What She’s Learning

My daughter, in first grade, is suddenly learning things that make her seem a little bit grown up to me.

On Monday, she bound me to my word with a pinky promise.

Last night, in deciding a contest with her brother, the eenie, meenie, miney mo chant ended with a “bounce back.”

Yesterday, in school, she discovered the Magic 8 Ball, which she promptly asked:

“Can I fly?”

Yes–definitely.

“Am I a real spy?”

Yes-definitely.

“Will I be a CIA agent when I grow up?”

Outlook good.

Of course she was ecstatic about the predictions since her life these days consists of codes and secret notebooks and solving mysteries.

But she also came home with a small box, distributed to all students from the Holy Childhood Association, which was to be used to collect coins during Lent.  The idea is like Greg Mortenson’s Pennies for Peace, but faith-based.  To be perfectly honest, I have reservations about mission work–I don’t believe that everyone is called to believe in the same way, nor that everyone is even called to believe, but I also know that terrific work is done in some missions to provide food, schools, homes, education, etc., and so I find the fundamental idea of the coin collection sound:  ask children to donate in a way that is manageable and tangible for them, with their own money, knowing that every coin they donate will make a real difference in other children’s lives.

I love that our school has regular service projects like this, where children contribute in community with their peers.  They understand that serving others is an important part of civic duty, that being aware of the larger world is a fundamental aspect of being human, and that their actions can absolutely make a difference.    I like that the message we try to support at home is supported explicitly by the school.

Of course, I am not arguing here for parochial or faith-based education for all (far from it), but I am suggesting that our experience offers two important premises for raising children with an ethic of service:  1) find a community, even a small one, perhaps only one or two other families, who can support your civic values and with whom you can volunteer/donate/act and 2) teach your children to donate directly–money or goods–in a way that makes sense for your family.

The side of my daughter’s box reads:  $3 buys 75 pencils for a mission school. $4 buys bread for ten children for one week. $5 busy mile for one child for a month, and Mortenson’s daughter puts it this way in the Pennies for Peace video:

My daughter is not selfless, nor would I describe her as an especially spiritual child, but she can be very thoughtful.  Immediately upon assembling the box, she went to her bank and collected $2 which she promptly dropped in her box without comment.   And then I remembered that each week, she brings her pink wallet to church to donate 25 cents, which I have never asked nor reminded her to do.  It seems like a small amount, but it is her money, and she does it unbidden, and it is, in fact, 25% of her weekly allowance,  which is far more than her father and I give.

Back to the Future

Yesterday, in the New York Times there was a  piece about the state of mind of the next generation, the one coming of age now, during this recession, that every day promises to be longer and deeper than we could have imagined.  How will the current dire economic straits affect them, psychologically? What will it mean for their job prospects, their attitude toward work and personal economy? Their sense of opportunity and possiblity?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, too, mostly in the form of long and angry rants about How We Have Come To This, and What Will My Children Inherit?

The last bit has nothing to do with money.   Rather, it seems to me that my children may very well grow up with the shadow of economic instability, recession, a legacy of greed and mismanagement that destablized what was, not so very many years ago, a stable and prosperous economy.  Should it take 10 years or so to pull out of this mess, they may live a good chunk of their childhood, into adolescence with the specter of a trembling economy.  They’ll see boarded up businesses, too many houses for sale, long lines of unemployed.

My daughter already knows, through her school, that our local food banks are running low on food (we’re trying to remember to donate weekly), that some people have lost jobs and houses. There is a large, very run down trailer parked not far from our home. We suspect someone may be living in it, but we have no hard evidence.  How can these facts not affect her view of the world? If the recession continues, how can its very real fallout not shape, even in a small way, her sense of what is safe and what is possible?
There is some evidence that diminished economic prospects can offer creative opportunities.  That less lucrative work might lead to a kind of generative freedom.  And yet, I find myself, sometimes, wallowing in the muck of wondering what will their future be, and how badly have we already screwed it up?  Can we reclaim that boundless sense of possibility that I so dearly want my children to have?

On the one hand, I know realistically that every generation will face its tribulations. But on the other, I find myself in the grip of that time-worn, protective impulse, one I didn’t even know I had:  I  want them to have it better.  Not so much better than her father and I have it, but just plain better.

President Obama: The Slow Blog

I realized a few days ago that it’s a little hard for me to believe that there is an Administration in the White House in which I actually believe.  I’ve been cynical and negative for so long that reversing that frame of mind takes conscious effort.

Ella expected decisive action, as did other kids. At the end of  Presdent Obama’s first full day in office, she asked, “Did he end the war?” To which I had to respond, no, it takes a long time to end a war, you can’t do it  in one day.

But while I have no doubt that decisive action will be made on this and other fronts,  I also have trouble believing that This Has All Come To Pass.

And then I wonder:  Is this the political equivalent of shock? Or post-traumatic stress syndrome?

When I hear President (!) Obama speak, I still have trouble believing his Presidency is real.  When I hear about the things he’s done right away, like signing Executive Orders to close Guantanamo, and CIA interrogation centers, and open up FOIA, and make service and citizenship a priority, and restore funding to international family planning groups, or his commitment to education, science and technology, or signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 2009 I’m inspired with possibility just as I was during the campaign season.

Of course things are a mess right now. But they would be darker if I didn’t believe that President (!) Obama will address the domestic and international problems with intelligence and plans for action, and if I didn’t believe the Administration will continue to rally all of us to do the hard work we need to do to get back on track.  As a friend of mine recently posted on my FaceBook page:

We (Dems) have the President, but the remaining Republicans in congress continue to make it very difficult to move on and change the agenda. We must all continue to support Obama, in his effort to turn the country around..

So, day by day, I’ll keep pinching myself, and finding ways to be involved, and one day soon, I’ll take Obama’s Presidency (!) to be as natural and obvious as Ella already assumes it to be. And that’s one of the beautiful things, isn’t it? That our kids will grow up knowing not much besides President (!) Obama.  This, I think, is how the new order should be for the next generation.

For our Party, we framed our Shephard Fairley print and placed it over our mantle. Now, over a week later, it’s still above our fireplace, and we don’t really have any intention of taking it down.  Kory & I joke that we’re going to be like one of those families in the 1960s who kept a picture of JFK hanging in the living room, right next to the Pope.  There won’t be a picture of Pope Benedict in this house, but now I think our kids just might grow up wondering what the heck was with us, their silly Gen X parents, keeping that picture of Obama up, year after year after year.

And maybe we’ll say it was to remind us of something that we had forgotten for a long time, and wanted never to forget again.

And in case you missed it…another important site

In his bid to make this Administration the most transparent in history, President Obama ( I can really write that!) has launched The White House, a new site that has all manner of great features: a blog, a direct link to the Office of Public Liason–so you can talk back, fun facts (not just for kids), a slideshow full of facts about all past Presidents.  Go visit. Bring your kids.

A New Activity for the Kids

Courtesy of USAService, instructions and a US address for making a Gratitude Package for Troops.  This is a great activity for young children, and one that they can do in large part on their own.

What We Did at the Inauguration Party

You can read about what we ate, which is always a big part of our parties, but for this party, I wanted to do something more, something that would signal to the kids that this was a slightly different party, and have them contribute something that they would remember.

So, we set out red, white and blue construction paper, a sheet of  “Dear President Obama, I hope…” stickers, a few baskets of red, white and blue crayons, and decorative star and American flag stickers.  The kids wrote their wishes for their new President, and I’m going to mail them to the White House along with a note and a picture of  all our guests.

Of course, I was hoping/thinking the kids would wish for things altruistic, like world peace, or an end to hunger.  But most of them wrote more general things like:

“I hope you have a great time in the White House”

“God helps you”

“You rock!”

“I love you”

“I want you to know that my family voted for you”

“People who do not have a home will have a home”

“You have proved that what matters is how hard you work”

“I love your daughters!”

Of course, when I thought about it, these are the kinds of things that are appropriate for 6 & 7-year olds.  (And, yes, most of them sat down and colored and wrote these cards unsupervised because the parents were busy celebrating, too…)   But for one thing, while these kids are pretty sophisticated when it comes to community service and outreach (a monthly event in their school and required for the upper grades), they are also just kids.

First graders know that President Obama is the first African American president, some know he looks like them, they all know quite a lot about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. But not having had much–or any–first hand experience with racism, and not truly and fully knowing the horror of the history of race in this country, the full impact of this election is, of course, lost on them.  As is the spiraling misery of the last eight years, or an awareness of the global crises in progress right now.

But this is a really good thing. Because theirs is the generation that will grow up not without racism or social injustice or global crisis but in what (I hope) will be a new era of hope, with a new attitude of possibility.

If we can be as hopeful in our support for this administration and our democracy as our children already are, this really can be the end of irony and disillusionment.   If we can hope and continue our involvement and hard work, in our neighborhoods, schools, cities, and beyond, our kids will learn more precisely what is possible for them and for their communities working together. And the whole country will benefit from a generation raised with different ideals and different attitudes.

Of course, this is good citizenship.  But it’s also good parenting.

What We Did on the National Day of Service

We decided to stay local, as that would have the most meaning for our children, ages 4 & 6, and there were no official events that were especially appropriate or safe for them. Also, because they’re so young, we decided against hosting something official, that would put them in contact with people we didn’t know.  We’ve just given a lot to our local food pantry through our school, and have 4 big bags of donations ready to drop off at a local home that provides education, support, and services for women and children, and we’d also donated every single book we don’t read anymore to a used toy drive right before Christmas.

Our goal was to get them thinking Not About Themselves for a day.

Given these circumstances, Ella & Finn decided they would clean up our neighborhood. But first they woke up and ate bowls of Panda Puffs, by Envirokidz, which is a decent way to start your day, aside from the relatively high sugar content, since the company donates 1% of its profits to saving said endangered animal featured on each cereal box, and features nifty facts and games about the animals.

Then, we each got bags and walked up and down our street and picked up trash. There was not a lot, but not none either. It wasn’t gross, mostly scraps of paper and recyclables, and we used plastic bags to handle things that looked very dirty.  On the way back, we picked up their bikes and headed to the park, collecting trash along the way. The kids were terrific, and I only felt slightly weird and virtuous picking up other peoples’ Juicy Fruit boxes while every other mother and father and child was playing soccer or pushing swings or doing things people do on days “off.”  No one bothered to ask what we were doing or why and we didn’t volunteer and our kids thought it was the most normal thing in the world.

All in all it was a small, quiet way to do something beyond themselves, and to introduce doing something as a normal part of their day.

After, they played at the park until it was time for lunch, and Kory and I sat on the grass in the sun and planned the party, and for a few minutes, everything was right in the world.

Just for Fun

Pete Seeger & Bruce Springsteen at the Inauguration concert.  I’ve been listening to both of them for, well, as long as I’ve been listening to anything.  Seeger was a good, old friend of WRL when I worked there, and, of course, a Civil Rights activist.  I remember, too, when Springsteen fans raised hell in the NJ State Legislature trying to get “Born to Run” named as the state song.

So it seems especially, impossibly that the music of my childhood, and adolescence, and turbulent activist years is now being sung for my children, too, and that it means the same, but also something entirely new.

MLK, Jr.

Of course you know the most famous bits, but take time to listen to the whole thing.  Remember why King, and this speech is so important.  Show it to your family.  It’s a good way to start–or finish–your day of service.

Inauguration Day

If you haven’t gotten the email with the new announcement about Inaugural events, and another call to participate in National Service Day, here it is:

You can sign up to host an inaugural ball, too, which we’ll be doing at our home, in small fashion, even though it’s a school night, and after soccer practice, and we will surely pay dearly for it the next day.  But it’s history, right?

I’d love to hear your plans and ideas for the coming week of service and celebration…