that I grew up with has gone the way of the buffalo. When I was a kid and you wanted to get a library card, the librarian pulled out a blank card made of cardstock that had a metal plate already attached to it. The color of your card indicated how old you were, so it was a matter of great excitement when you traded in your childish pink card for a young adult green card. The librarian would feed the card into the typewriter and type your name on it. Then she would file your information in a filing cabinet somewhere safe. When you checked out a book, she placed your card in a machine that made an impression with mimeograph ink and would print on the checkout card that I had taken the book. Then she would stamp my book with an ink date in the back of the book saying when it was due back to the library. It was an easy system to follow; if you wanted to know when a book was due back, you just checked in the back and looked at the date. Now I have to find the computer printout the library gave me or check the date online.

Am I the only one who's tired of talking to someone two continents away when I'm checking my credit card charges? Is anyone out there wishing for the simplicity of using cash or, dare I say it, a personal check? Or playing board games or card games? Or having decent radio stations that really entertain?

I guess this is ironic to say in the blogging community, that the rapid progression with which the modern world is transforming our existence has a downside. But there is part of me that realizes, we lose something while we gain. Lately I've been wanting the world to slow down a little.

*By the way, lest y'all think I am being just a little too demeaning towards my developing offspring by referring to it as a 'slug,' this is the label my REE gave it. When I saw the image on the ultrasound screen, I said it was like a little piece of rice. She said, 'I like to think of it as a slug at this stage.' Maybe when we get to a later stage of gestation, we'll give it a more affectionate name. For now, I am "slug mama."

Like mother like daughter -- even when you don't try

Grace started a blog. She mentioned she wanted to try this a couple weeks back. Then she just went and did it, set the whole thing up on her own. She sent me a message on Facebook when it was set up. (How 21st century is that?)

I'd link to her blog here, but I'm a closet blogger. Grace doesn't know I have a blog. And she certainly doesn't know I have a blog where I talk about her. Actually, not many people in my real life know I have a blog. Four know, to be exact, and none live local to me. Three of them know the blog's URL. Someday if I ever have a coming-out party for my blog, maybe Grace and I can link to each other.

I gotta admit, I'm a bit impressed at the first post given that she's only 14. I mean, there's a lot of really mediocre blogs out there, and I think she's at least in the top half of 'em right now just with the first post.

So cute.

Take it when no one else is looking

When I was 14, I brought my walkman to school and it was stolen before school while I wasn't looking.

When Grace was 12, she brought $100 cash to school to make a payment for a school trip. Her purse was lifted between classes when she put it on the ground between her feet. The purse was recovered by the end of the school day; the cash was gone.

I had a friend in elementary school who came over to my house frequently. After she went home, things turned up missing. Worse, the things showed up later, like her wearing my bracelets or earrings or rings to school the next day. If I confronted her, she would say "you gave me this!" and then would accuse me of being an indian giver.

This past spring, during a performance of Grace's middle school's spring musical, two girls had their razor phones stolen from within their personal possessions during one of the musical numbers. The conclusion was it had to have been staff of the school because all the girls were on stage at the time of the theft.

When I was 15, I brought my SECOND walkman to school. It was stolen while I wasn't looking. (I had a hard time learning my lesson...)

Two nights ago, during a school orchestra performance, a $400+ video camera was stolen from Grace's high school. The school staff are emailing parents and students to find out if anyone has information about it; maybe one of the students has it and just forgot to tell a teacher.

I could keep going on and on. When the $100 incident with Grace's purse happened, I was furious. I came to her school at the end of the school day, stood in the hallway and went on and on and on. I asked whether the principal was going to call the police to investigate. Grace told me about a girl in her school who was really rich -- she had 3 iPods and 4 cell phones. My husband and I asked Grace whether it was possible that this girl was stealing the stuff; afterall, her own purse had been stolen by someone who was in very close proximity to her.

To be frank, it's not difficult for me to believe the kids get involved in drugs and alcohol and sex early on. But it's another jump altogether for me to think of theft. This isn't crime for the sake of wanting to do something taboo; this is crime for crime's sake. It's not like when you are 10 or 12 and you steal a purse or a walkman or a cell phone or an iPod that you don't know you're doing something wrong. But why are you doing it?

Another pet peeve of mine about these episodes is how much in denial some adults are. Like the cell phone theft during the musical. The cell phones were taken from exactly the place they had been tucked away, and nothing else in the vicinity had been touched. Clearly the thief knew what they were after and exactly where to find it. Sounds like someone who was in the room, right? Like someone 12? 13? Am I right? So why do the adults not even entertain this possibility?

I stole one of those Brach's candies from the bins in the grocery store once when I was a kid. I felt so guilty. But that didn't stop me. I walked right out of that grocery store with my mom and sisters, covertly stuffed that candy in my mouth, and tried to enjoy it. I'm sure everyone has a similar story. But for me there is a hard line between stealing something trivial from a store that you can't resist because you're 4 or 5-years-old and stealing something of great value from someone you know. How does that happen? You see it, you see that it belongs to someone else, and you take it? What for? And what for when you are only 10 or 12?

Could someone help me out with this? Do kids who steal big ticket items like this when they are a kid turn out to be shoplifters? What happens after that? What do shoplifters turn into? Are these the same people who pirate music and movies or is that an entirely different kind of thing?

Finding humanity

Here is a thought question for the day:

What is a best way for a child to learn about the children of the world?

1. To travel to the third world and see that other children are happy with so much less than they have at home.
2. To have less at home and understand that this is how most children in the world live?
3. To give freely of themselves, in material possessions, time, and energy so that all children they know can know joy.
4. All of the above.
   

I came this question because yesterday I received the Christian missionary newsletter from a family I know. The family is typical: dad, mom, a 5-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. They, as missionaries, live in a relatively upscale urban setting in the first world. In a few months, the family will travel to Uganda along with several others from the city they live in. They will spend 2 weeks there helping in the work already going on there: building shelters, aiding medics, and caring for orphans. Included in the newsletter was a request for financial assistance to pay for the family's airfare, $2,000.

I think the relief and aid work many missionaries do around the world is wonderful, amazing, super, truly loving...I really can't say enough about how good the work is from some folks. They are truly experiencing heaven on earth by giving and receiving love every day. So that's great.

However, I'm pausing to think because of what was written in the newsletter about the little ones coming along. The prose reads, "we felt strongly from the Lord that we were to go as a family, and that it was important for Boy and Girl to see the third world, where kids don’t have TV, ice-cream, and Legos."

Do you have to take the kids to a third world country in order to find children who are doing without extras? Do you even need to leave your neighborhood or town to find children who are hungry or without other basic needs in life? In my town, I know there are children who are doing without. They have parents who have abandoned them, they wear the same clothes every day, they are grateful for the free meals at school, and they know the value of the roof over their head and reliable transportation to get them to school or the doctor or the market. Doesn't it make sense to know these children? Let Boy and Girl play with these children in order to realize that some kids don't have "TV, ice-cream, and Legos."

Is there something wrong with a world in which children do without the extras that make life more comfortable? This is most of the world. Most of the children in the world don't have extra things. So...if you want your children to see this, why? So they will appreciate the luxuries they have?

I grew up in the 'burbs. So did Grace's father. Grace grew up with grandparents who made sure she had every little thing a kid could ever want, short of a pony and private beachfront property.* I had some sense that we should work towards a balance in the materialism, but after awhile I just didn't worry about it anymore. I mean, how can you stop it if you live in a capitalistic society that brainwashes kids and parents to believe that you are missing out if you don't have free Happy Meal toys, or don't buy into the cult-following of Blue's Clues only to be had through a cable package, or don't procure the best educational toys guaranteed to enhance a child's perception and cognition and raise their IQ too? Besides, those free Happy Meal toys are a great deal because they are, afterall, free.

But somewhere along the way I changed. I realized, it did matter how I raised my child. Even if every other child had something, that fact didn't make the thing a necessity. The world was shrinking around me, and our constant demand for the overrated was responsible for destroying the very resources all humans needed for mere existence. No, we didn't need a TV; it wasted power and robbed us of the brief moments we had to relate to one another as humans. We didn't need to make every birthday to be a blow-out party; we could play games in the basement, drink lemonade and tea cakes together, and ask our friends to bring homemade gifts or just something simple they would give up, like a pack of gum. When it was a friend's birthday, we started giving away something treasured of our own. Or much more importantly, we started giving away treasured things to those who had no treasured things at all. How could we keep three toys knowing that some children in our zip code had none?

Then it went further. We started realizing, our volunteer time is spent entirely benefitting us. We help out at the school and girl scouts, but when do we help the poor in spirit, those who are weeping, or the hungry? And then we realized, it's not enough for the adults to do this. The children must participate in this. They need to learn how to be giving of themselves, no matter who is better off than they are. So you bring the kids to the homeless shelter and the food pantry and the hospital. And you have fun while you're there. You enjoy meeting people and discovering the joy that is part of the human spirit.

Back to the beginning. I ask the question, what is a best way for a child to learn about the children of the world? I submit that the answer lies right in front of us every day. The children of the world are diverse right in front of us. If we don't see it, we might not be opening our eyes wide enough. I have learned through the years that this is not some kind of an educational experience or charity or goodwill. It is a way for my child (and for me) to grow as people and understand more deeply what it is to be human. Find your own flaws and grow as a person. Connect with people who bring richness to your life that you otherwise would have never come to appreciate. Yes, go to the world and see what's out there, but don't miss what's right in your own hometown.

*By the way, when I was a small kid, one set of grandparents gave us our own mobile trailer to live in on their private beachfront property, and the other set of grandparents gave us a pony. That's a story for another day.

It just don't add up fer me

When I was a sophomore in high school I bought the album Kick by INXS. I asked my mom to bring me to the mall, I walked right into Spec's music store, pulled the casette out of the wall and put my $7.99 + tax on the counter. I walked out of that store knowing I now owned a piece of real rock 'n' roll. INXS was no bubblegum band or overrated pop group. They had everything a teenage girl found appealing.

I convinced my mother to let me walk in the neighborhood early in the mornings for exercise. I loaded that cassette into my Walkman and went at it. My favorite song? "New Sensation." I knew every single word to that song. Still do. I played it over and over. That song was great for getting your heart pumping in a workout. And then there was "Never Tear Us Apart." Do you remember the video to that song? That Michael Hutchence had me swooning. Him walking so slowly with that awesome jacket and great hair, and the boots. He was some kind of a sight. It was a day and age in which you really didn't know what sorts of things rock stars were up to, you just formed whole narratives of their lives based on music videos. You didn't know that music videos were marketing tools; you thought they were true reflections of the creative genius of the band themselves, freely expressing themselves. So I saw INXS and Hutchence and I thought, what an amazingly creative and sensitive guy. And wow, he is good-looking, isn't he?

Last night Grace asked me to update her "80s" playlist for her iPod. Not all the songs are really from the 80s, but she really doesn't care. She just knows there's some songs that go together and she wants them in one playlist. Among the new songs she wants to put on there: "Need You Tonight" by INXS.

Do I need to remind you of the lyrics? The first thing you hear is Hutchence whispering come over here, followed by driving guitar riffs. The title of the song comes in as he croons passionately, "I need you tonight, 'cause I'm not sleeping...there's something about you, girl, that makes me sweat."

Whoa. As Grace asked me for this song on her iPod, I thought, is this age appropriate? And then I realized not only had I heard the song at the same age, I had swooned over the lead singer while watching the video daily on MTV. The lead singer who was dressed only in a leather jacket and pants for the video. Oh, and I owned the album and listened to it over and over and over and over until the lyrics were burned into my memory forever.

And then it occurred to me, how did I ever convince my mother to let me buy this album? We had a pretty strict household. I'm sure she had seen the videos and heard the songs, yet she allowed me to buy the album? Huh?

So I'm letting Grace have the song because she said, I love the way it sounds! I can imagine; so do I. At least she hasn't seen the music videos. And she definitely won't swoon for the band because Michael Hutchence, afterall, is dead.

Good teachers are a gift.

I recognize that my kid may not be the dream-come-true student for many teachers. She talks too much, she gets distracted, and she has a difficult time paying attention to something she doesn't find interesting. In many ways she is a square peg in the round hole that school presents to her. Thus when she gets a good teacher, I jump up and down in excitement because I know this one is worth their weight in gold.

Grace has an amazing collection of teachers this year. I really cannot say enough about this. You know, you go through years of schooling as a student and as a parent and sometimes you hit some real duds, so when you get a good one, you know it. I, for one, am the first one to tell a good teacher thank you. I know teaching has its ups and its downs and that on some days and with some students it is really a pain. I really cannot do enough for my child's teachers to encourage them that I really am appreciative for all that they do.

One teacher in particular stands out this year -- Grace's science teacher. I can't say enough about him. He is magnificent. He has so many excellent ideas about philosophy of life, er, I mean, philosophy of teaching (is there a difference?). This weekend when I read his weekly newsletter in my email inbox, I couldn't help but yell out in exuberance, "oh, YES!"

On the second page, with a bright red header, he included a short 300 word blurb about ways parents should encourage students who are less than enthusiastic about doing their schoolwork (read: slackers who text message and facebook all day instead of finishing their schoolwork). The teacher wrote, if a parent is threatening to take away privileges (like cell phone use) yet not following through on the threat, the parent is wasting their time. Rather, do what you need to do (like take the cell phone away) and say 'get to work and all will be good again.' Yes, teens will argue and yell and tirade about the swift actions rather than threats, however parents should use the line "I love you too much to argue." Similarly, the teacher uses the line "I respect you too much to argue."

I knew he was good before this tidbit, but oh, I was elated to finally see a teacher who wasn't just talking straight to parents about a philosophy of parenting but also implementing this philosophy in the classroom! Let me explain. Sometimes when I get a phone call from a teacher about a problem with Grace at school, I sense that the call is simply a gripe session. The teacher has called not just to inform me the parent of what the situation is, but to recuse themselves of the situation and place the responsibility for the events solely in my hands. While I agree that parents and discipline at home does have an effect on school behavior and performance, not every problem at school has its roots at home. When I sense that a phone call is developing towards a blame game, I ask the teacher, 'what do you do in your classroom about the situation?' If there is not a satisfactory answer, I explain what we do at home, and encourage the teacher that I will have their back if they are extra strict on my daughter in areas that are causing a disruptions in the classroom. That's usually the last phone call I get.

Word has it that in the district, I am a "tough" parent who "asks hard questions." That's good. I want teachers who ask hard questions too. I want cooperation between home and teachers and schools, not an assumption that teaching is all the school or all at home.

See, I am the parent who took away the cell phone. And the iPod and the Nintendo DS. And the Video Now. And locks the channels on the tv when I'm not at home. And password protects the wireless internet in the house. I limit phone calls on school nights, I make sure my kid dresses in a way for school that doesn't distract her or others. I'm the one who told her that no matter how much she wants to be a professional actress, she is not allowed to audition for a play until I see two consecutive grade reports on honor roll. And if she doesn't pass French this term with a B or higher, she's not even getting to take the theatre course.

I make sure that at every turn I remind her that her education is important and should be prioritized.

I had Grace read the teacher's blurb. About halfway through she started smirking. By the time she got to the end she was smiling. I told her I loved her and it looked like she had a super teacher who really cared about her success in school and in life. Then I emailed the teacher to thank him. He replied "Hey, thanks for the positive comment on the newsletter and my philosophy in the class. Grace is great in class."

Oh, YES!!!!!!!!! Grace is great in class! It happened! It finally happened! I contacted a teacher of Grace's and the reply was POSITIVE!!! YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!

I didn't realize how dry the desert was out there looking for a positive sign from her teachers. Over the years I have developed an ability to always find the silver lining in whatever her teachers communicate to me. Because all of what they communicate is negative. I never get a note home that says, "Grace is great in my class." I never get a teacher seeing me and approaching me to talk about Grace in a positive way. My correspondences with Grace's teachers have always been tainted with something that needs to be improved, changed, remedied, etc. I wish I could say that I am overgeneralizing on this, but alas, I am not. I have never gotten an unadulterated compliment of my daughter's performance or behavior or person from one of her teachers.

I don't think I realized how down I was about this. I'm sure Grace has felt my emotions about this. I'm sure it hasn't helped her to be working in an environment that projects this negativity upon her (both home and school).

So, two lessons learned. First, as a parent, stand by your kid. No matter how much negative feedback you get from the school, no matter how much you have to reprimand you kid to get them on track, no matter how frustrated you feel about the situation, stand by them and encourage them. You may be the only one who communicates this positive message to them. Second, as a teacher, remember that the problem student in your class may NEVER have had a teacher or coach or scout leader or counselor or anyone ever tell them they were good at something. If you approach them as someone who needs fixing, you just add to the negative message. You are not the one they have been waiting for who is going to send the right harsh message to get their butt in gear; rather, you are probably the 10th or 20th or 100th person to think you are so enlightened. These students especially need positive messages.

Tomorrow, I have a feeling we're going to delve deeper into Heather's experience as a childhood troublemaker.

A few Halloween funnies for the day

As usual, I didn't bring lunch to work today and I can't stave off my hunger anymore with coffee. Someone's put Laffy Taffy in the kitchen for Halloween, and since you can't help but read those corny riddles, I thought I'd share the groans:

Q: How does a farmer mend his plants?
A: With a cabbage patch.

Q: When is a boxer like an astronomer?
A: When he sees stars.

Q: How do mules open locked barns?
A: With don-keys.

Q: What did one autumn leaf say to another?
A: I'm falling for you.

Hey, don't groan too loudly. You know that if you had sent in a joke when you were 8-years-old and it had gotten published on a taffy wrapper, you'd be telling the story the rest of your life no matter how lame the joke was. So laugh out!

By the way, the Willy Wonka Candy Company could not have a cooler website if they tried. I guess if you're going to try and sell kids on little pellets of acid tasting sugar (Nerds) and hard balls that threaten to destroy your orthodontistry (Gobstoppers), you have to rely upon marketing to actually get kids to want the stuff.

Still Euphoric

School's been in session for a week. So far, so good. I keep waiting for the bottom to drop out, though.

13 short weeks ago when middle school was over, I was discouraged. I feared that the struggles of schoolwork would always be with Grace. Despite the continuous difficulties that my child faces in school due to behavior and poor academic performance, I go into a temporary state of hopefulness when she starts the school year every fall, believing that this year will be different. I believe that I will enjoy going to her school. I believe that when I get there, one of her teachers will be happy with her and tell me about it. But as I've said over and over, that's never happened. I'm unsure why I still go through this cycle, maybe it's some kind of motherly optimism or something.

Grace got an award from her science teacher on the third day of school because she was the first one to turn in her homework online the night before. The award was something like science student of the day. She also turned in a second science assignment a day early. The science teacher liked what she had done and used the project she had completed as an example in other classes for students who hadn't gotten a chance to start yet. Today she said she likes her science teacher the best of her teachers. After that, she likes her algebra teacher best. She's completing her homework for algebra and science right away, and with no help, and getting As.

Shocked? If you aren't, I'll remind you of my frenzied and frazzled state less that 3 months ago and 6 months ago. Is it possible that maybe it's all coming together?

Maybe it's the rigors of being on the swim team that's made the difference. Hard work and a strict schedule, that is.

Maybe I am still euphoric because I'm still taking vicadin.

Or maybe it's because I'm an owl. In Brazilian Portuguese there is a term "mãe coruja" which literally translates as "owl mother." It's a positive thing to say about a mom and it can be extended to fathers as well - "pai coruja." To aid in our better understanding this term, here is visual aid, the Great Horned Owlet, common to much of Brazil:


Owlets are not attractive at all. They are weird looking. Yes, they grow out of it and they look fine in the end, but only a mother could love something so ugly and believe it would amount to anything. Every mother loves her kid and thinks they are wonderful. It doesn't matter what other people think of the kid or what they really look like compared to the rest of the world. The kid is unique and special to its own mother. So no matter what has happened, no matter what your kid is like, no matter how discouraged you or your kid gets, you still think they are wonderful because they're your kid.

Sappy as it may seem, I think this is the only reasonable explanation I can give for why I continually go through this pattern of thoughts every school year.

***Picture taken from http://www.dosgatos.com/birds/owls/photo004.html***

About expletives

I'm a linguist, so I'll give you the technical definition of an expletive:

Expletive -  a meaningless word used to fill a syntactic position.

Examples:

It is hot outside today.

There is no more milk in the pitcher.

Both "it" and "there" in the sentences above contribute no meaning to the overall semantic interpretation of the sentence they occur in. Rather, sentences in English need pronounced subjects (as opposed to Spanish or Italian, say, that do not have this requirement). So in an English sentence like those above, we insert an expletive subject. This satisfies the syntactic condition in English that sentences must have pronounced subjects.

That oversimplifies it. Which is a good thing, because this is not the meaning of expletive I'd like to discuss. I'm more interested in the f-bomb, bee-otch, and shee-ite.

I use these words freely at home. I always have. They are expletives in the technical sense because they hold no meaning unless you assign one to them. For instance, curse words in a foreign language don't usually convey a sting to you, no matter how fluent you become in that second language. Why is the n-word so offensive when a white person says it, but not so when a black person does? Again, because it's meaning (offensive or not) is assigned by many contextual cues.

Again, oversimplification. Whole books, dissertations, and linguistics & language conferences have been dedicated to this topic.

My daughter is at camp. They have a "camper pledge" that says that campers may not use offensive language. She was apparently dropping the f-bomb in the presence of camp counselors and asked to stop it. Camp called the house yesterday to explain that she apparently didn't stop it.

My reaction was really not that bad, I just asked them if they thought the situation was resolved, and then thanked them for calling. Like many many many things, I'm sure the situation went something like this. Every single teenager at the camp is cursing up a storm. But they're smart enough not to be overheard. But my daughter, ADHD and all, can't stop. She is unaware of how she presents herself. It sometimes feels as if she's in a world all her own, and cannot step out for a second to realize how out of alignment she is with everyone else. So she was probably walking along, talking with friends and out slipped, 'fuck!' or 'what the fuck!' or, well, you get the idea.

I have a sensitivity to these things, really, I do. Just so you know, I made a conscious decision when I started this blog that I would not use offensive language just for the hell of it (ha!). Here's my philosophy of this kind of language in my own life and in parenting: even though I use this kind of language about the home, I have always taught Grace (because I'm a linguist and all) that there's nothing inherently wrong with cussing. But there is a catch, I explained -- you have to possess the judgment to know when and when not to use it. So I have told her all along, be very, very careful in using these words. People will judge you for how you speak. Whether it is fair or not, whether it is right or not, they will judge you.

Once Grace was playing a video game when she was 6 and when she lost her last man, she gasped out 'shit!' Her grandmother was visiting and was horrified. My recollection is that she told Grace that Jesus didn't like that kind of language. (But Jesus wouldn't have had a problem if she had said 'crap'? I think she should have said, 'I don't like that kind of language.') 

Judging from what I see on myspace and facebook, I'd say that words like 'fuck' are becoming completely bleached in their usage with Grace's generation. When I was a little kid, 'jackass' and 'bitch' where completely taboo. These are all over the place now, with virtually no concern from the establishment. As is 'shit', frankly. I think 'fuck' may be the only word left with any sting. Is it just my perception?

The funny thing is, my dad really got on to us about these things. To this day, if he hears one of us say that something 'pissed' us off, he says sternly, "watch your mouth." Same goes for 'whore' in his presence.

OK, but back to the camp incident. It's not so much the cussing I'm worried about as it is Grace's inability to control her behavior. If she was warned about cussing once, then she was stupid not to monitor this. I'm concerned about what this means for more serious situations as she starts high school in the fall. Yes, I was exactly like this. I did dumb things without thinking. I'd get really hyper and excited, and I would let my mouth run, and the next thing you knew, BAM! Something stupid. Either something I said or did or whatever. But I had the same kind of lack of judgment when I was excited and unsupervised that Grace appears to have. For me it wasn't cussing, but it was other things that were just as damaging. Saying something stupid right in front of the mother of one of your friends. Or as I was walking past a teacher who was deciding who would be appointed to some big honor. Or doing some stupid dance move at a party. Or letting someone take photographs at the very wrong time. I am SO LUCKY I was a teenager in the 80s, and not now where everything can be recorded digitally and sent all over the world within seconds.

And I'm a bit embarrassed about going to a chi-chi fine arts camp to hear a concert and meet many counselors and other adults who will know me as 'the mother of the girl who drops the f-bomb.' OK, that's completely selfish, I know.

There's one more thing. I've got this hang up with 'fuck' and women using it. I just think it opens up the door to men being jerks. How does that work with a feminist agenda? I'm not sure, I just know that the guys that I hope her not to hang with will probably take action faster by hearing her say 'fuck that' than the more respectful boys will.

Comments, please. I'm beggin' for it.