A SEASON AT THE PROMS

This is prom season in our town. The local newspapers feature photos of the various high schools with prom goers displaying their finery. I have noticed that each year seems to produce a certain flair of clothing. Gone are the simple elegant classy gowns and tuxedos. In their place are brilliant electric colors schemes with boys and girls trying to outdo each other.  There are singles, couples, groups. Mixing and matching clothing and mixing in whatever friendship combinations there are. All is joyful even if a bit bewildering to me.

My own prom experience is limited to three proms. First, the one for my high school.  I didn’t go. Why? Many reasons. Partly because I grew up in a conservative Protestant Church environment—no dancing. Along with no smoking, no drinking, no movies, no  ... whatever.

And I wasn’t asked. And back “in those days” you simply didn’t go to the dance unless you were asked. Things seem kinder now. At least I hope so.

Then, there were the proms each of my children went to. Sweet occasions, at least for mom. Watching this boy and this girl, who my husband and I brought into the world, whom we nurtured along the way. And cheering as well as dreading the impending arrival of adulthood. Our son working up the courage to ask someone. Our daughter looking so elegant in her gowns ( both of which I still have hanging in our basement closet). Watching them pull away from the house after the customary photos at home. 

How long have there been proms? I wonder if there’s a connection to the cotillions of days past? Or the debutante balls now opened up to all society. I remember working for wealthy Americans several summers while I was in college. Debutante balls, sometimes called coming out balls, where young women were “introduced “ to society, presumably to be on the marriage market. 

Parenthetically, I should add that high school proms are completely different from 

“Going to the Proms” a la London style. These summer symphony programs at the Royal Albert Hall are wonderfully celebratory. One of the few things on my bucket list (trust me, I really don't put much on my bucket list...seems somehow too limiting) is to attend the Last Night of the Proms--complete with "Rule Britannia."

Back to high school proms. I find it very heartening the way the binary assumptions are falling away. You know, boy asks girl in ever more elaborate ways. Girl accepts. Now I’m not sure who is expected to ask whom. And it is no longer obligatory to pair up. Now girl asks  boy, girl asks girl, boy asks boy, groups of boys and girls OR whatever. Why not? No one who wants to go to the party should be left out.

One of the most endearing experiences of my life had to do with proms. During my work career life, I was involved with health policy analysis and development. In that capacity, I attended a conference focused on the AIDS epidemic and what appropriate policies and actions should be in place to provide proper health care, support and counseling. 

Among the attendees were medical and health professionals, health policy people like me, and advocates for gay issues as well as people who were in fact AIDS patients. It was a rigorous and vigorous conference. One of the most astounding parts of that conference was sitting in a discussion group with health professionals and lay people. At a lull in the discussion, some of the gay men began talking about and reminiscing about buying their first prom gown. I listened in amazement and in silence, with a touch of jealousy. That memory heartens me, even as I rue my own teen years bereft of a season at the proms.

So, here's to the proms in all their glory and in all their permutations. Everybody dance now. 

What Can We Give our Children?

Perhaps you too have the perennial seasonal question around Christmas time...what can we give our children?  Of course, with Amazon each of them can compile a wish list, complete with selections that come from other vendors for which Amazon is the convenient place-holder.

But, prompted by some recent national news,  I've been thinking that there are other "things" we can give our children.  The news to which I refer is the detaining of the so-called "affluenza" teen and his mother. You may recall this woeful story. Two years ago, when a 16 year old, this young man and some of his friends stole beer one night, proceeded to get drunk, went for a joy-ride with some friends and lost control of the vehicle plowing into some pedestrians--killing four, and injuring nine other people.  When he was charged and tried with "intoxication manslaughter" his attorney argued that he had been so coddled by his wealthy parents, thereby being deprived of a sense of responsibility: the defense having been dubbed the "affluenza defense."  The judge bought it and sentenced him to 10 years PROBATION.

Two years later, a video began making the rounds showing this teen apparently drinking, in violation of his probation. Rather than FINALLY making him face the consequences of his action, his mother fled with him to Mexico--where they were caught last week.

So why this recitation of such a sad and depressing story?  Because it answers, in part, my question--what can we give our children.

Here's a list: 
(Feel free to add your own thoughts)

1. A sense of personal responsibility;
2. An understanding of the concept of the common good;
3. A respect for living things--creatures and plants;
4. A desire to help others;
5. A capability to exercise self-control;
6. A wonderment at the intangibles in life;
7. A love for music, literature, and the arts;
8. A joy in personal relationships;
9. Respect for one's own self

Oh, yes, I could go on.  Each of these thoughts listed is amorphous. Perhaps that is as it should be--we do, after all, have differences in the great vast complex family of humanity.  But the underlying bedrock principle is universal.

So, what can you give your children?

BABY TALK

Our daughter recently sent us a short video of our sweet granddaughter. Given that an ocean separates us, and does not facilitate a quick stop-by to see how she is growing, videos are such a great way to get little glimpses into this new life.  This most recent shows this 2 month old baby trying with all her might to vocalize.  Her mouth works to get into a shape to form words, her eyebrows lift as she really really tries to talk.  And, of course, these dear little ooohs and ahhs come out of her mouth.

Baby talk!  Isn’t it great?

Among the milestones we parents mark are the ways in which our children learned words, and then strung them together into sentences.  Parents record the first word a child says.  Many parents even save some of the precious pronunciations a child makes.  We still joke about our daughter saying CHIK-UMP for chipmunk.  Somehow, it seemed like a suitable renaming. 

A few years ago, I entertained the thought of pursuing a doctoral degree.  We live near a campus of the Penn State University, which offers a doctoral program in adult education.  Now, while I didn’t actually enroll in classes, I started to generate ideas for a possible dissertation topic.  And I came up with one.

I have been fascinated with the way we teach children language by reading or saying nursery rhymes to them.  Many of these rhymes are silly and sometimes nonsensical.  But they do help teach language by repetition, alliteration, rhyming.  So the topic I had in mind was to evaluate the correlation between exposure to nursery rhymes and language acquisition.  Of course, I did not get to a stage of collecting data, so I don’t know if there is a statistically valid correlation.  It stands to reason that the more culturally rich a child’s environs are when she is learning to speak, the quicker her language skills will develop.

For now, my hypothesis about nursery rhymes playing a critical part in language development will have to go unresearched, but maybe I can do a mini-experiment.  You can bet that I plan to get our granddaughter some edition of Mother Goose Nursery rhymes.  And, that I will most certainly read them aloud to her every chance I get.

Can’t wait to hear more baby talk.

A Tale of Two Cities

We have recently returned from visiting our son and daughter-in-law, who recently moved from Pittsburgh to San Diego. We had not seen them since they left the east coast. And now they are living on the west coast.

As ever, the ocean is a marvelous thing to behold. Two things can bear endless watching: a camp fire or fireplace, and the ocean.

We had spectacular weather while we were there--it was wondrous to leave the heat and humidity of a typical Pennsylvania summer, and experience the cool days with breezes blowing.

While we were there, we used Skype to have a sort of family reunion--talking with our daughter and son-in-law who live in London. Yes, that London.

Not long after we returned home, the news began breaking about a sudden up-swell of riots in Tottenham, a section of London. As if someone splashed gasoline on smoldering embers, the riots bloomed and spread through various parts of London. Then it morphed again, and spread to other cities in the UK.

View Initial London riots / UK riots in a larger map

The map above gives some sense of the extent of these riots.

It is always hard to be a parent when your children live at a distance from you. But, it is even harder to have them literally a continent apart and away.

It really struck me that there's a sense of revisiting, in contemporary terms, what Dickens was writing about in his classic A Tale of Two Cities. Of course, then London was the stable city, while Paris was the city on fire.

I am hoping that calm is restored soon. And even though we are thousands of miles from our children, we too can regain our calm. But, as we wait for calm, I also recall the moral of another English novel--The Lord of the Flies: the veneer of civilization is very thin indeed.

Sleuthing?

NBC recently aired a special on various "commercials" that had aired over the years on Saturday Night Live. It provided me with a welcome evening of laughing, and also reminiscing as old faces popped up--Gilda Radnor, John Belushi among them.

One commercial in particular struck a most topical note--it was for a product that turns teens' posts on Facebook or their text messages on cell phones into Mom friendly content. The commercial was titled "Damn It, My Mom is on Facebook".*

In its wry way, SNL had poked fun at an issue parents today face. True, parents have always faced this issue--that is finding out what your children are doing, and whether or not as a parent you are ever justified in snooping.

Years ago, I knew of a mother whose family called her "J. Edgar" for her snooping ways. She rifled through their dresser drawers, she read anything she found in their room, she looked under beds, lifted mattresses and so forth. I can't imagine what she would be doing in the present world of electronic communication.

Where once the parental dilemma might have been "should I read that diary or not?" now the question is "should I friend my child on Facebook or not?" Some parents handle the dilemma, especially for pre-teens, by not allowing a Facebook profile to their children under a specific age. Some parents limit computer and cell-phone use.

Many advice givers intone sternly--make sure your child does not have a computer in her room; place the computer in a family accessible location. Or, don't give your child a cell phone until...or get a plan that doesn't allow texting. Or whatever.

I have wondered what it might have been like for my husband and me as parents to raise our children in this over-exposed electronic age. Our questions dealt with more passive electronic--should she have a TV in her room or not. It is with great amusement that I recall the dilemma of my own teen years--having a radio in my room. I listened late at night, turning the volume way down low so my aunt and uncle (with whom I lived) wouldn't hear--generally rock and roll was verboten.

What do parents today do? Whatever it is, I would venture that the temptation to be a sleuth still rises within each parental breast. I come down on the side of honoring your children's privacy, but being very watchful and attuned to them.

How about you?

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*By the way, you can watch the SNL "commercial" here.

Teach Your Children Well

A number of years ago, Crosby, Stills & Nash came to town for a concert. My husband and I got tickets, and headed off to hear them. While I still love the close harmony of this vintage group, the concert was a bit of a disappointment for me. Why, you might ask? Because they didn't sing one number that I just love: Teach Your Children Well. (I did, however, manage to buy a T-shirt with that logo and words on it at the concert.)

My daughter knows how much I love this song--a kind of anthem for someone who is both a parent, and a teacher! She made a gift for me for some occasion--birthday, I think--in which she rounded up various photos of me with her and her brother, and then she typed the words to Teach Your Children Well, and framed the whole combination. It still hangs on the wall in my office where I can look at it daily.

Teach your children well. . .

And feed them on your dreams
The ones they pick
The ones you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Two recent news stories got me thinking about these words. In a prior post a while back, I wrote how my husband and I taught youth Sunday School quite a few years ago. While our favorite means of engaging the kids was food, we did teach about other topics. One topic that came up was illness--and how Christ responded to people who are sick. Perhaps as a natural segue we began talking about AIDS, and sex education. After that lesson, one of the parents called us up absolutely irate that we would dare to broach that topic in church.

If I recall correctly, my husband got the call. He patiently, for a time, listened and queried the parent. The parent insisted schools should not touch the topic of sex education nor should the church. (Huh?) Besides, she said--her son was too young to learn about such things. Mind--he was in 6th grade at the time and had an older sister. I suspect he was already hearing a great deal about the topic. It came as no surprise to my husband and me that this young man and his girlfriend ended up getting pregnant just as their high school years were ending.

So, why am I writing about him. Well, a local news story of a day ago brought this news:

"Two ---- County men pleaded guilty to killing four whitetail deer out of season and firing in a safety zone too close to homes. Each paid fines of $2,340 and will have their hunting licenses suspended. . .The men were accused of shooting a pair of bucks on two separate occasions. Game Commission officers said the shots were fired as close as 75 feet from homes.

The illegal nighttime hunting, known as jacklighting, involves shining a spotlight at a deer so it freezes, making it a target. The game commission officer said dealing with jacklighting incidents takes up the bulk of law enforcement by wildlife officers. 'It's thrill killing,' he said. "

By now you are wondering the connection--well, this is the same young man. The one whose mother thought he was too young to learn about sex education, the one who got his high school girlfriend pregnant, is now the one who is a kind of scofflaw. Does it all fit together? Maybe I am being too harsh--but methinks someone did NOT teach this child well.

Second story--from the New York Times: entitled When Grandma Can't Be Bothered, this story broke my heart. First, let me say that I have not yet had the opportunity to be a volunteering grandparent, but I will most certainly volunteer, should the opportunity arise. Second, what I found heartbreaking about this story is that children need all the love they can get, and grandparents are a wonderful source of that love.

A study some time ago pointed out the benefits to children of available caring grandparents. These children thrive. They are taught well.

Well, I am done with this little reverie--now humming "Teach Your Children Well."

You gonna eat that?

Food is a marvelous teaching device. I have three specific examples to illustrate this point. All three come from my church involvement.

When our daughter was in her middle school years, my husband and I agreed to teach Sunday School. No other teachers came forward, and since we wanted our daughter to have a good experience in Sunday School, we volunteered. So for two entire years, we taught every single Sunday. I took the lead in teaching, and my husband was the disciplinarian. Keeping 5th, 6th and 7th graders in line was far more challenging than teaching them.

I learned quickly that they respond well to food. I remember two wonderfully successful classes where the means to communicating the lesson involved food. On a particular Sunday, the basic lesson had to do with "gifts of the Spirit": see 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 for the full text.

I wanted to convey to each child that no matter what he or she might excel in, all their gifts blend together to the greater good. So, I passed around a bag of fruit. In the bag were individual pieces of fruit--apple, banana, grapes, peach, pear, orange, and lemon--only ONE of each. The bag passed from student to student around the circle. Predictably the lemon was left to last.

After each child had a piece of fruit, I asked what they could do with their fruit. Well, eat them, they all said, except the kid with the lemon. So, I then suggested we could do something for everyone if they would let me work with the fruit. I then began to peel and cut up the fruit, saving the lemon for last. I took the lemon, cut it in half then squeezed the juice over the entire cut-up fruit, now in a large bowl. Of course, I mixed it all together--and pronounced it FRUIT SALAD. Then, we all had a good size helping. I think the "different gifts" got through.

Another time, the message was focused on how important it is for us to care for the poor. That Sunday, we brought all the items for breakfast along: small cereal boxes, milk, orange juice, and bananas. Then we gave each child an envelope containing play money. We had divided the class into a mini-world. Arbitrarily, we had one child be rich, several children be "middle-class" and one child be poor.

We had put prices on each of the food items. The "rich" child could buy ALL the items, the "middle-class" children could buy one or another of the items. The "poor" child did not have enough to buy anything. He was crushed. So, with a little prompting, the children figured out that if they redistributed their money, even the "poor" child could buy breakfast.

The final food lesson came out of a different setting. I was the stewardship chair for our church's annual giving program. Now, if there's one thing I HATE to do it's ask for money. I just have a really hard time. But I did light upon a way to illustrate the need to give. When I gave my main stewardship talk from the pulpit, I had ten apples lined up. I said--God gave me ten apples to use as I needed, and only asked that I return one apple to God--a tithe. So, I put 4 apples aside to pay for my house, I put one aside to buy a car, I put another 2 aside to buy clothing, I put 2 aside for food. Then I looked at the remaining apple. It was a beautiful nice shiny red apple. I turned it around in my hand, and then said--I will just take a small bite out of this apple. So I took one, then another, then another. Finally, I was left with just the apple core. Then I said--I don't have one apple left to give to God, so I will just give God this apple CORE. And then I sat down and stopped talking.

No other words were needed to convey the point.

Food--it's a great way to communicate a message.

Unauthorized Stories

In the blogosphere, there are stories and then there are unauthorized stories. A little while back my daughter brought to my attention that she and her brother discussed my telling of unauthorized stories. I had to chuckle at that, but at the same time take to heart the concern of family members that I not spill everything. Oh, I wouldn't do that.

But last Sunday, CBS Sunday Morning News did a story that reminded me of one of these unauthorized stories. CBS did a lovely segment on a Polish priest named Piotr Nawrot who went into the jungles of Bolivia to find lost Baroque music. If that description piques your interest, you can follow the link here to watch the whole story.

Every mother hopes to raise her children with a minimum of psychological trauma to their young minds. I certainly did. But something I did when they were in their early teens, or maybe younger, apparently seared them--at least they tell it that way. My children are now past their childhoods, my son in his 30s and my daughter in her 20s, and I believe they emerged from their childhoods unscathed--mostly.

You see, I love, make that LOVE, the movie "The Mission." This movie, starring a whole host of top notch actors including Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro, tells the story Jesuits missionaries in South America. Intent on spreading Christianity, and also part of the Spanish colonial outreach, the Jesuits went into the heart of South America, straddling what are today parts of the countries of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and set up 30 missions. The story of these missions is in itself fascinating, but to follow it I would wander away from the intent of this blog. You can follow the link to learn more.

I loved the movie so much that I thought it was a "must see" for my children. Since it came out in 1986, I likely had my son watch with me either the first or second time I saw it. He was in his teens then, so that timing fits. I was so ecstatic about the movie, I probably paid little attention to his reaction. I don't recall that he expressed any opinion about the movie, during or after watching it.

Since I had the movie on VHS, I could watch it again and again. When my daughter was somewhere in her teens, I said--you HAVE to see this movie "The Mission." And proceeded to persuade her to sit down with me one night to watch it. Later, she was talking with her brother. Now, I don't know exactly how that conversation went, so I won't recreate it. But apparently at some point, perhaps she said something to him about the movie. And her brother laughed and said--oh, did Mom make you watch the movie, too. A knowing shared moment between my children--the trauma that their mother put them through. Haarruummmpppphhhhh. I do not inflict trauma on my children--I introduce them to. . . culture.

Oh well, so they don't share my love for this marvelous movie. I will hasten to point out, the movie is not for the faint of heart, or stomach. The final scene is absolutely wrenching. In history, the Jesuits over-stepped their bounds. They were frequently doing that, and to slap down their influence, the Pope agreed that some of the territory where the missions were located had to be handed over from Spanish colonial control to Portuguese colonial control. The process was not pretty.

Now, what is the unauthorized part of this post? Well, telling this story of course. But, I contend that these are not just stories about my children. They are my stories too, even when the punchline is on me. So, how can they possibly be unauthorized?

Ah, Spring!

I am not one of those people who is just itching for cold weather to scoot and for spring to arrive. I know spring leads to summer with its heat and, frankly, I am mostly a cold weather person. The winter this past year has been most peculiar in the northeast U.S. We had a warm December (in fact, my husband MOWED on December 1--no kidding!), a warm January, then WHAM! a really cold February and mostly a cold March.

Plus we had two crazy snow storms--a Valentine's Day snow which ruined many romantic dinners, not to mention restaurant business, where they count on those dinners. And then the St. Patrick's Day snow which ruined many parades. Commerce has been taking a beating from the weather--first not enough snow, so snow blowers sat unbought, anyone who depended on snow-plowing for income was stuck; then too much snow. Remember, I live in Pennsylvania of I-78 fame--trucks and cars stuck for DAYS because state agencies couldn't decide what to do in a snow/sleet/freezing rain storm.

But today swept away my lack of longing for spring. It was a lovely warm but sweetly breezy day.

It was the kind of day that you could hear the voices of children as they poured out of houses to play, and take new puppies on their first walks around the neighborhood.

It was the kind of day where you could hear the waves of geese long before they hove into view, with their long V formations, heading north.

It was the kind of day where you could hear a raucous chorus of birds chirping all over the neighborhood. I watched an aerial display of two robins--courting? fighting over territory? or just giddy with warm breezes.

It was the kind of day where if you listened very carefully you could hear crocuses (croci?) popping out of the ground and opening, along with grape hyacinths.

It was the kind of day where you could almost hear the earth sigh contentedly as the sun slipped behind the western houses in the neighborhood.

It was the kind of day where as evening approached, I slipped back in the house, having popped in and out in response to all the wondrous noises and sights outside.

There are probably thousands of poems about spring, but here is a lovely one by Katherine Mansfield called "Very Early Spring":

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky—
So many white clouds--and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears....
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

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Welcome, Happy Spring.