Another weekend has flown by and another Monday morning finds me guzzling coffee and trying to get back into the groove. Scott had off of work for 2 days last week, resulting in a 4 day weekend. It's amazing what I DON'T get done when he's here. For some reason my subconscience thinks it's a vacation day for me too and I find myself laying around being lazy instead of doing what I normally do on a weekday around the house. But now it's Monday and the complexities of parenting are weighing heavily on my mind again. I am going to try and expound, but bear with me because I know that as I process through this I am bound to offend someone which is not my intention at all.
Our anniversary was spent as almost any other day as it was a Thursday, a school night and we have 3 kids. Friday night we decided to venture to Tyler's school for a fall carnival. It was as lame as most school carnivals are, but it's a fund raiser so we contributed some funds via not-so-ingenious game booths. Actually, there was one that was a 'recycling' game. These 2 parents were running it that were very OBVIOUSLY former hippies. They had a boxful of trash and after Tyler gave them 3 tickets to play, they handed him 10 trash items for him to sort between 3 boxes: recycle, trash & a ?. Then he only won a prize if he got ALL 10 correct. I thought it was a bit harsh and tedious. Not to mention, the ? box kind of was a built-in-to-fail box. If you put something in there it was an automatic wrong answer. They did give us a good pointer on plastics though and how to determine if even the smallest plastic container was recyclable or not.
There was also a cake walk which I was kind of excited about since I had won a whole cake at a school carnival when my younger sister was in elementary school once. How depressing to learn that these days you get three tries for admission and the winner only gets a cupcake. Also depressing since I would have loved a cupcake, but I didn't win.
There was a huge line at a face painting table for which I didn't pause. Not one of my kids thinks face painting is something they want to try. The next table had no line, but when I saw the sign I ran to sit down and drop 3 tickets. Henna Tattoos! I was pretty excited since I love henna tattoos. I watched a little girl get her palm decorated with a rainbow and star and then asked if the mom working the booth could do one on the back of my hand instead. She looked at me kind of funny but then told me to put my tickets in the bucket and to sit next to her. I told her that I didn't want the design on my palm since with 3 kids it would never last and would smear to the point of just looking like a blob. She laughed and said 'Yes, for moms it's hard'. She asked if I wanted my name or a flower. I said a flower and expected just one little flower on my hand for my 75 cents.
Instead, the mother painted a simple but elegant chain of flowers from the tip of my pointer finger, across the back of my hand and to my wrist. We talked about the pitfalls of having dry hands and kids (since washing your hands 5 million times a day makes dry hands even drier) and compared notes on eczema and treatments. The other moms at the table eventually joined in the conversation and we were all soon intently debating the merits of lotions versus oils for retaining long term moisture. It finally occurred to me that I was the ONLY white person visiting the table and they weren't sure what to think of me. I was an oddity in this group, but I hadn't seen it at first because I just wanted a tattoo. The boys were all off with Scott visiting the Bounce House so even after my design was finished I stayed at the table a while and kept talking with the other moms. Eventually another mom came to the table and tentaviley asked how henna tattoos worked and the booth workers smiled and explained it and then began this VERY caucasian mother's initiation into something new.
We moved on to overpriced hot dogs and popcorn before heading home and one of Tyler's friends mothers noted my tattoo and told me I was way cooler than she was. I just laughed it off and said that I didn't have a job to go to so I could get away with it (Never mind that when I had both my hands done intricately front and back for a friend's wedding a few years ago I was working and it didn't matter to me), I was just trying to ease her obvious discomfort. She said she just wasn't brave enough.
I really felt kind of bad that I wasn't a more involved mom that night. I had received the emails asking for volunteers for the carnival, but I had ignored them mostly because I couldn't commit to the evening. It's not that I don't help sometimes, in fact that's why I got the email, I am on the volunteer list, but with 2 younger kids at home I can't ALWAYS help and once you are on the list they want you for EVERYTHING. But what I felt bad about on Friday was that I didn't know most of the moms out there. Tyler doesn't go to his 'neighborhood' school anymore so getting to know the other families isn't as easy as reaching out to the parents down the street, it requires attendance at functions and then making an EFFORT to get to know people.
Tyler goes to a Magnet school for which attendance in Richardson is not designated by academic superiority, but by racial diversity. After the school is populated with kids from surrounding neighborhoods as their 'neighborhood school', the remaining slots are filled in to maintain a fairly equal level of racial and gender distribution. This was JJ Pierce's idea to make sure that kids in Richardson of all races, creeds and income levels were given opportunity here back in the 60's and 70's. I love it. Tyler gets maximum benefits for academics and diversity, which I think is hugely important (this is actually why I didn't want him to start school in the district I grew up in - I didn't think it was racially or economically diverse enough. It's getting a little better, but it's still on the pathetic side). But it occurred to me on Friday night that throwing kids of all different types together doesn't necessarily make families and communities meld easily.
I don't have to do the daily pick up for Tyler at school this year, but I mused on the last couple of years and what I had witnessed. While a huge amount of parents, like me, just stayed in their cars in line, a lot of parents park and walk up to the school lawn and wait for their children. And in those milling groups of parents there is still a division. I think it is self-imposed, but moms still make friends with like-minded moms most of the time. The Eastern born and bred women still huddle together in groups very obviously outfitted in veils and clothing deemed acceptable in their culture and faith. There is a very large group of Asian mothers who cluster together as well. I wonder now if they keep themselves separate from the other mothers or if it's the other way around. Is there too much of a bridge to cross between cultures sometimes? Is there still a misunderstanding of culture that keeps some people at a distance from women in veils because they might be some of 'THOSE' muslims? Or is it that we are just too busy to make an effort to find the familiar in the unfamiliar?
For me, as a mom, exposing my kids to diversity is hugely important because we don't live in a homogenized world. They are going to encounter all kinds of creeds, traditions, beliefs and cultures through their lifetimes. I want them to be prepared for and open to everything. Surely, I want to instill values and beliefs that are important to me in them as their core values and I want them to be unshakable. I truly hope that they are good witnesses of Jesus's love in their lives. But I also want them to know that my way is not the only way people live and that they should respect other people's beliefs as well. I don't want them to be afraid of something because it's different. I don't want them to be in a homogenized school because it won't prepare them at all for real life.
This is why even if I had the means, I probably wouldn't send my kids to a private Christian school. I know the benefits of it, I can see them. And there are parts of it that are tempting for me, but I also know that the real world is not a Christian school. I don't fall on the side of those who believe that their kids are better prepared to face a world of non-believers if they are kept safe and cocooned with believers for as long as possible (I do understand it though, don't get me wrong). I tend to side with the idea that the sooner they get used to the fact that the world is filled with a lot of different kinds of people, the better. Learn now how to believe what you believe and stick with it, and get stronger as your fellow students do the same and as you all grow. Be a witness even as you are learning how to be a witness. Don't be protected your whole life and then go off to college to get bombarded all at once. That's a personal choice, but I think it's right for our family.
I am certainly not a completely unbiased person, I don't think that is possible for anyone (although if you can get super close, the person who I know is the best at it is my sister, Asheley). By human design, we identify with our own traditions and cultures best, and that doesn't mean we can't learn to appreciate others as well. But, I am determined that my kids will be even better at it than I am just as my parents were for the three of us. I can remember being proud that since I had not ever purposely pointed out the color of skin to Tyler he used to tell me as a preschooler that we were 'peach' not 'white' and that when trying to point out a child to me once in a large crowd he didn't know to say 'black' but settled on 'really dark tan'. But then I thought with horror that it didn't matter what I did, he still saw a difference because he still was describing people by their color in some way, shape or form, even if it wasn't in a derogatory way and he had done it on his own. How frustrating! I console myself by reminding myself that we all describe people in some way 'blue eyes, brown hair, curly hair, brown eyes, tall, short, big boned or skinny as a stick' and that there is no way I could ever eliminate these descriptions from my own vocabulary much less my children's no matter how hard I try.
I try. I guess that's the important thing. Tolerance should be an easy thing to teach, but it isn't. I lead as much as I can by example and I know I have been blessed to have some incredible friends over the years that have patiently tolerated my endless curiosity about their cultures and faiths that are different from my own. Our family has diversified too over the years which is a huge bonus for all of us. My kids benefit from those friendships too and from what I have learned along the way. But I look back over Friday night and think 'I am not doing enough!' None of us are doing enough! Because there is still a huge gap. There is still a huge valley for most of us to cross over. And what do those moms really think of a mom like me who didn't think twice about sitting at their table? What did they think of the moms who just walked by? Do they know that I would be there friend too? Is there room for me in their lives? I know there is room in mine. I can always find a place in my heart for a new friend who is just as worried about their kids as I am about mine. What can I do to make myself more available and open? What can I do to make sure my kids are available and open to any friendship as well? Am I doing enough?
A week ago we attended another school carnival for some of our relatives. It was a private catholic school. Totally different than ours because it was HUGE in comparison. Still not that many great game booths, but the food was amazing. The majority of booths there were run by different Latino groups of parents: a Brazilian one, a Puerto Rican one, a Columbian one. There was also a great Funnel Cake Booth run by our cousins! So we have certainly exposed our children to some very multi-cultural fall carnivals this year which is a good thing, even if it wasn't a concerted effort. But it struck me, that even at this school the parents had segregated themselves into different cultural booths by volunteering with those parents that were the most like themselves and had the most in common. I walked around, bouncing to the beat of a Mexican Polka being blared on the speakers, eating my fajita with some amazingly seasoned beef and then roasted corn on the cob before buying a cake from the bake sale and swallowing a funnel cake whole. Scott and I just giggled that they were selling beer and margaritas too since there was no way that would ever happen at our school carnival!
I guess at the end of the day, I can only do what I am doing. I just keep exposing my kids to more, teaching them tolerance and empathy by example. When they notice a difference between themselves and someone else, I let them talk it out at home and encourage them to understand and accept. And I must be doing an okay job because it doesn't occur to them to ask about some of our family members that have different color skin and different religious beliefs than we do. It doesn't occur to them that a family has to be ALL the same because ours isn't and we accept so they accept. But I also know that because I even have to worry about this our society still has a MAJOR problem. Change is possible though, look how far we have come in just a couple of generations. I am hoping that if I raise my kids to be even more tolerant than my generation was raised to be, they will do the same and then so will their children. And maybe a few generations down the road we'll have worked all this out of our society as a whole - maybe?
Tolerance comes in all sorts of ways and at all sorts of levels. I mentioned to Tyler the other day that I knew his friend J wasn't really considered as cool as some of his other friends, I was trying to say I thought he had the makings of a lifelong friend. I didn't get to finish, Tyler cut me off and said 'That's not why I like him mom. I don't care if he's cool or not, I just like him for who he is.' I just hugged him sooooo tight. I love that he is who he is. For me, my hardest tolerance hurdle to jump is right in my own back yard. I have a hard time with the Catholic church in it's most traditional form (historically, the corruption, the misinformation, etc.) but I am now related to a whole lot of Catholics who I respect and love, including my own sweet husband, and I respect their faith and try to understand it as much as possible. I just don't always get it! And well, they have to tolerate a Southern Baptist in their midst too. As a family, we tolerate a lot of foibles and personality quirks that we don't necessarily like about our siblings and children and spouses.
Mostly, tolerance can only be taught by example. I hope I am teaching it well. I hope that I am a good example to my kids, even though I know I am soooo far from being the ideal that I want my kids to be. Like I said, because I even have to worry about it, we still have a problem here, but it was only a few generations ago that no one was worrying about it. Progress in baby steps, I guess.
Oy - the pressures of motherhood. Some days there are so many things to worry about I can't see straight. Then again, I think it makes me a half way decent mom because I do worry about it. The key, I think, is to not worry about all of the stuff all of the time. Mostly, I just keep doing what I am doing and look for teachable moments along the way. I hope it's enough.
And in the meantime - I am totally digging my henna tattoo for a few days, until it fades away!
Love and God Bless!
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