Category: Parenting

A Natural-Born Teacher

Posted on by Suki

When my son and I went to look at Mount Madonna School as a possible school for him to transfer to, we knew there were a lot of reasons that he shouldn’t go there. It was an hour’s bus ride from our house. The tuition would eat into our household budget such that we wouldn’t be able to do some of the things we’d done before. He wouldn’t have much time left in the day for being home, his favorite place to be.

But all of that lost meaning when he walked into the pre-fab building that would be his fifth-grade classroom. There he met Sri-Gyan James McCaughan—better known to his students and everyone else as simply “Sri”—who he knew would be his teacher.

Sri
Only two years ago, my son was so young and Sri was so healthy. We are so lucky to have had him in our lives.

Yes, there were superficial reasons for my son to be attracted to Sri’s classroom. Sri, like my son, was simply mad for technology, especially beautiful technology created by Apple. Sri based his entire classroom curriculum on filmmaking. He would meet the kids at the bus on the first day of school with the camera running, and the film they made was presented at the first parent meeting each year. The year my son started in Sri’s class, a couple of the kids took over the class. Sri sounded sheepish when he introduced the film at the parent meeting, but the result was clearly the work of a natural-born teacher. Rather than try to push down the conquering instincts of a few boys who were new to the school that year, he decided to nurture them. His camera hand was steady as he filmed the kids leading the class, sitting in his chair….

…OK, he did in fact stop the kid who tried to say, “And this must be my computer!” and open Sri’s beloved MacBook Pro. But that’s understandable.

The year in Sri’s classroom presented lots of challenges to my son. He ended up the year deciding to try homeschooling. But this was not to spite Sri—in fact, perhaps it was in part because of Sri. For Sri, learning was integrated into life. His classroom wasn’t a place where standards held an honored place. This made some parents very uncomfortable. But Sri seemed to know what kids needed. One day at the bus stop a parent was commiserating with me about all the hard math homework. I nodded my head knowingly.

As my son and I got into the car, I asked, “So, do you get math homework?”

“Sure,” my son answered. “I finish it at lunchtime on Mondays.”

Clearly Sri knew not to pile on busywork when it wasn’t needed. My son was focused on his creative side, and it was just fine with him to do the bare minimum in math at that time.

Sri and my son kept in touch now and then during the last couple of years. There was no question that Sri was on the invitation list for his Bar Mitzvah, and Sri accepted. But a couple of weeks before the event, I got an e-mail saying that he had “a scheduling problem.”

The scheduling problem is one that sometimes arises in the lives of people too young to be taken away from us. Sri had been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer. He was given six months, but he died today, only a few months later.

It’s the optimist’s goal to see good in these sorts of things. The pessimist’s to see the evil of the world. I don’t see either. It’s just part of the confusing nature of things that Sri would go so soon, while others who give so much less to the world linger on.

But what I do see in clear relief is that Sri’s was a life well lived. He left behind so many people who truly mourn the loss of his influence in this world. He was a lovely soul, and I am so thankful that he was part of my son’s life.

Siblings

Posted on by Suki

Things have been pretty darn quiet around our house the last few days. Our son has been off on a school trip to Yosemite, so our daughter is living the life of an only child.

What a relief!

Don’t get me wrong: I adore both of my kids. I couldn’t imagine life without either of them. I’m glad I have them both.

But the truth is, the only extended period of time in which they got along really well was when she was a baby. And not just a baby but that tiny, sweet baby who didn’t yet know how to make her big brother cry. As soon as she figured that out, well, the merry-go-round started to turn.

This is not to say that they never get along. There are some activities they do really well together: They love to go down into the woods to their “fort” and hang out there… as long as my son doesn’t start criticizing his sister for how she pronounces a word. They like to play Minecraft together… as long as my daughter’s avatar doesn’t decide to beat up my son’s avatar with a pick-axe. They like to exchange weird e-mail… as long as my son doesn’t criticize her use of weird fonts and as long as my daughter doesn’t send him more and more e-mails that just contain the word “poopie” copied and pasted hundreds of times. They like to play games together… until one of them has to win.

So you see how it goes: They know each other’s buttons well. They push those buttons. Then they give the button-pusher the satisfaction of retaliation. And so the merry-go-round goes round.

Doggies
Gratuitous new puppy photo. The puppy and the big girl played so hard they just had to go to sleep!

I grew up in a large family, and in many ways my kids’ interactions are not that different from ones I remember from childhood. The big difference is that they have only each other. When one of my siblings got sick of another, we had others to play or fight with. Sometimes when we were feeling especially anti-social, we’d move down into the basement with the spiders!

But my kids can’t get away from each other. Even when my son was in school, they seemed intent on butting heads whenever possible.

The reality of it is that at some point, they will have to detach.

My son will learn that he will never, ever make his sister perfect. Or, conversely, he will realize that she is perfect (as much as any human is), so he should just stop trying to change her.

My daughter will learn that when you poke people they react. Her brother is not a stuffed animal, a dartboard, or a tree she can climb. She cannot rule the world through force of will alone.

Both kids will realize what most governments still can’t get a handle on: reacting to injustice with more injustice just ramps it up. The day one child makes the decision to rise above, not to react anymore to the petty hurts that the other inflicts throughout the day, is the day our house will become more peaceful.

That’s the theory, at least!

Of course, this is all talk. Action is much harder. So occasional, enforced vacations like this one are good for us all. My daughter can come to me for companionship, but I’m never going to be as good as the boy who goes into the forest to help her build a fort. My son can come to me seeking justice, but he’s never going to find me in his Mindcraft world, building a structure for him that says “I love you” in actions if not words. Their friends are there for them, of course, but friends come and go.

Siblings are irreplaceable. So get on that merry-go-round, kids, and play nice… or at least as nice as my siblings and I played, when we weren’t slamming each other’s fingers in the door.

Crippling self-doubt

Posted on by Suki

I had a conversation recently with someone whom I respect greatly. She’s a great person, a loving mom, and has a successful career. But partway through our conversation, I had a realization: She suffers from crippling self-doubt.

I didn’t mention it to her. Perhaps it’s just me projecting, but I’m somewhat of an expert on crippling self-doubt.

I used to mull over everything anyone said to me, trying to find the hidden insults and innuendo. I used to stop myself from doing things because I’d step outside of myself and think, Who would want *me*, of all people, to do *this*? I used to worry about what “people” would think.

I don’t know who those people are, but they ruled my life.

Some good things happened in my life:

I married someone who supports me. Even if it’s something he has no interest in himself, he will congratulate me and say I did a good job. Even when I start doing my “negative self-talk,” he’ll tell me I’m full of it. When I think something is no big deal, he’ll make a big deal of it. He points out my successes, when I see that I haven’t yet reached my end goal. He tells me he believes in me.

Another good thing that happened is that I ran out of time. Literally: I just simply don’t have enough time to do everything I need, want, and must do. So a few things had to go. Organized closets? Gone. Clean fingernails? Often not the case. Crippling self-doubt? Don’t have time for that today.

Finally, I became a mom, and the first time you hear your kid doing that negative self-talk thing that you do…. that’s when you realize how awful it is.

I guess I’d say I’m still ‘recovering’ from my crippling self-doubt habit. Tonight I am reading — for the first time ever — at In Celebration of the Muse, a huge Santa Cruz event that celebrates the feminine muse. Years ago, I wanted so desperately to read at the Muse, and was devastated that I wasn’t chosen. This year, I saw the call for entries and I popped something in e-mail. Frankly, when I received the invitation to read, I didn’t remember what I’d submitted! So in that way, I am ‘recovered.’

But as I was dressing, I got out my fabulous red dress, the one I bought second-hand one day when I was feeling fabulous, and I thought, Hm. Can I carry this off? Perhaps I should wear sober black.

But In Celebration of My Muse, and In Celebration of Overcoming Crippling Self-Doubt (for tonight, at least), I am typing this now all dressed up in my red dress.

OK, so I cut out the shoulder pads. I wasn’t feeling quite *that* fabulous.

I hope I will see my friend there, and I will give her a hug, and I will pass her some of my anti-CSD love.

From one busy mom to another: Just do it. When are you ever going to get the chance again, to do today what you want to? Tomorrow, you’ll be on to something else. Something else to love, fear, and conquer.

Ganbatte!

D.I.Y. Bar Mitzvah

Posted on by Suki

When my husband and I started talking about having kids, the first thing he said was, “I want to raise my kids Jewish.” I answered, “What does that mean to you?” And we’ve been trying to figure that out ever since.

We are not a religious family. I was raised Catholic by scientist parents who stayed with the church for the sake of tradition and community, but made it pretty clear that (like most American Catholics) their views didn’t align with the edicts coming down from Rome. My husband comes from a long line of Jewish rabble-rousers — socialists who expressed their Jewishness in the spirit of tikkun olam — “heal the world.” He had a Bar Mitvah, but they seldom went to temple otherwise.

So what does it mean to us to raise Jewish children? For me, it meant education. Although I’d always had Jewish friends, and I had a vague sense of the basics of Judaism, I had not scratched the surface of a religious tradition that goes back before written history started. As soon as our kids’ Jewish education started, in preschool, I felt lost amidst a body of learning that Jewish children absorb slowly, through practice in their households. At preschool, we learned the basics of celebrating Shabbat and the major holidays.

Then our son aged out of preschool and it was on to Temple school. We’d fit in pretty well at preschool — one teacher in particular was such a perfect nurturer for my unusual little beings that we still keep in touch. But Temple school was a different story. Most of the kids found it fun; our shy son usually ended up in tears. This is not to criticize our local temple for how they run their school — it works great for most kids. It just didn’t quite align with our needs. We tried out another school, which was better but didn’t work out for location and scheduling reasons. And then we were on our own.

I guess our Jewish schooling story is a bit like our schooling story in general: We tried out all the possible options, and though we could see that the schools we tried were great schools for some kids, they didn’t work for ours.

We ended up doing the same thing with our Jewish education that we did with the rest of their education: cobbling up something that fit with our family’s needs. It was not orthodox, but it’s been a wonderful experience for our family.

Last weekend was our son’s Bar Mitzvah. He has been working with a wonderful tutor, whose job was not only to prepare our son for his Bar Mitzvah, but also to help us as a family figure out what our son’s Bar Mitzvah was going to mean to us.

The B’nai Mitzvah (that’s for either gender — for girls it’s Bat Mitzvah) is the rite of passage into adulthood for Jews. By becoming a Bar Mitzvah, a boy declares that he is taking responsibility for his actions. When we started the process, it seemed forced. How can you get a kid to get meaning out of this process? But as we approached the actual event, it seemed that the event itself was bringing about the change that it required. Our son, after a year of intermittent gritted teeth resolve and pleading not to do it, became committed to the process. He read, studied, and learned. He started to take responsibility for his actions.

Ours was a pretty unusual celebration. Usually done in a temple, our son became a Bar Mitzvah in a tent in an olive orchard on my parents’ farm. Usually surrounded by a Jewish congregation, we invited the people who we felt would most appreciate sharing the day with him. We couldn’t invite everyone we wanted to, so it was winnowed down to some of our closest friends (few of them Jewish), teachers from 3 periods in his life, relatives who had been a part of his life (most of them not Jewish),  relatives we wished we could spend more time with. Three of my husband’s cousins came to take part in the ceremony, which meant a lot to us.

In the end, the Bar Mitzvah we made was probably rather different than what we ever would have pictured. But it was perfect for our son and for our family. After a nail-biting couple of months, sure it was going to be pouring that day, we got a gorgeous, mild winter day. Coming back from the house just after sunset, I saw the tent lighted from within, the moon a sliver so small it doesn’t show up on the photo, flanked by Venus and Jupiter, shining brightly over the scene. The kids were blowing bubbles and chasing each other down the hillside. The adults chatted over homemade wine and olive oil.

A little off-beat, on familiar turf, it was the Bar Mitzvah that fit our family.

 

Our friend who moved in the other day

Posted on by Suki

We’re starting to get a little tired of it all: the midnight feedings, the neediness, the scratching and scrabbling, the nocturnal rambling.

It’s like we have a new baby in the house… but wait, we don’t have a new baby in the house. We have a relatively new pet, but he only bugs the girl he sleeps with. Our son, at 13, is finally (usually) sleeping through the night.

This is like the baby we didn’t ask for and we didn’t know was coming: We’ve got a lodger in the house, and he (or she) is not paying rent. On top of that, he’s a midnight partier.

I vote for “he.”

“He” is the new friend who has taken up residence in our wall. Not just any wall, mind you. We’ve heard them in the roof, in the corner of our office. But fer crying out loud, didja have to choose the wall at the head of our bed?

I was awoken last week to the sound of ripping. Apparently, although our friend had been living in there a while, it was redecoration time. He just didn’t like that insulation the way it was, and he was working on reupholstering. RIP! One of us awake. Scrabble, scrabble, crunch, crunch. We’re both awake.

I bang on the wall. He seems to settle down. Apparently, it wasn’t the right night for a party.

Good. Maybe he’ll move on.

Well, no. Our friend is a nightly visitor now. Apparently, he sleeps through the day, enjoying the comfy fiberglass decor. We go to bed with silence in the wall behind us. But sometime every night, he decides it’s time to have fun. He has loud dinner parties, dancing, and the ever-present redecoration of his apartment.

My husband has no plans to be outschemed by a rat. He set traps. Nothing. He banged on the wall. Our friend danced to the beat.

The other day he came home with an Amazon.com box. Later, he called me down to see the amazing scene. Snaked through an outlet hole in the wall, the miniature camera on a flexible extension reveals a fine nest full of nuts and other debris. But no one, apparently, is home.

Last night, the party started up again. RIP! Crunch, crunch. Scritchscritchscritchscritchscritch. My husband banged on the wall.  We groaned in frustration.

At least, when you have a baby, you have a sweet, cuddly thing during the day to remind you why you’re losing sleep.

This afternoon, I was walking through our bedroom, and I just couldn’t resist. I banged on the wall. I scratched. I thundered. I wished I had some insulation to rip.

“You hear me, rat? Keep it down in there! Go find somewhere else to live!”

The thing is, bad neighbors never seem to care when you’re a bad neighbor back to them. I could almost hear his thoughts.

“Hey, maybe those stupid, sleepy animals on the other side of this wall are more interesting than I thought.

Maybe tonight I’ll invite them to the party…”

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