didaink

My Safe Place To Stand

Clockwise: Mom & Me, Carm, Greg, Rick & Roz

May 1:  May Day, a day to pick Spring flowers and deliver them to neighbor's front doors. I'd ring the doorbells, run and hide, then watch for the look of surprise when they discovered a bundle of wildflowers on their doorstep. It brought a smile to my face every time.

May Day was also a day to give my mother a special bouquet of roses, not just because I loved her with all my heart and soul but because she was my safe place to stand.

Her skin was soft and velvety, much like the flowers I picked for her. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and looked like a beauty queen. I'd rest my confused heart and body against hers, and everything felt better. Her bare arms were silk handkerchiefs for my face, and she'd give me long hugs and let me twirl the doughy creases of her elbows between my fingertips. She tucked me in at night and never failed to climb the stairs again when I'd call out for her.

"Mahhh-mah! I neeeed one more huhhh-uhg!"

She brushed and cut my hair and made my new clothes from scratch, though they were mostly fancy dresses I hated wearing, attempting to make my older sister and I look like twins. Other than our matching outfits, we had nothing in common, with the exception of fear.

May Day was also my chance to thank my mother the way I wanted to thank her, with lots of roses. At age 8 and 9, I couldn't afford to buy roses so I'd pick them from our neighbors' yards, carefully pluck all the thorns off the stems, then run back down our hidden street to the dead end where our house sat. We didn’t have any rose bushes in our yard, because they were likely too expensive and my father was always trying to save money. I’d get up early so no one would know I was gone and dine on honeysuckle for breakfast. The only other souls up that early were the mourning doves, cooing on the branches of the Pepper Tree that sat on the empty lot. I'd climb up to my favorite branch, hear a flutter of wings scatter, and reach for the wad of honeysuckle I'd shoved into my pockets from the bush that nobody owned near the fire hydrant in the cul-de-sac. From my pepper branch, I'd scope out which rose bushes on the street were the ripest for my bouquet for Mama.

During those days, there were many things happening in my house that I didn’t understand: Why did my father get so angry? Why did he beat up my brothers? Make them scream so bad? Why did I barely see or know my older sisters? Why did I have to clean my closet and take “inventory” on Saturdays, the way they did in the army barracks where my father once lived? I'd dream of one day riding my bike all the way down to the beach on Saturday mornings to ride the waves.

My mother tried to protect us -- I know she did -- but there were many times when she couldn’t, days when she was teaching, doing errands, or at the grocery store, and my father would switch to the other man. I'd lock the door to my room so that man couldn’t get in, and I'd pray that he’d be too tired after he finished with my brothers to climb the stairs to my room. My “twin” sister, four years older, would disappear, hidden I suspected, in one of the many closets in our old house against the hills of Southern California. I’d listen to my father hitting my brothers and look at the phone in the connecting spare room, desperately wishing I could call my mother to come back home. When she eventually came through the door, no one ever wanted to tell her what had really happened while she was out, least of all, my father.

Seven years ago, when I'd written another draft of this piece, my mother was still alive. She would leave this world three days later, on May 4, the bouquet pictured below near her bedside.

[From May 1, 2015]

On May Day, I'll call the Japanese florist I always turn to in California to pick the colors and shapes for my bouquet. The owner will put them in a clear vase and deliver them for me. I will ask her if she has any honeysuckle this year, but I already know the answer.

“No,” she’ll say, “Just roses. Yes, many roses.”

It will never be enough, but it's all I have on May Day.

 

Mr. H & His Booming Voice

Julie & her dad in January

Mr. H’s voice was ever-present in my troubled world as a child. I’d hear him call for my best friend, his daughter whose birthday I share, and the warm bass in his vocals, like Bing Crosby’s on White Christmas, would echo inside the cul-de-sac in front of my house. Julie and I would still be laughing about something on those warm California nights, and I’d almost look forward to the soothing sound of it bellowing down the street, even though it meant Julie had to go home.

Unlike my father, Mr. H shouted his daughter’s name with genuine concern. When my father would call for me to come home at high volume, I would shudder, praying that I’d make it up the stairs before his hand struck my back.

It was Julie’s dad who would be the first to model what a loving father sounded like to me. Whenever his Easter Seal blue station wagon would show its nose at the top of the street, his kids would run to him, not away, and crowd around the driveway. I could hear the sweet, low hum of his voice joking with them before he got out of the car, their dog George, then Barnaby after old George had passed on, barking and wagging his tail once Mr. H returned home. This was something new to me as a girl. I never once ran out of the house to welcome my father home, and the dogs I desperately tried to care for at my house were sent to “the pound,” the worst place a dog could go in my mind.

“We can’t afford to keep dogs,” my father told me, as I begged him to change his mind.

Mr. H was meant to care for children and dogs. It was why he was undoubtedly so good at his job as the Executive Director for Easter Seals in our home town in California. Though he had such an important job and role in our community, it seemed to me that he did not care much for titles or “importance” as a man. My father lived for titles and credentials. More importantly, Mr. H was a person his children could trust and went to for advice and comfort. There were so many days as a girl that I wished he was my father too. If he only knew what was actually going on inside my house, just three doors away, what would he have done? But in those days, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Julie or anyone what my father was capable of. I was too ashamed. Meanwhile, Julie had no idea that I was studying her dad’s gentle ways and mannerisms, as he went about his Saturday chores in the backyard, mowed the lawn, fixed things in the garage, walked and washed the dogs, always greeting me with a smile and a chuckle when I’d pass through his door or eat something from his refrigerator. I wanted to tell him about the abuse, but the shame would silence me again, and I’d go on pretending I was fine, like so many kids living with domestic abuse.

When I learned from Julie that he’d passed peacefully last Friday at the age of 88, in the same house on the hill where I spent so many childhood days, Julie's friendship and her family's friendly faces comforting me throughout the years, small and large memories came back.

Mr. H's hair was so gold it almost looked yellow. His eyelashes were missing around his kind blue eyes, they were that blonde. He rocked a mustache but never looked silly or pretentious with it. He was tall and elegant, and his long legs moved with ease and grace. He wore khaki pants and blue boating shoes on the weekends, and they reminded me of The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island, my favorite show. And when he came home and opened the door to his light blue station wagon, he would slow everything way down - or maybe I was the one to slow everything down for safekeeping - and he'd take his time to place his jacket over his shoulder, open up the mailbox, and slowly bend down to hug and kiss his children, ruffling their hair and the furry coats of his adoring dogs.

There are some men that pass through your life that you’d like to forget or erase if you could; men whose actions you can’t shake out of your memory no matter how fast you turn your head. And then there are the men that you’d like to remember, and go on remembering over and over, for their small and large acts of kindness, their booming voices in your life, even if on the periphery. Mr. H is one of those men. He'll never know just how far and wide his loving voice reached me, the girl down the street, pretending, three doors away.

"This is only the beginning!” Teaching Gen Z Girls To Empower Themselves

Friday Climate Strike, Philadelphia 9/27/19

Teaching our children to honor their word is one of the most important things a parent can do. Because my daughter felt bullied at age 13 and 14 for being “weird” and "different," I made it a priority to encourage her to make decisions that empower her to stand up for herself and to move forward on her own two feet, not my coattails.

So, last week when my daughter said, “Mom, I really want to go to New York with you for the Climate Strike and hear Greta, but I don’t want to let my teachers down, especially my ecology teacher,” I knew she felt empowered to speak her mind with me.

“I’m sure she’d understand," I said, "After all, she’s a science teacher."

“But that’s not fair to her if no one’s in her class on Friday. She wants to strike too, but she won’t get paid if she does. And the writing club meets on Friday. I don’t want to let my English teacher down or Margaret. They’re counting on me."

My daughter’s friend, Margaret, a senior, has been a loyal friend and the one who inspired my 16-year-old to join the creative writing club at the high school they both attend in rural Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s public school system, like many “swing” states, did not embrace Greta Thunberg’s global Climate Strike like nearby New York. Climate Change is still not a priority in states like Pennsylvania, and even in progressive Philadelphia last Friday for the global strike, students and teachers who participated in the Philadelphia Strike were not excused or paid for their absences.

My daughter felt that was horribly unfair, and because she attends public high school in a poor district outside of Philadelphia, she wanted to support her teachers and the parents of classmates who couldn’t afford to take the day off to attend the strike in Philly and New York.

“Mom, if I’m the only one in my class who’s striking, that kind of makes me privileged. I mean, you’re getting paid to write about it, aren’t you?”

She was right. I’d be paid for the piece I was scheduled to write on Sept. 20, even though I was also striking because of my own beliefs.

Consequently, when I told my editor the news that my daughter would not be joining me on September 20 after all, that editor (who felt the title of my Op-Ed should be, “Why I Brought My Daughter to Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike") cancelled my assignment. Seemingly, the publication she works for was no longer interested in publishing a piece about my daughter’s decision to honor her commitments and Climate Strike the following Friday in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for my daughter) that publication, which features news stories about women by women, will not get to deliver to its readers an important piece about what my daughter said to me after she made her own decision.

“Mom, can't we strike another Friday?” she asked.

“Of course, we can!" I said, "And we will, as soon as next week, if you want."

"Okay, cool," she said.

And like Greta said on September 20 in front of hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, "This is only the beginning!"

I couldn’t be prouder of my daughter’s decision to keep her word and honor her commitments, and I’m sure Greta Thunberg’s mother is exceptionally proud of Greta for honoring her words and her commitments – and as a result, Greta has not only empowered herself, she’s empowered an entire generation. Now, millions of children value her words, her integrity and her leadership.

Greta’s commitment to Gen Z, even with the challenges she faces as a person with Asperger Syndrome, demonstrates incredible determination and strength. And her desire to continually confront adult leaders who refuse to listen to the science is just one more example of her commitment to the truth.

Keeping our commitments to the truth, each other, and to future generations is what Greta’s movement is all about. It's about how actions always speak louder than words. And it’s this level of maturity in Greta and in teenage girls like her that gives me hope as a woman and a parent.

My daughter’s commitment to the environment, her teachers and friends who inspire her to make a difference every day, gives me additional hope that young women can and will change the world, and perhaps save “adults” from themselves. It's the adults who've created this environmental crisis. We are the ones who’ve looked the other way and haven't held our leaders accountable. We are the ones who continue to ignore the science. And we are the ones who must listen to Gen Z now.

It’s past time for so-called adults to finally honor their commitments and invest in a planet that's healthier and safer for our children and future generations. As one teenage girl’s sign so poignantly reminded people in Foley Square last Friday: "70-year-old men should not decide my future."

Global Climate Strike, NYC-Foley Square 9/20/19

Philly Climate Strike: 9/27/19

Police 'Humanity' in Washington D.C.

    Women's March on Washington D.C.  © didaink 2017

    They could have been sisters with Officer Henkelman, if not twins, and when I asked if they were, they shook their heads no but smiled. Still, they felt like sisters. Perhaps it was the sisterhood all around me, extending to their kind faces and their strong shoulders standing in uniform. I decided this was the right time to ask if there had been any arrests among the hundreds of thousands of marchers expected to be in the capital that afternoon - their expression and response surprised me.

    “No,” they said with a smile.

    “Not one arrest?” I asked.

    Not one, they confirmed. 

    I’d told my ten-year-old son that I didn’t know what might happen at The Women's March in Washington D.C. – that I hoped it would be peaceful but there was a chance I could be arrested. And if I was, I would go with police peacefully because I was there to march in peace and for peace and equality and human rights, not just for his teenage sister’s future but his too, and in support of women and men all over the country who’ve been the victims of sexual assault, racism and inequality.

    “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see women officers here today,” I said, “especially young women like you.”

    I saw a glimmer of solidarity in their eyes beneath the shiny brim of their police hats, reflecting the light and hope of hundreds of thousands, if not close to a million, women and men who came to the capital to demonstrate their First Amendment rights without the threat of violence or police brutality.

    “May I take your picture?” I asked. All three officers nodded and smiled again.

    As I look back at all the smiling faces in my pictures throughout Saturday’s March, theirs stand out the most – one of my closest friends looking over at them with such pride while holding the sign she penned, “YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT – YOU HAVE THE DUTY TO SPEAK UP.”

    We thanked them and marched on, but I kept looking back, watching them watch droves of women and men make their way to the National Mall, wondering if their mothers and sisters and brothers were marching too.

    One of the most, if not the most, important moments for me during The March was seeing Harriet Tubman’s giant portrait in front of The Treasury, next to Washington, Lincoln, and Hamilton, and I realized then more clearly than ever that women of my generation, born after the civil rights movement, will never fully understand what’s been sacrificed so that all women have the same opportunities as men. We are still fighting, though, for the right to equal pay and the most basic of human rights, the right to govern our own bodies. As we all looked up to Harriet Tubman's larger than life black face next to three white male faces, we chanted, "Black Lives Matter!” over and over until it faded, and I worried that I hadn’t shouted it loud enough or long enough.

    I thought about the three young policewomen again and remembered the wet cloths we'd put in Ziploc bags in our backpack. We never once had to reach for them. An older friend, a seasoned protester during the Vietnam War, recommended we bring them.

    "They'll help us to breath if police use teargas," she said.

    As we packed them in the transparent backpack the march organizers recommended everyone carry to make it easier on police to see what we had with us, I found myself adding up how old I was when she was walking the same streets, protesting for peace, while I watched The Sound of Music in 1970 -- the first time I heard "Heil Hitler" and saw Nazis in uniform. I was five.

    By the time we reached the Treasury building, it had been hours since the march began and we had seen no conflicts between any marchers or any police. In fact, at one point when several police vans had to get down a street, they tooted their horns and everyone made way for them. They looked appreciative and I even caught a glimpse of more smiles on their faces as they waved to us. Police officers take an oath to uphold the Constitution, a Constitution that originally did not mention women. We hear, talk, and read about our “founding fathers” but not one word about founding mothers.

    As we made it to where the Newseum building resides on Pennsylvania Avenue, I read the First Amendment out loud and loud for the very first time. It's engraved in large letters on the facade of the Newseum. The words reverberated in my ears, and a wave of pride hit me like never before. This is what makes America, America. Whether or not it’s ever been “great” has always been up for debate and dependent on who is talking. Ask the Transgender-American this question and the Gay-American bullied in Middle School, the college students sexually assaulted at American universities too afraid to report it, and any Black-American or Latino or Muslim-American living among bigots.

 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

    Reports say that over half a million people assembled in our nation’s capital on January 21, 2017, and reputable news agencies reported that it was the largest one-day protest in U.S. history. In D.C. we were sometimes locked in a stand-still position – I suspect this is how it was in every city that marched – yet, we were still kind to one another, helping each other to stay calm and safe, not just in protest of Donald Trump’s dangerous, disrespectful rhetoric and proposed policies or his long history of insults to women, or even his Twitter rants directed at anyone who opposes him, but in solidarity and support of humanity, decency, and respect for human rights… women’s rights.

    It felt so simple and it is truly self-evident. We are absolutely ‘stronger together’ and we had the chance to physically prove it in Washington D.C. and all over the nation. Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latino, Caucasian, Transgender, Gay, and Straight Americans, walking side-by-side, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, peacefully up Pennsylvania Avenue, marching for our daughters, our sisters, mothers, grandmothers and our great-grandmothers who fought for so long for our rights and the rights of future generations -- long before Reality TV, Nielson Ratings, algorithms, Twitter and Donald Trump.

    Women will continue to rise up against oppression, and the men who support us have our gratitude, because there will undoubtedly be more men like Trump who’d like nothing better than for us to keep quiet so their voices are the loudest in the room. But our First Amendment rights define us as a nation, and we are blessed with the opportunity, the responsibility, and the privilege to speak up and uphold our Constitution, just as our law enforcement officers have the responsibility to do. May Officer Henkelman and her colleagues know just how much we appreciated their respect and their sisterhood during The March. Without it, not one of us could have made history on January 21. Marching forward, may we all remember how incredibly powerful it is to peaceably assemble and to petition the government, not just for women but for humanity.

 

Women's March on Washington D.C.  © didaink 2017

 

Raising Girls for Dummies?

She is poking at her thighs and belly in the mirror again when I walk into the bathroom after her shower. 

“Mama, why can’t I be skinny?” Gulp. BREATHE. Don’t panic.

But, I can feel the heat rising up in my chest. Here we go again. She’s not even nine year’s old! Which “skinny” girl at school said something this time? I want to know! Because I will sit on that mean little bitch with my big fat ass and make her appreciate the importance of kindness and diversity! Uh… I, uh… didn’t just shout that out inside my head and write it down on paper, did I? No. No, I didn’t. Phew! “Payback Mama” appears to have left the building.

“Did someone say something to you today at school? Was it Bella again?”

“No, not really. But, why can’t my stomach be like hers?”

Hadn’t she overcome this nonsense yet? Have I not given her enough love, enough pep talks, enough support to push out all that crap on the playground, the toxic put-downs that eat away at a girl’s self-confidence throughout the day? I thought I had made a dent in my daughter’s fragile psyche with my last speech just a few months ago. That speech was stellar, jeweled with every adjective I could think of at the time: smart, beautiful, unique, loving, talented, gifted, funny, creative, determined, strong, generous, gullible. Okay, I left that last one out, but now, I almost wish I hadn’t.  

“Honey, you are gorgeous exactly as you are. And you can’t keep believing what other people tell you about yourself.”

“She says I'm chubby and that my pants are too tight.”

Teaching your child to stand up to a popular girl with bedazzled clothes from a wannabe-Disney-set store at the mall is much harder than it appears on Wizards of Waverly Place. I don’t recommend that you try it the way it’s written on that show or on iCarly, because the episode usually ends with everyone hugging it out, agreeing to go shopping together, and then the whole thing starts up all over again.

Our last serious talk about body types came after another startling accident on the turnpike to pre-adolescence, an expressway I didn’t think we’d be driving down until age ten or eleven. I was minding my own business, picking up dirty socks from the hallway carpet, when I looked up and crashed right into my eight year old daughter posing in the bathroom mirror, sucking in her stomach so hard that all I could see was her rib cage sticking out.

What happened to my last textbook heart-to-heart homily about celebrating your body and its unique shape, loving every inch of yourself? It seems to have disappeared into the optical illusion that a parental pep talk can completely erase a child’s self-doubt and the outside influences that surround our children. Because here we are again back at square one, and I’ve read all the books. This time, I want a speedy fix to get through yet another learning curve about how to raise a self-confident daughter.  If only there was a Raising Happy, Healthy Girls for Dummies. But dummies can and do carry consealed weapons.

“We’re Italian.”

“Bella’s Italian too.”

“We’re Curvy-Italian. And you’re half Brazilian, don’t forget, so that makes you a gorgeous combination of curves and, well… curves.”

“But, I don’t want curves! I want to be skinny!”

It’s down and dirty time now. I am rolling out the big guns and pointing them directly at “skinny” with all the ammo I’ve got. My regular “good news/bad news” speech ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I was saving it for my poker face puberty speech, but pre-adolescent body trumps poker face puberty every time.

“Honey, I have some good news and some great news for you. Which do you want first?”

“What do you mean great news?”

“You heard what I said… “

“I want the great news first then.”

“You have curves!”

“What? Then, what’s the good news?”

“There is no bad news.”

“Mama…”

“Don’t Mama Mia, me. No one -- not a girl like Bella or anyone else -- is going to make you believe that you can’t be curvy and healthy, strong and beautiful.”

“You really think so?”

“I really, really, really think so. But, do you?”

“I do.”

I think I just married my daughter to herself… Curvy Italians aren’t that dumb after all, it seems -- for now, for today. I will need to find a tutor, though, to help me rewrite that poker face puberty speech. Clearly, it will require many aces up my sleeve. Hopefully, I still have a few more years to work on it. Either that or I’ll have to take a job in Vegas.

 

 

Amazing Grace

Today the temperature hit 102 degrees while I interviewed an eighty-nine year old Tennessean. She cried cool, forgotten tears then slowly wiped them away as they rolled past her tired-out cheekbones. She told me to call her Grace instead of Miss Grace when we first began. Me, sitting close enough to hold her hand now and then, typing as fast I can when she races up another hilltop of stories that can make the hairs on the back of my neck itch. 

She speaks with a voice that is just the opposite of what her name suggests. "Simple elegance and refined movement” could never capture or tame her -- she was and is much too free for that -- but her honest grit gives way to something waiting below, and it reaches out to me like a child that's been overlooked.

It is a gamble to listen to such personal things from a woman who says exactly what she thinks. My girlish instinct is to duck and cover from the words that fire from her seasoned Southern tongue. They shoot past my ears then echo into them like a misfired rifle. These grown-up fingers have learned, though, to type without judgment, and so they scurry across the keys and gather up her words as they fall. I roll the dice again and wonder what Grace will say next.

She throws a “Dad Gummit” out across the table, frustrated by things she cannot change now, then calmly lobs a “Pawpaw” to me with that certain Southern charm that reminds me why I am here – to listen, take notes and observe – all the while feeling privileged to be in Grace's company on this fiery June afternoon. Then, while she shows me pictures of her children when they were young, I watch the brutal Southern sun outside her bedroom window steal the innocence right out of the sweet blue sky.

On my drive home, cool air soothing my face and neck, I think about the day she learned to shoot her first gun, “A beautiful .22,” she said. She was seven. It was 1929, the beginning of The Great Depression. The same year her mother died.

I drive past a giant Magnolia tree and it sparks an outline of a wiry brown-haired girl in heavy black boots and a plain white cotton dress.  She is walking alone, setting out into the lush shady woods of Tennessee to escape the burning afternoon heat -- her sandwich in one hand, her gun in the other, her Daddy’s dog by her side.

Now, I am beginning to understand. 

 

 

Asking your kids about Osama bin Laden via The Incredible Hulk

Last week I read Peter Hartlaub's piece, Telling your kids that Osama bin Laden is dead, on SFGate.com. Peter is a well-known San Francisco journalist who also writes "The Poop" -- a parenting blog for SFGate, the online affiliate to The San Francisco Chronicle.  

In his blog post, Peter asked some interesting questions about how to feed the news President Obama gave us about killing Osama bin Laden to your (young) children, “Do you get proactive and have an Osama bin Laden is dead discussion?” he asked. “Do you undergo a news blackout in your house? Or do you sit back and wait to see if they ask?” 

One approach Peter didn’t mention was this, “Do you ask your child what they would do if they had to stop a bad guy or a bully who wants to hurt other people?” Most young children already know the “bad guy vs. good guy” plot very well from everything they’re fed in our culture of fairy tales, countless Disney movies, and massive amounts of consumer branding.  

And even though I liked Peter’s approach about being honest and answering your children’s questions without telling them the gory details about Osama bin Laden and his death, I digress... I would much rather discuss the birth of the new robins in our backyard. Cowardice maybe, but my children are four and seven and in their world baby robins hatching out of tiny sky-blue eggs right above their heads (the robin’s nest is tucked under our roof atop a drainage pipe) is still a “headliner.” Literally.

Last week, however, I did raise some serious questions to my younger child, my son, who is always quick to tell me exactly what he would do in any situation. He also recently revealed in his preschool "All About Me" book his secret wish: a gun for his fifth birthday. Mmm hmmm.

I decided to use The Incredible Hulk movie with Edward Norton as a segway into the topic, probably not the best use of analogy, but something I knew was still fresh in his mind from an episode that played out in our house just a few hours before President Obama came on television to announce that bin Laden was dead.

We were about to sit down to a “family” movie when I went to get something from another room and left my husband in charge of putting on Fantasia. When I came back into the living room, I found them all watching The Incredible Hulk on cable. Uh… Okay. How it went from Walt Disney’s Special Edition of Fantasia to The Incredible Hulk is still not quite clear to me. The explanation my husband gave was, “It’s The Hulk,” which sounded a lot like, “Everybody loves The Hulk, Honey... Duh.”

“Come on, Mama, it’s The Hulk,” my son reiterated. Even my Disney on Ice daughter forgot all about Fantasia and the dance of the sugar plum mushrooms she loves so much, “I'm not scared, Mom. It’s just pretend.”

After a few very long stink-eye glares, my husband eventually switched back to the DVD player and Fantasia played for the next hour, much to my son’s chagrin. But, he also loves Mickey Mouse so he settled down pretty quick… funny how an animated mouse from the 1930’s and a giant green monster-man, dodging grenades, can balance each other out.

So, last week, after contemplating Telling your kids that Osama bin Laden is dead, this is the discussion I had with my four and a half year-old:

“So, did you like The Incredible Hulk movie Papa let you watch yesterday?”

“Yeah, I love The Hulk.”

“So, was The Hulk the good guy or the bad guy?”

“It's The Hulk, Mama… he’s a superhero!”

“Then why were the soldiers trying to hurt him?”

“They were bad soldiers and they were ruining the city.”

“Oh… So, what would you do if a bad soldier was trying to hurt someone or ruin your city?”

“I’d just punch him in the nose.”

“What if that didn’t work and he kept trying to hurt people, innocent people who weren’t doing anything wrong. Then what would you do?” 

“I’d karate chop him.”

“But, what if that didn’t work and you really had to stop the bad guy, or even kill the bad guy, to stop him from hurting more people?”  

I didn’t want to use the word, but out it came... Up until that moment, I had said to my son that “kill” was an awful word and that I never wanted to hear him say it again after overhearing him use it on the playground while playing Star Wars.

Up until that moment, I had thought that avoiding violent words was the best thing to do when teaching my son about compassion and responsibility – the best way to handle complex lessons about the stinging reality of his future world, a globe spinning with mixed messages and very real guns and ammunition. Then all of a sudden I found myself asking him about killing someone, “the bad guy,” realizing that with that suggestion I was potentially raising a boy who might become one himself… After all, the night before he was embracing graphic military warfare, cheering on The Hulk and bullets and firebombs for ten high-definition minutes. I squeezed my hands shut and braced for what would come out of his mouth next.

“Mama… then I’d just call the police, and they would take him down to jail.”

It’s a Disney ending, but I am mercifully relieved to hear my son choose it over the alternative.

 

Are letter grades the reason teens cheat?

“So why did you cheat, Lila?” I asked.  Lila is an A student and a soon-to-be senior at Palo Alto High School.

 “To get a good grade,” she confessed.

“How would your parents react if you told them?” (Both parents are graduates of a prestigious Ivy League university and both are high-earning professionals in Silicon Valley.)

“They’d be shocked.”

“Did you cheat in several classes or just one?”

“A few,” she admitted, her warm brown eyes low and lost.

“And do you remember anything that you learned in those classes?”  I asked.

“No, not really… except maybe how to cheat.”

What are the Lila’s of Silicon Valley telling us about their world and the letter-grading system?  What has the need to get an “A” done to them?  Is it, in fact, the prime reason they cheat?  Are college admission offices really seeing then the truth on high school transcripts and SAT scores or are they often evaluating a carefully concocted lie?  If so, what are parents, schools and higher education doing to change the status quo?

Questions like these have been tapping me on the shoulder ever since I read Denise Pope’s book, Doing School.  Her book resonated with me, especially after I overheard another teen last year (also an A student and a top athlete) casually talking about how he’d cheated his way through various classes in high school that he thought were a waste of his time.  He and one of his college grad friends were rapping about how dumb you’d have to be not to cheat if a class was boring or you didn’t like the teacher.

So, last month when Stanford Law School announced that they are doing away with the traditional A-F grading system (following the lead of other elite law schools like Yale and UC Berkeley), I decided to take a closer look at the letter grading system at the high school level in our community and even at the university level.  

Innovative undergraduate programs at schools like MIT, Reed College in Oregon, Evergreen State College in Washington, and New College of Florida (NCF), as well as UC Santa Cruz, have also incorporated broader grading systems which include individualized performance evaluations, with the focus off grades and back on a more personalized approach to each student’s learning experience.

Will Stanford Law’s decision influence Stanford’s undergrad program to take the focus off grades?  Are these ‘out-of-the-box’ approaches working?  Are students really challenged and motivated?  Could they actually learn more and enjoy college more without receiving or knowing what letter grade they were given by their teacher?

Now that my own daughter is about to start Kindergarten, dangling her innocent feet into the icy cold waters of the American public education system, I have finally decided to begin my quest to unearth the answers to some of these questions.  I have begun by interviewing teens at Palo Alto High and Los Altos High, and even Stanford freshman.  

I’d like to hear from them first.  What do they think about what Stanford Law has recently done to improve learning and take the focus off letter grades?  What changes would they make at their own schools to improve how they’re graded and evaluated?  What would they tell their parents if they could about the pressure they’re under to academically achieve? What if they came clean about cheating, what would actually happen to them? Has cheating, in fact, reached epidemic proportions because of the need for the "Almighty A”?

I recently spoke with author, Denise Clark Pope PhD, a leading researcher and lecturer on the subject of pressure to compete and achieve in high school.  Her book, Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, openly talks about how we have created a culture and an education system where kids are doing whatever it takes to get the grade and win the attention and the recognition of their parents and teachers, but at the cost of their own well-being and self-respect. 

Dr. Pope is also a lecturer with Stanford University's School of Education, where she founded and directs Challenge Success, a national research and intervention project for K-12 schools.  Because her work has inspired me to explore the topic more closely, I wanted to ask Dr. Pope’s reaction to Stanford Law’s move to take the emphasis off grades and place it back on learning.

“Do you think that the law school’s decision will truly impact or change students’ overall learning experience?”

“Students who are grade-oriented will most likely continue to try for the Honors or “H” status because that’s their mindset, but many students just want to focus on the work instead of the grade,” she replied.

“Will Stanford University follow suit and change their grading system?”

“I know that a few folks have suggested doing what MIT has done – not grading first year students or at least not grading the first quarter of work.  The idea being that it is such a big transition from high school, not wanting to overload incoming freshman with grading anxiety but rather saying, ‘Here, let’s get your feet wet first.’”

In the final pages of Doing School, Dr. Pope speaks about the need to listen to high school students before we can even begin to change or impact their education successfully.  If we don’t listen to teens and their ideas about how to improve their learning experience, how will we begin to understand how to reach each student emotionally?  And without reaching students emotionally, truly understanding what they care about, there is little hope for reigniting their passion for learning and discovery.

There’s no telling how long cheating has been going on in the classroom.  In 2005, a Duke University study revealed that 75% of all high school students cheat in the United States and if you include copying homework, it climbs to 90%.  Last year, in Reagan McMahon’s article “Everybody Does It,” (SF Gate, September 9, 2007), Dr. Pope states that 80% of honors and advanced placement students cheat on a regular basis because they have more to lose if they don’t cheat.

So, how does Silicon Valley rate? Have we here in the privileged backyard of Stanford University done a better or a worse job at over-loading and stressing out our youth?  What would students really say about cheating to get the grade when they aren’t being threatened or judged by an authoritative adult in their lives?  Do they feel it violates their integrity or self-respect?  A little?  A lot?  Can they articulate that yet or does that come years later, after they’ve received their college diplomas by hook or by crook.  I hope to share my findings in the coming months.

 

Let’s step back a bit, though, to 1983 -- twenty-five years ago.  (Okay, that’s quite a few steps back.)

It was a pivotal time, not just in my life and my education, but also for technology and the world we know today in Silicon Valley.  1983 was the year I would graduate high school, the year before my father would die, the year before Steve Jobs would present to the world the first desktop computer – an amazing 9” screened, black and white Apple Macintosh.  I wouldn’t know it yet, but I would do the same thing at the University of San Francisco that Steve Jobs did after his first semester at Reed College.  I would leave college and begin to love learning all over again.  Jobs would eventually become one of my heroes, a self-directed innovator who saw a vision of the future because of a profound love and passion for discovery in the present.

Twenty-five years ago when I was a senior in high school, it would have been me, instead of Lila, giving the same answers to those questions.  It’s no big secret -- cheating in school and lying to your parents strolled hand in hand in my generation, too.  But it seemed much more sophomoric, especially when Ferris Bueller and Tom Cruise in Risky Business made lying to your parents and teachers look so fun and glamorous, particularly in your skivvies.

Like Lila, though, I also had very academically successful parents.  The expectation in households like Lila’s and mine were set by our parent’s achievements, and with high achievements comes high expectations and insurmountable pressure to compete and please.  However, in the Eighties, it was generally the kids who never did well (mostly “the jocks” in my high school) that were cheating off the kids who studied hard and always did well (“the geeks,” as it were).  Today, it is the “smart” kids who are leading the way, caught up in a broader spectrum of pressure from home to do well at everything – academics, sports, social-clubs, music, band… and the list or beat goes on.

During the Eighties, teens fell into clearer categories than they do today, and it was the students mostly, not their parents, pushing for more extra-curricular activities.  Parents today know that leading universities want youth who are unique, students who stand out both academically and socially, and that’s why they’re pushing their children harder.  Is this healthy? Is it helping their kids?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What would parents do differently if they knew how much their kids cheated to keep up?  What would parents say if they knew that cheating is now considered among their A-student children to be a very helpful, time-management tool?

Eleven out of the twelve teens I’ve interviewed so far admitted to cheating or helping others cheat.  Each said that the number one reason they do it is because of pressure from their parents to get a good letter grade.  The second reason, they said, is because they don’t have enough time to study and cheating makes their life a lot easier and manageable.  The third reason is pressure from friends who may drop them socially if they don’t let them copy their homework or cheat off their test.

Do they consider cheating to be wrong or a big deal?  Not really or at least not until they get caught.  But that almost never happens.  Why is that?  A seventeen year old from Los Altos High put it this way, “Because the people who do it are really smart and good at it.”

I was particularly bad at cheating in high school, which gives you a fairly good idea of my academic skill-set, although, I did try… many times.  I was no different than any of the teens I’ve interviewed.  I just don’t remember cheating being “no big deal” or ever casual.  What I remember was almost throwing up during my SAT exams, doubled-over in pain, thinking that my whole life and future teetered on the outcome of those English and math scores.  The fear and pressure that consumed me as I walked into that auditorium flapping with Flock of Seagull haircuts came from parental pressure to succeed academically, but it also came from a strong desire to impress my parents and family to gain their respect and attention.  Sad, ironic and true.

Coming from a strong academic family, letter grades and SAT scores were everything (both my parents were educators, however neither of their parents went much past the 4th grade in school).  Because my parents couldn’t afford private university for their eight children on a teacher’s salary, academic scholarships were expected.   So, the thought that I might just be an average student with a creative, artistic streak was not an idea that was easily entertained or accepted.  “Average” and “creative” were code words for “failure” – not just for me but also for my parents.  And talking about happiness without academic success was just not in my parent’s vocabulary or probably in any book or thesaurus they may have consulted on the subject.  Academic achievement meant better opportunities in their generation.  It meant better pay, better jobs, better houses, better appliances, better cars, better families and better children… and, of course, it still does.  However, being better doesn’t actually mean happier – not then and certainly not today.

Had I just been able to make out the answers on Lawson’s test form (Lawson was my calculus-loving, former 3rd grade boyfriend, who had a functioning car and offered to drive me to take the SATs) I would have whole-heartedly cheated that day.  Without a doubt, I would have cheated my way into a bright and shiny new college education.  Fortunately for me, though, little Lawson turned out to be a 6’5 giant at seventeen, and his exceptionally long basketball arms blocked all the answers I so desperately wanted to call my own.

Thanks to Lawson and his gifted arms, I didn’t get into Stanford like one of my older sisters who was awarded a full academic scholarship.  No, my path to learning and education would be different – maybe even more challenging and gratifying than studying at an elite university.

(If you’d like to read more about Dida Gazoli’s research findings regarding the letter grading system in Silicon Valley and what teens and their parents are saying about it, email her at [email protected])

 

A load of success: confessions from a middle-age mom

Much like my Catholic mother who had eight children by the time she was forty, I started my day today as I do most every day -- I prayed. Unlike my mother, however, I am 6 and ½ children short, haven't been to church in over five years and my prayers these days are mostly about bacon. Please, God, please don’t let me run out. I also pray that the clock will say 7:00am and not 6:00am by the time I hear Elmo Potato Head’s, high-pitched demands.

“Elmo needs a nose. Elmo needs a mouth!”

Please, God, please don’t let her find it in the toy box so fast. And God? Is it a sin to throw out your child’s favorite toy?

I don’t mean to trivialize the power of prayer or talking with God on a regular basis. On the contrary, I am a firm believer in it. I would certainly be lost without it. The reality is, though, that when you’re forty-one, raising a two and a half year-old full time and pregnant with your second child, your ideals change dramatically. 

Take “success” for instance. Success this morning meant a ten-minute, hot shower instead of a lukewarm, two-minute rinse. Thanks to my husband, who was kind enough to gift me his shower. A few more long, hot showers and he’s totally off the hook for Christmas and my birthday. Valentine’s is still in negotiation.

Success today would also entail finding one last pair of clean underwear in my dresser. The chance of that happening, however, is not so good given that I can hear the Mt. Everest pile of laundry cackling at me from across the hall. My morning would radiantly glow with success if the dog completes both ‘little potty and big potty’ outside instead of inside, as Elmo's goofy pal, Mr. Noodle, shows my daughter how not to put on her clothes, while I fry up my contraband of bacon.

 Yep, you heard me, Elmo:  B A C O N.  In case you and Big Bird haven’t heard yet, it’s in the Revised Webster’s New World Dictionary under, “Success After Forty.”

 “Juice ME!” she shouts from the den. I better hustle in there before Barney starts up.

“You mean, ‘Juice, please, Mama.’  Here you go… Okay! So! Sesame Street is almost over and now it’s time for us to eat breakfast at… the table! Yay!”

My reasonably well-thought out, cheerful explanation is greeted with an operatically lilting, "No! Elmo LOVES me! Bye, Bye,” followed by the door-slam crescendo and mezzo-soprano cadenza, “BEE-YEE-EYE!"

It’s right about now that I wish for Elmo’s World to crumble and disintegrate into dust and for all of Sesame Street to hear what I hear -- glass shattering screams coming from our den. Hopefully, Hooper’s Store has lost all of its fine china by now, too. Let this be a lesson to the furry red guru who, in my humble opinion, uses the “L word” a little too often.

“Mama loves you more, my Tickle-Marie, so let’s eat breakfast. Mama’s got bacon…” I sing back to her through the door in my, I’ll be your best friend voice.

 And then the tide starts to turn my way again as the doorknob gently moves counter-clockwise. Somehow, I never pictured myself bribing my little bundle of joy with greasy, center-cut bacon when I was fantasizing about motherhood in my twenties and thirties. The truth is, success after forty is no longer measured by the size of my bank account or my wardrobe or by how good my voice sounds or even how good my hair looks. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’ve got the right moisturizer on or if I’m wearing designer shoes or flip flops, or that I never sang on Broadway by the time I turned twenty-five.

As I remember it now, my goal of starring in a hit-musical was actually replaced by my goal of having a roof over my head and having something other than pasta “al-burro” to eat. I never did spend any rainy summer nights playing Ronnie Scott’s in London in my thirties, did I?  But I did spend many foggy nights in San Francisco singing for close to free in no-name cafés where my scat solo was usually up-staged by the frother on the espresso machine. 

In the old version of success, my forties were going to be my glory years, touring Europe, performing for sold-out amphitheaters and reveling in the applause of my adoring French fans who just could not get enough of me and my avant garde, five-minute solos. Success before motherhood, Freud might have even agreed, was a lot like a gigantic, unreachable carrot, and I, a short, hungry bunny with an enormous appetite for ego soufflé.

Luckily, today’s version of success doesn’t seem to have much to do with me at all. As a beginner-mom facing her “glory-forties,” success now feels exactly like two-hour naps under soft fuzzy blankets. It tastes like a fresh cup of coffee from a clean cup. It smells like an oven filled with warm peanut butter cookies and oozing, glazed cinnamon rolls. And it sounds like a two-minute tantrum instead of twenty-minute meltdown. On most days, it smiles at me from ear to ear like a blue-eyed angel with sticky fingers and purple Popsicle lips. It might even occasionally peek through a streak-free window and land on a dust-free dresser, stacked high with clean underwear. And you can almost bet on it to cry out at midnight while you’re trying to eek out time to write about success. But, by midnight and a half, it calms back down in your arms, butterfly lashes fluttering then landing over closing, peaceful eyes.

One of my decade-younger friends surprised me recently by telling me that I am one of the few moms she knows that actually enjoys being at home all day. I have to admit that I never would have described myself this way. That sounds more like my own mother during the Fifties. That notion disturbed me, in fact, but is it true? Have I abandoned feminism and all the things I worked so hard to prove in my twenties and thirties? Was I more like my mother than I realized? I do like to wear red lipstick in the mornings just in case the UPS guy stops by... and I am always talking to God and/or Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost socks. But I've never even owned an apron, except for the one I botched in seventh grade Home Ec. class. 

Now I am anxious to find out the truth. Have I become a Betty Crocker wannabe? Do I secretly want to cook and care for an army of children like my mother did? Am I actually happier now, at mid-life, being a Stay-at-Home Mom? Is it more fulfilling than I had ever expected it to be? Or am I now part of an exciting new breed of mother – rediscovering and redefining success after forty? God? Are you still listening? Oh, please let there be more bacon in the freezer. And God? Have you seen Saint Anthony today? Can you ask him if he knows where I put that avocado-green apron from seventh grade? I'd search the garage, but I've got a snickering summit of laundry to fold.