Rewarding Bad Behavior: Retrumplicans Finding Their Voice

When deciding where to go for dinner Tuesday our daughters' main criteria was finding a place with televisions so they could watch the election returns. They are, at eleven, actively engaged in the entire political process and eager to absorb as much of this election as possible. 

Name calling, bullying, lying; it's been quite educational thus far. 

Trump's behavior belies everything we teach our children about being good people. But that isn't the most concerning aspect of this campaign, it's the amazing amount of people who continue to support him.

What concerns me is not Trump's refusal to dismiss the endorsement of a KKK leader, or even his inability to accept responsibility for his misstep. What is truly concerning is that there is an entire population of people who have found their voice in this racist bully and that is much harder to explain to children.

Trump continues to offend. His debate behavior is patronizing and boorish. The list of people he has insulted, mocked or threatened is extensive. And yet, it doesn't matter. With each profanation his support grows, and that is what is most disturbing. At this point the truth doesn't matter and sadly Trump is correct; it seems he could fire a gun down Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.

Trump wants to build a wall to keep out others; he may need to build a wall to keep in Americans. Living in a country where a majority of people support this kind of tyranny undermines the objectives of the founding fathers. Dismissing the behavior of one is much easier than accepting the racial, economic and social divide supported by the once silent majority of Trump supporters. Trump's unearthing of hatred is terrifying and in sharp contrast to the message of kindness and inclusion we are teaching our children.

Make certain there is always room at the lunch table for someone who hasn't anywhere else to sit. 

Cartoon, David Sipress, The New Yorker

It Just Takes One Bad Apple

Oh the last day of school, oh the celebration, free for the summer! It's a race to the neighborhood ice cream shop, a race we never win as my poor children must wait for their mother to gather her things, shut down her computer and pile books to sort through in September. And so we arrived to find at least thirty children on the sidewalk outside, eating ice cream and running joyously, celebrating the last glorious day of school.

A second grade boy saw us first, as we drove down the street across from the sidewalk. His friends joined in and then everyone, screaming and yelling, so excited to see the librarian coming to the ice cream store. I lowered all the windows to allow the voices to be heard, the unbridled screaming, "Ms. Lang! Ms. Lang! Look who is here, it's Ms. Lang!".

Never, not once in my entire life, have I been so well received. The cheers were deafening, the crowd growing, the children running along the sidewalk, following our car until I stopped at the red light. I waved, acknowledging my fans, those same children who only one week ago scowled at me when I asked them to be quiet in the library. My own children were shocked to near silence in the backseat, "Um, Mom, they really like you", said Mary, seeing her now famous mother in a whole new light. For this brief and shining moment I was the queen of the Last Day of School parade.

A car pulled up next to me, having just turned onto the street. The old man stopped and rolled down his window, his wife in the next seat. "Are you a teacher?" asked the old man, surely stopping to thank me for another wonderful school year, another glorious nine months of learning and growing.

Rather than bore this kind man with the details of my specific role I nodded and smiled, "yes, yes I am!". He turned to his wife, nodded and then smiled at me, "well then you make too much money, driving that expensive car", and he grunted, laughed, and sped away.

There's one in every crowd.

Kate Read the Book. First.

There have been several times when I find that I am completely intrigued in a certain book. Often, I like to share my love of the book with another person. Solving this, I walk around and ask people whether they have read the book or not. The answers people give are quite assorted, but in my opinion the strangest answers are the terrible ones in which the people say that they have seen the movie instead. To my great disappointment, these answers are quite frequent and are from many people. They leave me in total awe at the people that don’t read the book before they watch the move.

    Imagination is a wonderful asset. It gives you the freedom to picture anything in your head as you think it would be, to create a world absolutely different from your won. As you read a book, you can use your imagination to your advantage, making the story’s illustrations up in your mind. However, while watching a movie, you have the whole entire picture right in front of you. With this little to imagine, for me it becomes a boring thing to see. I believe that books exercise one’s brain, and that is very important. To be settled down, reading a book and picturing dozens of people, places and things is a great joy. Books have many wonderful ideas and descriptions to enjoy that movies would never have. -Kate B.

Kate wrote this passage which was published in an arts magazine featuring the work of students on the north side of Chicago. She read it last week at a forum sponsored by StudentsXpress. Her book loving librarian mother was beaming from the audience. 

Who Judged a Book By It's Cover? Me.

"This book wasn't as good as it's cover."

Oh yes, the never ending story of a 8 year old girl who insists on choosing books with shiny covers full of pink, with a title announced in poofy letters and a cover picture which must include a girl in a short skirt, around 10 years old, who appears to be in some sort of quandary. Extra points for crowns and promises of princesses within.

"Did you read the first few pages, or the inside cover, before you checked it out?", although I know that she did not. She is not alone; children want books that appear new, with brightly colored covers, titles that scream at them and pictures that promise girl related drama or bodily functions. Publishers deliver, shelves are stocked with Junie B.Jones and Captain Underpants. And it's not just the third grade, pre-school boys are wild about finding pictures of toilets in books, while the four year old girls refuse to open anything that is not part of the Pinkalicious family of books.

No Henry Huggins, no Frog and Toad, no Lyle, all sadly regulated to the back of the shelf thanks to their simple covers and stories markedly absent of potty sounds and characters who only wear pink clothing. Charlotte's Web, only saved from certain extinction by having been made into a movie more than once, gathers less dust than than Superfudge. Put that pig in a pink gown and sparkly crown and you've got yourself a bestseller.

Don't judge a book by it's cover? Remind me of that next time you see me wine shopping, I'm drawn to labels with good graphics, or ones that look so distant and intriguing I am certain that the wine inside must be wonderful. You'll know me by the husband following close behind, reviewing each choice, and regulating most to the "ally" section of the wine cabinet.

But books? The horror. Generally I don't buy books online. I prefer my local book shop where I can spend hours going over each and every one that interests me, reading the inside cover and making decisions based on content and story, not just the flashy picture on the cover; I will not be fooled by flashy covers. Usually.

This book arrived in the mail, sent to me from the publisher for review purposes. Yuck. The cover was all wrong; it screamed pink and the font was messy. I wasn't going to like it but I had agreed to read it, and so it went into the "need to read" queue. Days later, having found it's way to the top, I read the first page, and then the second. Written in a series of emails, memos, court documents, letters and statutes, it's easy to flip from one page to the next, and difficult to put down. The story unfolds from the documents, each one (save the necessary statutes), written in a very smart, and unique, voice. The characters become real in their own words, not by lecture from the writer.

After years of reminding children to look inside before making a decision, I have, perhaps, learned my own lesson. Sometimes wonderful, thought provoking and smart stories can be hidden behind screaming pink covers, when you just take the time to look inside.

That said, it's still the label on the front of the bottle that gets me, every time.

This post was inspired by the novel The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. Young lawyer Sophie unwillingly takes her first divorce case with and entertaining and volatile client in this novel told through correspondence and legal documents. Join From Left to Write on March 18th as we discuss The Divorce Papers. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.


* If you enjoy reading books written in the epistolary style, I encourage you to read 84, Charing Cross Road, a wonderful way to spend a few hours.

All The Things That We Don't Say

"Whatever".

Topping the list of words we don't say, whatever. Used as it is now most common, it reeks of disrespect and disregard. It dismisses the conversation and attempts to relieve the speaker of any responsibility for content. In short, whatever is a bad word and I had better not hear it from either of my children, ever.

Last week at dinner Mary said whatever, using it appropriately in a sentence such as "whatever you want is fine with me" and immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. Ah yes, the brilliance of the English language and our ability to use the same word in an infinite number of ways.  We tried to clarify, further confusing our daughter. Whatever.

Also on the list, "freakin'". No, just because you have substituted a non word to cover for what you really want to say, freakin' is not only not acceptable, it is not a word. The girls hear this at school, one of their classmates having recently adopted this gem to refer to whatever is the bother of the moment: freakin' math, freakin' test, freakin' teacher (librarian). We will not be adding this to our ever growing vocabulary, nor, for now, it's bad boy counterpart. No freakin' way.

My children will also speak with a full complement of Gs. They do not go bikin', skatin', or runnin'. They do not enjoy readin' or learnin' and will, should they momentarily become lazy and think that a G is not necessary, be corrected. We are learning the correct way to speak by doing and speaking and modeling. Enough said.

Not a word but a phrase, and one that I do not want to hear: "what the...?". Not allowed. Anything leading to something not allowed will not be used. What the what? Nope, unless you can find a end to that question that is not offensive, the phrase in it's entirety is out, including the lead in. What the hell? Exactly.

One of my favorite books to read in the library has the word "stupid" in the text. Every time I read this book there is a gasp as soon as I turn the page; those children reading along immediately see the offensive word and hands fly into the air, "bad word!". These same children say "what the...?" when later I tell them that because they have an overdue book they will not be checking out a new one. How stupid.

We also discourage the use of nouns as verbs, primarily the word party, correctly used to describe an event or gathering, not referring to your 23 year old self on any given Friday night. My children might attend a party, they will not "party" while there. Equally disturbing, the evolution of this word used by anyone over 25 (although still a bit grating before that). No 58 year old woman should ever suggest that she is going to "party", and no one should ever see it if it happens. Have fun, go crazy, attend a party and dance like mad, just don't "party", don't ever do that, please.

And then we move to bodily functions, not parts, we're still working on those, but bodily functions, those my father referred to as the BFs, as in "if you must refer to a bodily function in the car, please do so by saying BF. I have no interest in hearing about specifics". Nor do I Dad. My children use the restroom, or bathroom. They do not announce what they will do once they get there, or they are not supposed to (but they're 9, shit happens). If they do need to tell me specifics, and I know that sometimes they must, we prefer the far more refined and mature word, tinkle. My children do not go pee, nor do they pee-pee. They never have, I pray they never will. And for that most wonderful of bodily functions, the one that has the power to make just almost anyone laugh (and then sometimes cry in horror), we use "toot". The other word, the one that has made it's way into the book title of the most horrid of children's books, Walter the Farting Dog, I find to be completely crass and vulgar. Except for those 10 years when it was the only thing I called my sister (but to be fair, she tooted constantly), I abhor the word.
 

Last week I stumbled upon an in progress Mom conversation concerning appropriate bodily function words. It was too much to take, a Mom friend who was as uptight and rigid as me? Her children are only allowed to tinkle and toot, nothing else is permitted. We need to party with these people, freakin' awesome.

Yuck, not even in jest.

Take Me Out to the Amusement Park

My love of baseball was cultivated in a time when baseball was the star of the game. I am so old that my first games were at  Municipal Stadium in Kansas City which was torn down so long ago that a community garden now grows on the site. I am so old, in fact, that my clearest memories of being there are of falling in the gravel parking lot while racing inside, leaving several nice scars on each knee. Municipal Stadium was so old that it was once the home of the KC Monarchs, the Negro League team, and the stadium so bare that there was little else to do but watch the game. It was here I chose Lou Piniella as my favorite player and learned what the numbers 1 through 9 signified. It was here that I developed a passion for a summer day at the ballpark, warm and sticky, with 9 innings and a blank scorecard in front of me, in anxious anticipation for the 7th inning stretch. It was here I sat, between my father and grandfather, topped with a Royal Blue ball cap, Cracker Jack in hand, ideally happy for many a summer day.

Two years ago we took the girls to a game at Kaufman Stadium, the current home of the Royals, which replaced my old Municipal Stadium years ago. It's a beautiful stadium which recently went through a $250 million dollar renovation. Somewhere during the process I think they forgot about baseball, or at least baseball as related to children. In the outfield area you can now find a batting cage, a playground, a carousel, and miniature golf. I don't know but I suspect you might also find a nap room, pony rides, a magician and a place to get your oil changed. There is a "child friendly" food area; as the mother of two children I am wildly curious to know exactly what ballpark food falls outside the definition of child friendly. Wasn't ballpark food created with the child like idea that food should be bad for you and served utensil free, preferably on a stick? It seems that the Royals succumbed to the relatively new notion that children cannot be happy unless they are entertained at every possible level and that a good day out with your family is simply not enough. It's still a beautiful stadium but I worry that this kind of day at the amusement park baseball is doing little to cultivate baseball fans; when the Royals are down 7-2 in the fifth, is that really the time to get in a round of mini-golf?

The beautiful old gal down the street is soon to be having some work done, and it's time.The Cubs recently announced plans to renovate Wrigley, which, given the netting that hangs above, protecting my head from falling concrete, seems reasonable. Included into the agreement, a jumbo screen, twice the size of the beautiful old scoreboard, to be placed in left field, next to the existing one. Doesn't that seem a bit like marrying your young secretary but keeping your middle aged wife around to do the laundry? Is anyone going to wait in anticipation for the scoreboard guy to manually change the numbers when the jumbo screen will have that information up immediately, as well as instant replay, advertisements, wedding proposals and various games intended to embarrass and entertain fans in those 7 second increments, previously so painfully boring, between strike out and new batter.

Thankfully, should you not be entertained by watching two strangers kiss on the 5,000 square foot video screen, you can now spend your baseball watching time in a two story Captain Morgan Club, doubling the size of the previous eyesore on the front of the stadium. Perhaps in making it two stories they might diminish, by perspective, that ridiculous pirate that now stands near the Addison and Sheffield entrance.

The 21 year old quasi Cubs fans are covered, they can spend their nine innings swilling run in the shadow of a pirate, but what about those precious children who come to the ballpark; what are they to do for nine long innings? Surely we cannot have them sitting in their seats with nothing to do but watch baseball for three hours? Having thought of everything, the Cubs have included a kids play zone on the west side of the park, confirming my suspicions that the Cubs now agree, baseball is simply not enough.

Municipal Stadium image courtesy of ballparks.phanfare.com. 
Image of Kate courtesy of me.

Critical Thought on Mother's Day

My mother has always been harshly critical of other mothers. She focused her judgemental commentary on three women, all with the same name, but had no problem in lashing out at others when she found it appropriate. In retrospect I see that no one was really safe from her critical eye, the mothers of most of my childhood friends having been targeted at one point.

For reasons never completely understood it was my aunt who faced the worst of her blows. The mother of five children, she was constantly blasted by my mother for the choices she made. Clothing, schools, church and travel were all easy targets; the dynamics of family order a favorite topic for my mother who was convinced that there was no possible way to manage five children. That all five children are grown, amazing people with full lives of their own is the best response. My aunt, also the mother of twins, has supported me mightily for the past 7 years. She cheers me on, tells me I am doing a good job, and hugs me when I am tired. She was there on the day the girls were born; she held my hand, changed a diaper and confirmed what I had hoped to be true: my grandmother would have been very proud of me, and my family. Her love and support, not to mention proven track record, makes my days a little brighter.

Mothering is hard. My two children challenge me, enrage me, thrill me, love me and bring me more happiness than I could have ever expected. The choices I make are difficult; I don't always do what's best but I try to do what is best for us. I'm not immune to criticism; I fault other parents for putting their children in danger, for allowing them to run willy nilly through Trader Joe's and for sending them back to school before they have had time to fully recover from whatever kept them home. It is difficult for me to understand why some people fail to take responsibility for their own children, or why they don't see themselves as role models to children who watch everything they do. When it's my job to set the standard and take actions that support our children as part of a greater world, why isn't that the job of every parent? It's easy to criticize and hard to do the job that maintains the standards in which I believe. But I try, I try not to be critical of others, and I hope that most people are doing the best job they can.

Certainly there are mothers who, simply put, are just not good at this. Mothers who harm their children, or put their needs categorically in front of those of their child; mothers who abandon their children or worse, although that is something that I now, as a mother, cannot even discuss. But in the end, I do believe that we are trying our best. It's from other mothers that I draw encouragement, and occasionally reprieve. My girls know to find Tracy at school if I'm not around, that Kari will teach them to do flips in the pool, Lisa will join them for tea, and Sato will spend hours teaching them to jump rope; but for the influence of these people my children's lives would be far less colorful . We may not do everything the same but we all do what we think our best is, and that is not anything I can ever criticize.

Perhaps the very best present anyone can give their mom on Mother's Day is to grow up and be the very best person they can be. As much as I love the buttons and paintings made in art class, I think the very best gift is to see, even now, two happy and well adjusted children who work hard, have fun, treat others kindly and love their family. Happy Mother's Day to those who help, those who encourage, support and enlighten, those who taught me how to be a mother, and the two children who give me reason to celebrate.

All Grown Up Now

The one on the right just graduated from eighth grade. He is taller, at least five inches, than I am, long and lanky and topped with a poof of blond hair. He was, just recently, voted Most Likely to Become President Someday. I have no trouble imaging this at all; he is bright, witty, charming, a snappy dancer and completely comfortable talking to anyone about anything. The first time we met he threw up all over me but has not once done so since, and I thank him for that. Yesterday he introduced my girls to his cool eighth grade friends as "the sisters he never had", as if I didn't love him enough already.

The one on the left no longer fits in those boots. She is tall and blond and just won, with her team, the state lacrosse championship. One night, very long ago, she woke me crying, not feeling well, and in the middle of the night I rocked her and found out just how lovely children could be. Once calm, I promptly put on her diaper, backwards, and, begrudgingly put her back to bed. She has always been the child most likely to roll with the punches, falling down and bouncing back up immediately. She is silly, articulate and fun. She leaves notes for her mom on Facebook that make me cry and has never shied away from adults, a quality I find amazing given her advanced years.

Their mothers are two of my best friends, the first to have children in my gaggle of dears. Two mothers I looked to, and modeled, when faced with this daunting task myself. And now their soon to be quasi adults make me a little less scared of the teenage years that lie in front of us. These two are nice people who love their moms, well done ladies.