Looking to the Future

Getting one child alone with you in the car can result in some rare and wonderful conversations that just don't otherwise happen in the middle of bustling family life. Eight-year-old Alexander and I had one of those conversations the other day as we made the short drive to MSU. The topic was global warming and the future of humanity. We covered a lot of ground in 15 minutes! It should have been 10 minutes, but I got so engrossed in our dialog that I turned the wrong way a couple of times out of habit, thus lengthening our journey a little. :o)

Alexander started things off by casually observing that all our efforts to reduce pollution only seem to result in more pollution. We explored that a bit. He had a couple of mis-conceptions, but over all, his feeling that not enough change is happening is certainly valid. He very candidly said that he doesn't think we are going to stop global warming. He doesn't think we are doing enough, and he doesn't see people and businesses willing to do more. With all the happy talk directed at kids about "going green" and "saving the planet", this surprised me a little. It also impressed me as an astute observation for an 8 year old.

"So what do you think will happen?" I asked. He didn't know. We talked about pessimistic predictions, optimistic predictions, best- and worst-case scenarios, winners and losers, and points in between. I told him a little about peak oil theory and confessed my reluctant suspicion that maybe we should be listening more to the folks warning us to get ready for a very different way of life. He worried about being hot, but thought that the weather changes could be a boon to farmers in places that are colder now. While he expressed pessimism about our ability to curb global warming at this time, he is somewhat optimistic that humankind will adapt to the major changes that are coming, both through our behavior and with new technology. He is not very worried.

The situation may, perhaps, warrant more worry, but his outlook warms my heart. We need our young people to retain their optimism, even as they try to grasp the enormity of the problems. Whatever adaptations and technology come to our aid, it will be my son's generation (and those that follow) that will implement them and most benefit from them. They will begin -- whether out of intelligent foresight or desperate necessity -- to deal with the problems that their great-great grandparents started, and that their grandparents and parents refused to do much about.

The Fruit Bowl

Do people still have fruit bowls? Thanks to my husband, we do! A few weeks ago, he pulled most of the fruit from the fridge, stuck it in my big stainless steel mixing bowl and set the bowl on the dining table. Then he proceeded to leave little notes for us some mornings when he observed specimens going soft: "Time to eat the mango!" or "Time to eat the pears!" Lo and behold, we are eating more fruit! Above is our bowl after yesterday's trip to Horrocks. There are several varieties of apples, pears, avocados, mangos and kiwi fruit. Bananas are elsewhere so that they don't get bruised, and grapes stay in the fridge so Ethan doesn't help himself to a choking hazzard. Here he is hefting a blurry mango. :o)

The only downside? Having to dump all the fruit on the table when I need the mixing bowl for, ya know, mixing stuff. Otherwise, I highly recommend reviving the fruit bowl, at least for the winter months.

Too Much Pressure

"Mommy," Alexander approached me with the plaintive voice that means something is bothering him. "I need to decide what I want to be when I grow up." The enormity of this task was clearly weighing on him.
If you had asked Alexander at age 4 what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would
have rattled off a list of about 5 things, mostly consisting of the
usual little-boy fantasy careers: dump truck driver, fire fighter, rock
star. But now that he's seven, he knows that his options are wide open
and he has plenty of time in the future to explore what jobs he might be right for him. If you ask him now, his answer is a very age-appropriate "I don't know."

I knew right away where this was coming from. This weekend, Alexander broke his pinky finger. The break was close enough to his knuckle that the urgent care doctor wanted him to see a hand specialist to make sure it didn't require any extraordinary measures. (It didn't.) Firmin took him to the hand doctor on Monday. When they came back, Firmin told me about how the doctor seemed to have a bit of a fixation on Alexander's future career choice. Asking a kid what he wants to be when he grows up is standard doctor small-talk, but this guy seemed to have a hard time taking "I don't know" for an answer. "He kept coming back to it", Firmin observed. We found this strange and mildly annoying, but didn't give it much more thought.

Alexander, on the other hand, apparently took it much more seriously. He told me the doctor said he had "two weeks to think about it" and he's going to ask again when we go back for the 2 week check. (why???) Xan is all stressed about this. Sigh. All my good mom advice about ignoring such rude behavior from the doctor, and how much time he has, blah, blah blah, is falling on deaf ears. He wants to have an answer, but he doesn't want to just make something up. "I don't want to tell him a lie!" Ah, my sweet, sweet, child! How can I argue with that? So we did a little brainstorming this evening. He was surprised to realize that there are real jobs with the Lego company. He found that intriguing. (We even looked up some vacancies -- many in Denmark!) "Video game designer" was another possibility. He laughed at my suggestion of saying he was going to be a bum and never leave home, but he won't really say that, of course. I secretly wish he would. I'd love to see the look on the doctor's face when I backed that statement up with a proud, beaming smile.

The larger issue here is why do some adults think it's cute to put kids on the spot like this? A *7* year old must have a specific career ambition? Does he really think that or is he simply unable to see when he's making his patients uncomfortable with his clueless banter? Does he badger his adult patients about stuff they'd rather not talk about? (I doubt it, though I've met one or two doctors who are socially inept enough to come close.) Why do adults do this? This doctor is not the only example we've experienced of otherwise nice grown-ups treating children like this. They repeatedly ask questions the child is clearly uncomfortable answering, or they insist that the child try or do something they clearly don't care to try or do. I'm not talking about things that the child should or must do for a good reason, such as saying "ah" so that the doctor can look at an infected throat. I'm talking about nagging a shy child to show off for a group, or quizzing a child (not their own) on something they are studying in school, even after it becomes clear they don't enjoy the quiz. I'm talking about insisting that a 7 year old decide on a future career in only 2 weeks and expecting him to realize it's a joke, except it's not really a joke because he knows you won't lay off until he gives a convincing answer.

October 2009

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. I've been wanting to put up something of substance, but honestly, my brain hasn't been ruminating on much that is original lately. I've been getting into the homeschooling routine for this year, finishing up the garden (still don't have the garlic planted yet), running to sports practices and games. I guess all of that external activity is not good for introspection and reflection. I still think about things, but mostly they are things that are brought to my mind externally -- from reading or hearing a news item or someone else's thoughts about a subject. I'm not reflecting long enough to form many  new or interesting ideas of my own. This doesn't feel bad or wrong; it's just where I am right now. As we head into November and the natural world goes dead and dark, perhaps I will be able to turn inward and find something worth writing about. In the mean time, here are some scenes from our house in October. Missing are pictures of Alexander's flag football. I really wish I had some, because 7 year old football players are super cute. :o) I think all of the recent pictures of Alexander are on Firmin's iPhone and I don't know how to download them. My own hit-or-miss shots with the real camera will have to do:

This is a typical mid-afternoon scene in the living room. The older kids are off playing elsewhere -- perhaps outside or on the computer -- having finished their school work for the day. I'm in the kitchen. Ethan has finished his nap, had a little Mommy time, and will play contentedly by himself for quite a while. What you can't get from the picture is the background sound track: The Wiggles, most definitely!


Firmin has always loved spending special one-on-one time at the table with the kids while they are little. I think Ethan looks especially like Firmin in this photo. He always has, but this picture captures a more mature face than Ethan usually exhibits, so the similarity stands out all the more. Ethan usually looks much more toddler-ish -- more like this:

Friend Ann washing some of the 200 chairs stored in our garage for eventual use in the new Meetinghouse. Between the grime from their previous life and the dust from being in our garage for a year, the cleaning crew had their jobs cut out for them!

Even hard work is fun if you get to use a power washer!

Brianna's bookshelf. (Found this on the camera -- she must have taken it.) The top shelf is her "stack" -- the books she is planning to read, aranged in the order she plans to read them. Most of the stack is composed of library books. The bottom shelf is a selection of books that she owns. This stack is average to small. Since this picture was taken, we've been back to the library. Her current stack is larger than usual and fills the top shelf completely!

Pencil Peril

Quaker blogger and writer Eileen Flanigan has a blog post up that is mostly about finding time to write amid the back-to-school hustle and bustle. But tucked in there is a thought or two about using up old school supplies rather than buying all new ones each and every year. As homeschoolers, there is less pressure on us to get all new things in the fall (and we don't need many folders, etc. as there is no daily transport from one place to another required for most of their paperwork.) Pencils, on the other hand, have become an issue. Ethan (almost 2) has for some time now been fond of biting the erasers off pencils. He doesn't eat them, just bites them off, sucks on them for a few minutes, then spits them onto the carpet. Pink block erasers are strewn about the house but never seem to be handy when we need them, and end-cap erasers are a choking hazard for Ethan, so I've bought more new pencils in the last 9 months than in the previous 9 years! Environmentally unfriendly as it may be, it's actually kind of amusing when we step back and observe ourselves:

"Mommy!! Ethan's got a pencil with an eraser!"

"Quick, trade him for a bitten one!"

"He doesn't want it! I can't get it away from him!"

"Be careful yanking it away; if he lets go, you'll stab yourself in the face."

"But he won't let go! Arrgh! He bit it! Now I can't do my math!"

"Nice try. Just get a new pencil. I sharpened a bunch of them the other day."

Someday when Ethan gets older, he's going to wonder why we have 100 pencils in the house but NONE with an eraser. We can't wait to tell him...

Two Year Old Conversation

Scene: Ethan (nearly 2) jumps from the sofa and partly lands on his big brother, Alexander (7).

Ethan (bending over Alexander and looking him right in the face): Okay?

Alexander: I'm fine.

E: Okay?

A: I'm fine.

E: Okay?

A: I'm fine!

E: Okay?

A: I'm fine!

E: Okay?

A: I'm Okay.

E: Okay?

A: Yes.

E: Okay. (He climbs back up for another jump...)

Looking Up

I haven't gotten the low-down on the situation, but it appears our neighbor's grandchildren and their mother might be living with them. They've been frequent visitors in the past, but now seem to be around every day for the entire day. (Not sure what the school situation is either...) They are an 11 or 12 year old girl and a 15 year old boy. Brianna and Alexander have always enjoyed playing with them, and they seem to be good kids. The girl even takes time out to play with Ethan. I'm thinking of asking her to do some "mother's helper" work for me this summer if she's still around. I'm also impressed with the boy. He seems (from the distance I watch at) to have the right mix of youthful enthusiasm, older kid know-it-all, and big brother affection. Both Brianna and Alexander have significantly improved their basketball games by playing against him!

But now that they are around all the time, I'm thinking more about influence. They've moved beyond basketball and bike riding -- though they still do plenty of both -- to games involving more imagination and dialog. I've not seen anything to cause alarm; quite the contrary. But I'm aware that I don't see everything. I'm also aware that a 15 year old boy could have tremendous influence, for good or ill, on my nearly 7 year old son. I can tell that Alexander looks up to J. and enjoys spending time with him. Today, when I mentioned that J. was outside shooting baskets, Alexander left his computer game immediately to go outside and play. (A minor miracle!)

Our family has been blessed with good older-kid role models for our children. My sister's kids (now middle-schoolers) are wonderful, and the older children in our homeschool group and at our Quaker Meeting are also the kind of people I like to be around. However, this is the first time Brianna and Alexander are developing relationships with older kids that I don't personally know well. Their grandparents are good people, and they seem to be as well, but there is a level of trust and letting go that I'm not yet used to. So for now, I'll keep my eyes open and hope that these neighbor kids will be among the good role models who are showing my own children how to be the kind of kid a little one can look up to.

Random Pictures Just For Fun

Brianna and her friend Wren. The children in First Day School visited the new meetinghouse construction site and posted their hopes and dreams for the new building on the studs, so that they will be there behind the walls for always. (Click here for photos of the building progress.)

Dissecting an owl pellet takes concentration.

Our newest porch residents!
5 day old robins

Who knew a cold fire pit could be so much fun? Ethan looked like a little coal miner.

Below: Fun at the park

First Haircut

Firmin gave Ethan his first hair cut yesterday. I was worried he'd look too much older, and I'm pleased that the change isn't too drastic. He's still my baby! :o)


Before



















After

Casualty of War

I'm a little late on this story, but it has haunted me like few others from the past few weeks. Last week the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving a 13 year old girl being strip-searched by school officials on a tip from a fellow student that she might be hiding prescription-strength ibuprofen. As disturbing as the undisputed facts in the case are, I was even more shocked by the school district's reasoning, as stated in its brief and to reporters, in defending the strip search.

Here are a few passages from the NPR report I heard on the morning of April 21:

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn't see her fighting back tears.

(snip)

In its brief, the school says the fact that Redding was an honors student who had never been in trouble before is not evidence of good conduct, but only evidence that she had never been caught.

The school views itself as a protector of its students' health and safety, which includes protecting students from both illegal and over-the-counter drugs.

(snip)

"Children call their private parts their private parts for a reason. They not subject to exposure, to observation by school officials. When children are strip-searched, they experience trauma that's similar in kind and degree to sexual abuse," says Wolf.

School lawyer Wright counters, "We just have to ask ourselves, as a policy matter, do you really want a drug-free environment? And if you do, then there are going to be some privacy invasions when there is reason to suspect that those drugs are being dispensed on campus, that they're being used by students."

Here's what upsets me about the school's argument:

1) There was no presumption of innocence for Miss Redding. Indeed, the presumption seems to have been that she was guilty. They boldly assert that fact that she was an upstanding student who had never been in trouble only meant that she hadn't been caught. I shudder to think how they would have treated a student with average grades who had been caught passing notes once or twice. Imagine if the adults in your child's school consistently expected the worst from them and their peers, regardless of their previous conduct! Furthermore, do our children loose *all* their civil rights at the school door? I understand the need for some curtailment of rights, however this seems not only ridiculous, but shameful.

2)

"The school views itself as a protector of it's students' health and safety..."

Hmmm... Miss Redding suffered both emotional and phsyical harm (ulcers) from the strip search. But they made darn sure she wouldn't harm herself or any one else with ibuprofen pills! This infuriates me. Without a doubt, I would have experienced a strip search at age 13 as akin to a sexual violation. They did NOT protect her from the far greater harm. They inflicted it.

3)

"School lawyer Wright counters, 'We just have to ask ourselves, as a policy matter, do you really want a drug-free environment? And if you do, then there are going to be some privacy invasions...' "

Basically, they are arguing that a totally drug-free environment means "nerdy" 13 year old girls -- and thus everyone else -- are subject to strip searches on the flimsiest of accusations. Really on the basis of gossip alone. (Miss Redding was accused by a former friend who, in all-too-common "mean girl" fashion, was eager to prove her break from Miss Redding to her new crowd.) I say no. A totally drug-free environment is not worth that. My high school, a good, middle class, small-town school, was not drug free, but I felt safe there. Even if I had felt threated by some of the drug activity (which I did not; the drug-using kids kept to themselves), imagine how much greater my fear if I were given cause to believe that any whisper said against me could mean I had to take my clothes off in front of the school secretary?


And in case you thought it couldn't be worse, the school's lawyer asserted before the court that even a body cavity search -- a body cavity search! -- would be permissable in this circumstance. I kid you not.

I'm dismayed to read that the justices seemed to be more sympathetic to the school's arguments than to the girl's. Perhaps not surprisingly, only Justice Ginsberg seemed to grasp what kind of impact such an experience could have on a young girl. (It's buried in a long audio clip, but basically she responded to a male justice who insinuated that 13 year olds are often cavalier about nakedness. She chided that maybe 13 year old boys are like that, but 13 year old girls certainly are not!) In any case, the prevailing thinking seemed to be better kids be "embarrassed" than kids get killed. Seems like a stretch to me; we're talking ibuprofen, not anthrax. Even if the drug under suspicion were marijuana, I would want to see a higher level of probable cause for such a search. Drugs like meth, heroin or cocaine get trickier, but is there not room for *some* level of common sense?

I await the courts decision. If they come down on the side of the school, I will be less likely than ever to send my children to school. In any case, I'd have to take a good long look at their drug-enforcement policy, then just hope they don't exercise their "right" to violate my child. Nevertheless, my ability to protect my own children is small comfort in the face of millions of children who will not be so protected should the court decide that an innocent child's emotional well-being is a reasonable sacrifice in the war on drugs.