Sunday breakfast: somebody loves me!

Mr. Monk surprised me with a nice, healthy breakfast, much healthier than I prepare for them...

He has been trying to mother me lately:

Are you driving over the speed limit?

Why do you drink so much coffee?

You should have brrrkfast every day you know.

And, this is the best one:

Why are you returning those shirts? I bet they look lovely on you!

Now the Fedora is gone, we are into Berets...

For the longest time my youngest had a Fedora, and he did wear it throughout the last winter despite my initial prediction that it would only last one week. It was adorable when he tipped his hat to greet the ladies,

"How'd you do, Ma'am?"

You are allowed to do all these things when you are only 5 or 6. Even wearing a beret...

Since we left our fedora behind on our trip to Taiwan, Mr. Monk has been on my case of getting him a replacement. Recently, he started a campaign of acquiring a beret.

"Mom. I want to be an artist when I grow up. How am I going to be an artist if I don't have an artist's hat?"

Finally I capitulated since I did not want to be the mother who stifles her children's artistic aspirations. Thank goodness we found one on Amazon.com for $5 that he deemed acceptable.

Now he has been wearing that hat every single day. At first he also insisted on wearing his black turtleneck, complete with a plastic, colorful, "pipe" that came with the "bubble blowing kit".

Like I said, when you are 6, you get to do all these role-playing make-believe things, even in public.

I did finally put my foot down and said NO! to the turtlenecks when it was so hot this weekend that his face was all red from the heat...

Mother fail

Mr. Monk (my 6 yo boy) and I got into a fight tonight. The source of it is as always: his need to be close to me whenever we are home. Especially when it is close to bedtime and he's tired and I am exhausted. I finally lost my marble today and lashed out at him. Yup. Lashed out. I am still feeling shame and guilt from it, and am absolutely convinced that I will go to hell for hurting a 6 year old's feeling so deeply...

The funny, sad, guilt-inducing thing is? He still asked for mommy when it's time he go to bed.

In the midst of crying, sobbing, hiccuping, he said, "I am going to run away tomorrow."

Hell. Is. Waiting. For. Me.

I apologized for being really mean and we were on our way to reconciliation.

"Please don't run away. I would be very sad and worried if you do. How about the volcano of love?"

"It's shattered."

Those were his exact words.

Hell. Is. Waiting. For. Me.

"Oh honey. I am so sorry..."

"There is only one left now. But I am rebuilding them."

Sometimes I believe that I do not deserve Mr. Monk as he is more mature than I am. He is an old soul. It awes me and worries me at the same time. He seems to know how his mind works is different from his peers. While crying about how he's going to run away from home, he made this statement,

"I don't fit in. I am different. I don't fit in anywhere."

Other than holding him very very tightly, I was utterly lost for words. Motherhood fail.

The Ability to be Oblivious OR Is there a manual for the multicutural world we envision?

Warning: The following text contains ruminations on the color of our skins. If you feel uncomfortable discussing skin colors, wish that people would just stop obsessing over skin colors and go on with their lives, or believe that the insistence on talking about the colors of our skin makes the originator of the conversation a racist him/herself, there is nothing much I could do about it. But I thought I'd let you know since you may not want to read the following...

Like most kids, Mr. Monk, my 6 year-old, is fascinated by people that look different from him. The problem is, even though my children are half and half, Mr. Monk is able to “pass” if I am not around. His older brother, however, stands out distinctively and has experienced name-calling at school and at extracurricular activities, much to my chagrin and surprise.

Seriously. Which century are we in? BUT I also believe that my oldest will grow up to be stronger and more compassionate. It’s funny, or disturbing rather, how my children will grow up differently, shaped by how the outside world view them differently…

Despite my being an annoying PC Police, to my best intentions, I am utterly confused when it comes to educating the very young, especially my own. Even though I always wince whenever Mr. Monk refers to someone who is apparently not white by the color of their skin, I fear I may have lost my bearings…

The other day while I was trying to demonstrate to him that we do not refer to people this way and also to challenge why he does not refer to someone of Euro descent by saying, "The White Lady" for example, I asked him,

"So what color is your skin?"

"I am white." He said without even a pause.

Shock. I did not expect this answer. Well, when we discussed this before, in the context of Crayola rainbow of colors and how we, thank goodness, no longer refer to the “Peach” color as “Skin”, we had agreed that his was “Tan”…

"Hmm. No. You are not white. You are only half."

He started protesting. "I am white!"

“Ok. So what do you think mommy is?”

“You are white too!” (I am very obviously not and we both know it)

Now here came a moment when part of me thought, “I really should drop this. Maybe I should go back to school, take more child psychology and postcolonial theory classes, before we continue this discussion…”

Yet the other part of me insisted, “No. We have to discuss this especially when they are young and malleable and forming their self-identities.” Sometimes I think that if I were my mother I would hate me.

“Ok. Could you please tell mommy why you think you are white?”

“Because we learned in school there were slaves…” he stopped abruptly and would not go on.

Silence.

“Mommy. Are there still slaves in the world?”

Oh, gee. What is going on in that tiny head of his?

In the midst of trying to explain to him that in some parts of the world, yes, (WHY do I have to be so brutally honest with my children, I do not know. Damn liberals I guess…) but not in this country, Oh, god no, he does not have to worry about ever being enslaved, we dropped the discussion on the color of his skin.


Here is what I wish I had sometimes, with guilt of course, for myself and for my children:

The ability to be oblivious.

How do we learn Hip Lingo if we don't watch TV, OR What you don't know won't hurt you

6 yo offered to make me a "pocket" with paper.

"Is it ok if I use pink paper for you?"

"Pink will be great! If you use pink it would be HUGE!" Channeling my inner Paris Hilton for a second over there.

Puzzled look. "What do you mean it will be Huge?"

"Uh. I meant it would be awesome..."

Relieved look. "Oh. Great. I thought you meant the pocket would become Really Big if I use pink..."

Bonus Round: My son, the Statistician...

"Mom, I think you will be the first in the family to die."

"Why?"

"Because you are the oldest. So there will be a 100% chance you will be the first to die, and 90% chance for daddy to be the first to die, and 0% chance for me to be the first to die."

Bonus Round II: Learning human anatomy...

Overheard 6 year-old to 11 year-old:

"Do you know your wiener is not your guts? Your guts are here" (pointing to his tummy)

My mommy cooks. My mommy cleans. My mommy loves me.

It is almost a month since Mother's Day and therefore I figure it is safe to ruminate out loud what I thought when I saw these loving and lovable pictures drew by my 6 year old, with lots of love, without the risk of being accused as mean-spirited, bitter, spoiled, jaded, or worse, unfit-to-be-a-mother…

Turned out that my 6 year-old was more excited about Mother's Day than I was. The weeks leading to Mother's Day they had made so many arts and crafts projects at school to celebrate this day, and he was instructed to keep all these projects a secret until THE day so he could surprise me. Bless his heart. I am surprised that he did not burst from all the secrecy, and the trouble of keeping a secret from your mother when you are only 6 years old.

We had gone to the store in April when he decided that he needed to get me a Mother's Day present. He was rather upset since he couldn't figure out a way of getting anything without my knowing it.

He burst into tears when I saw the bag of chocolate he's holding.

"You are not supposed to see this."

"What? I don't know what you're talking about…"

"This! This is your Mother's Day present. Now Mother's Day is ruined! And it is all YOUR fault!"

"Honey. How about this? Mommy will pay for it and then you can hide it and I promise I will forget about it."

"No, it won't work!"

It took me an hour to calm him down, to convince him that yes indeed, I would erase the memory of this exchange from my brain.

When he proudly presented me with the book that he made at school, a book comprised of "Things my mommy does, and therefore I love my mommy" vignettes, I was really moved. Really, I was. He was beaming with pride, and naturally, I was beaming with pride too.

But later, it did give me pause to think my role as a mother. How I see myself and how I am perceived by my children, others, the world.

1. After 20+ years of education, this is what I am boiled down to: cooking and cleaning.

2. My job sucks, at least in my child's eyes. If I were a hod dog vendor, or a street musician, it would probably be easier for him to draw "What my mommy does at work." Truth be told, and in all fairness, he has attempted many times to understand what I do at work.

"So you work on the computer... But what do you MAKE?"

A conversation with him about my job always results in days of self-doubt in me...

3. Perhaps in all fairness, cleaning and cooking could be what he sees me do all the time. Is it telling that he did not draw "My mommy does the laundry" since our floor is constantly covered with laundered clothes transported straight from the dryer? And bless his heart that he considers grilled cheese and mac&cheese straight from a box cooking. I guess it is true that what you don't know will not hurt you...

4. On the other hand, what if this is his ideal of a mother? A mom that cooks and cleans, while wearing an apron with a BIG smile on her face. So happy. So content. Perhaps this is a mother that he yearns for and not the harried, reluctant one he's stuck with? Staring at the big smile in these drawings, I somehow feel ashamed. Guilty.

5. This is the conclusion I am most reluctant to draw; it took me a whole month to admit to myself: Maybe, just maybe, I am not spending enough quality time with my children. None of the pictures showed me doing things with him.

If I had made more efforts in doing arts and crafts, if I were more willing in playing Go Fish, if I had offered to go to the zoos, the parks, the playgrounds more often, if I had said, "Let's go fly a kite" out of nowhere.

If. Perhaps he would have something other than cooking and cleaning to draw with.

Proof for Santa's existence is everywhere...

6 yo is listening to the Personalized CD (which guarantees that you can "hear your name more than 80 times!") that Santa gave him last year.

With great excitement, he came to me and proclaimed,

"Mom, do you know how I am so sure now that this CD is from Santa and MADE by Santa himself at the workshop?"

"Oh. How?"

"You see the back is glued to the cover with sticky tacks! What kind of stores would use sticky tacks to glue their stuff together?!"

So crappy quality is actually the evidence for Santa's handmade items.

A volcano of love... tis the cross for me to bear

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite."

- Juliet

Always thought this is one of the most beautiful descriptions of what it means to really love someone. (By the way, Romeo is an idiot. Juliet clearly is a better poet. But I digress...)

When I became a mom, I was surprised by the truth in these words. The love I have for my children is such that it hurts to think of the possibility of ever losing them. And unlike other kinds of feelings, a parent's love does not depend on reciprocity. We will always love our children no matter what.

But that love does not prevent us from getting impatient, annoyed. It does not stop me from becoming a mean witch from time to time to the boys. Stealthily self doubt creeps up sometimes: I wonder whether I do truly love my kids selflessly and unconditionally, whether I am fit to be a mother, after a particularly difficult day of dealing with bickering, whining, willfulness, obstinacy, and flaring up of the mild case of OCD, with too little time. My exhaustion more often than not stems from my youngest's refusal to let my husband take care of him.

Mommy is the only person he always wants.

Mommy is the person he loves the most, no matter what.

In this regard, I feel extremely guilty and am deeply saddened since there are more than one person for me to make the same claim of. Juliet's words aside, I lack the time to show the love equally to each.

On those days, when I put him to bed, I would hold my 6 year-old tighter and ask him to forgive mommy's temper earlier. And Mr. Monk, my 6 year-old, who has a way with words, would say something that at the same time shames me and absolves me.

"I just want you to know that mommy loves you." (even when she was behaving like a banshee...)

"It's ok mommy. I just want to show each parent a volcano of love."

Laughing out loud, I held him even tighter, trying hard to stifle the cry that's surfacing from my chest.

Sometimes I believe that he loves me more than I love him. And it worries me so....

p.s. Yes yes I know. Wait a couple more years and then he would not want to have anything to do with mommy any more... I will write a new post then....

We are like The Simpsons. Yellow like The Simpsons.

My 6 yo drew this picture of us today. This would be one of the 86,337 pictures drawn from the teacher asking "Please draw a picture of your family" before he graduates from high school. Surprised at his choice of color. But thank goodness that they no longer call the pale pinkish color "Skin". That's probably why he decided to go with a color that was most likely the closest to human complexion in the meagerly selection of crayons he has left - it is after all towards the end of the school year. I am surprised that we are not blue in the picture...

When they were younger, I pondered whether to be absolutely PC-crazy and shell out for a box of those fancy "People Colors" crayons from Lakeshore Learning Stores. I eventually decided against it. What are they gonna do with those crayons? Take them next to the person they are drawing to match the color? Like at a cosmetic counter when you are buying foundations? Or like paint chips you brought home from Home Depot?

Children are amazingly observant and they are not afraid of asking questions. This is what I have learned from my kids.

I guess tis a sign that Multiculturalism has become a big selling point when Crayola started selling something called "Multicultural Crayons". Kudos to them for trying. Something is a bit off however ... I cannot help but wonder at the colors.

Orange orange and red red? I think I will stick with yellow any time.

Note to Self: Buy ice cream for kid tomorrow. I look thin in the picture.

Parenthood makes me feel dumb

It is a cliche that children do not come with manuals. No education prepares one for parenthood. Sometimes I wonder whether a Jeopardy champion would make a better parent since they seem to be better equipped with answering completely random questions.

The series of questions and free associations my 6 year-old child fires from the back of the car often make me grip the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turn white, because they are not the usual questions of "Mom, why is the sky blue?" Nooo.

"When was [his daycare] built?"
"I don't know honey."
"The president of [his daycare] would know right?"
"I don't think so since there are hundreds of them."
"When was our house built?"
"2000"
"See you know the answer. So how come the president of [his daycare] does not know when my school is built?"
...

"Who is the most powerful? The governor of [our local village]? The governor of Chicago? Or the Governor of Illinois?"
"Well, I would say the Governor of the State of Illinois. But you know they are responsible for different things."
"Well, who is the most power? [The above list of people]? Or the governor of the United States?"
"You mean the President? I would say the President."
"But you said that he works for us. So how come he's the most powerful?"

"Mom, when do you want your Mother's Day party to be?"
"Hmmm. I was hoping that I could just relax. I don't really feel like a party since I don't want to clean up afterwards."
"Hmm, you should be like Obama's wife."
"What?"
"Remember how she went to ten parties* and she didn't even complain? You should be more like her."

* My guess is that he is referring to the number of Inaugration balls the first couple attended

Can't wait to grow up and I worry so.

People tell you that every one of your children is going to be different. They don't tell you HOW MUCH different your kids can be from one another. They came from the same gene pools, the same womb, grew up in the same household, and it amazes me how my 6-year-old boy has a much older soul than his older brother.

I sometimes wonder whether it is true that the questions asked by my youngest child have never been asked by my first-born, or perhaps I simply forgot. I am often caught off guard by my youngest's questions, especially those stemmed from acute, and sometimes elliptical, observations of people around us and life itself.

Earlier today he asked, "Mom, what does illegal mean?" "Hmm, it means against the law. Like it is against the law to steal."

"On my birthday, when it is legal for me to drink, I am going to drink a beer."

I laughed. "You do that."

Things that you should watch out when they were young...

My 6 year-old has been quite busy with our Xerox machine lately. I
didn't really pay attention to what he was doing, arts and crafts,
innocent child's play, right?

This morning, amidst the pile of strewn paper on the floor of my study, I picked
up the two pieces of Xeroxed "Honor Roll" award that his older brother
had gotten. I burst out laughing: So that's what he's been doing!

I looked around some more and found "forged" Monopoly money as well.

Do I have a master forger in the making on my hand?

Life seen thru a Kinder: Subway is now a form of measurement

Somebody should give the gal or guy who is in charge of Subway's "5 Dollar Foot Long" marketing campaign a raise. Oh, whatever. They are probably making a ton anyway. I don't worry about their financial health really. But when you see a genius move done by a corporation, that seems to be the right thing to say, even though the people may already be up to their ears in stock options.

Here is what my Kindergartener said last night:

MOM! I am 48 inches tall. I am FOUR SUBWAY FOOTLONG!

"Coffee makes grown-ups look better in the morning"

My 6-year-old proclaimed all of the sudden last night when he watched me taking off my face (make-up). I burst out laughing and asked him to elaborate.

"You look funky in the morning when you don't have your coffee. Then when you come home from work, you look pretty. And then you look funky again when it is bedtime. You and daddy just look better after you have your coffee in the morning."

Moments like this make me appreciate being a mother.

This morning when he woke me up though, he said, "You should go and have some coffee now. You look funky." I dared not ask him what he meant by funk-ee...

Ever woner the worst question your child could ever ask you?

I found out tonight. I actually have never even pondered this. But when I heard it from my 6-year-old today, I knew, in my heart, this has got to be the worst question a child could ever ever ask of you, the parent.

Not "Am I going to die?"

Not "What happened to (insert: any family member that just passed away)?"

Not "Where do babies come from?"

Not "What is SEX?"

Not "Are you and daddy having a divorce?"

Not even "Did you and daddy plan to have me?"

Or "How do you use a condom?"

The worst question, if your child asked you the same, your heart would drop like an anvil all the way to your stomach (pardon me for the cliche but I never say I am a writer), and you would have the sick feeling in your stomach, and you would know, with no uncertainty, that somewhere, somehow, you must have screwed up big time. You would wish that you had not yelled at him, had not snapped at him, had not taken your frustration at your own situation (oh, foolish foolish immature girl's dream that you would grow up to be somebody and not "just a mom") out at him. You would wish that you were more patient, had more time to spare, were more like "other kids' moms", were more content. You would wish that you were happy enough just being, well, you.

My child asked me, quietly, tonight,

Mom, do you hate me?

Towards the discussion of race with a 6 year-old...

Every day is a trial and error in my effort to bring my kids up the "right" way...

Here is an incident happened last month which I have been chewing over and over:

My 6 year-old came home excited one day to tell me all about what he had learned at school about MLK, about Rosa Parks, about the civil rights movement, and about what it was like before for people of color. (Except, of course, he did not use the ultra PC term, "People of Color"...)

"Do you know that the white people had their own sinks, and they wouldn't even let the colored people use them? And do you know that the white people get to sit in the front of the bus, and the colored people have to go sit in the back. And guess who gets to sit down if there are no seats left? The white people!"

On one hand, I was glad that he learned so much and seemed to be grasping the concept/idea. On the other hand, I winced every time he used the term "colored people". I sat him down and gently asked him where he'd learned that term, he said from
a book he read at school. My guess was that the book describes the situations in the past, esp. in the South, and there were signs on which "Colored people only" and "Whites only" were shown. But as a Kindergartner, my son did not understand that the term is no longer in use. Political correctness is not factored into his choice of vocabulary yet.

Although he is probably too young to understand the concept of Political Correctness, I did try. I explained to him that we no longer use that term to refer to people with tanned skin, and that now we use the term "people of color". For example, mommy is a woman of color. He looked at me, puzzled. I am not sure how much he understood.

I wrote the teacher a long letter and here is her response:

"We read the book last week. The book we read showed the signs for 'Colored Only' above water fountains and bathroom doors, as well as referring to those terms in the story. There was quite a discussion about unfair laws. We talked about everyone having color in their skin. People are not white or black - there are different tones of color. The phrase you used, 'people of color' was introduced. We also used, 'African-Americans' as a term as well.

I try to keep the concepts simple and easy to understand because the terms are so abstract. The main goal is to teach how we are all alike and all different as well as respect."

By god this whole thing is complicated since NAACP has "Colored People" in its full name: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It is confusing sometimes even for adults, let alone Kindergartners.

I was caught off guard again when my boys heard on NPR the term "Black women", when a lot of discussions happened around Michelle Obama's role as the first Black First Lady, and what it means for Black women, and also, especially, young Black women that are just forming a sense of themselves. My 6 yo asked, "What do they mean by Black?" Probably the first time he heard the term so loud and clear, and it registered in his head that it means more than just a color but something else.

So we started a discussion on "African American" = "Black", but you want to be careful when you use the term Black because you need to use it appropriately otherwise people may be offended or hurt. And the most appropriate term is probably "African American".

"Why do they call themselves Blacks? Their skin is not black, just tanned. Like your skin is tanned, just different. But Auntie R's dad (who is Asian Indian) is not Black even though he has dark skin too?"

(I mused, inside my head, about the usage of the term "Blacks" to refer to any non-white people, including the large population of Asian Indians and their UK-born descendants in the U.K. That would have made my duty as a parent a lot easier! But I refrained myself... Maybe some other time...)

From there, we got into a discussion on why President Obama is African American and NOT African even though his father was from Kenya. And the conversation quickly turned (or deteriorated) into who is American and who is not... And the question inevitably came up: "So Samantha next door is Korean and not American?" "No, no, no! She is American just like you guys. It is just that her grandparents came from Korea and that they still honor some Korean customs and traditions... If you want to label her, she would be Korean American. But you know, it does not matter what kind of American you are, and you shouldn't label people anyway. It does not matter: you are all Americans!"

So, yeah, I was mentally kicking myself for singing to the tune of "We are the World"... and secretly praying, "Gosh. Please please don't ask me what being an American mean... Not on this car ride... I need to write a thesis just to answer that question!"

Abraham Lincoln rocked this house last night!

In commemoration of Lincoln's Bicentennial on February 12, PBS is showing a series of documentaries on Lincoln, both his life and death. Last night, PBS aired the extremely well-made documentary on Lincoln' death, "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln".

Ok, who has heard of a 6-year-old crying because he had to stop watching a documentary to take a bath? Mine did! He cried through the whole bath to the point of hyperventilating, and only stopped crying when he was led in front of the TV to finish watching the documentary. It must be because of all the things on Lincoln he has been learning at school this month... I wonder how much he was able to understand?

This is the same kid who exclaimed, "Abraham is so lucky! He was born on President's Day!"

It was enlightening to learn that John Wilkes Booth asked for newspaper to be delivered to his hiding place (some pine bushes) so he could read about the public reactions to Lincoln's assassination; he was surprised and saddened by the fact that he was perceived as this monstrous murderer and not as a savior who carried out God's will to save the nation from self-destruction. He kept a meticulous journal while in hiding detailing his reasoning and conviction for doing what he had done, hoping that the future generation would see the light and agree with him.

In addition to "The Assassination", there will be a series of shows dedicated to Lincoln this week. The most notable one, in my view, is the 2-part series by Henry Louis Gates "Looking for Lincoln". Gates is an outstanding historian dedicated to African American histories. There have been considerable attempts to re-evaluate Lincoln as a pragmatic politician, as a man of his time (harboring the necessary biases and, frankly, racism). And in Gates' own words, "My urge to judge Lincoln outside of his times is a strong one." Of course, none of these theories or "re-reading" are taught at the grade school level.

My kids would probably never hear, from their teachers, what Frederick Douglass said about Lincoln at the dedication of the Freedman's monument in Washington D.C. in 1876:

"He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration."

Like many prominent historical figures existed outside of the school textbooks, Abe Lincoln was a complicated individual, shaped by his times and circumstances, worked with whatever conditions he was thrown in. Frederick Douglass recognized this because he continued to say:

"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

To be able to explain the complexities of who Lincoln was (and is), I will need to be able to explain to my kids the complexities of race. The school curricular seem to concentrate on teaching our kids that everybody is the same yet different at the same time, that in the end, it does not matter what the color of your skin is. By singing to the tune of "We are the World" (I am dating myself by bringing up this song...), the real issues of race and ethnicity and the reality of remaining racism are then glossed over.

Once again I asked myself: how much of the ugliness should I teach them and at what age? And yes, I am fully aware of their privileged position to even have such a choice about "when to learn about race and racism"...

p.s. The Freedman's Monument is not without controversy itself. Many in the African American community are infuriated, and perplexed to say the least. You can see why from the picture of the statue itself...

"You are not going to heaven because you are a bad mommy." Religion? Yikes!

This was not said in a huff or a tantrum. This was said matter-of-factly, more an observation than an accusation. A conclusion drawn by my 6-year-old because, well, he has noticed that we do not go to church on a regular basis. We are not particularly religious although both of our boys were baptized in the Catholic church. We are obviously not regular church-going folks. I am not even Christian. We simply do not talk about god at home. I wonder where he got all these ideas about god, Jesus, and heaven. The other day he asked me whether I am one of God's children, and I told him, no, out of honesty. Later I explained to him that not everybody believes in god, and heaven, and not everybody believes in the same god as he does. and therefore not everybody is going to heaven. In fact, "You and daddy and your brother are going to heaven when you die, but mommy will not be there... Mommy believes in reincarnation."

(Maybe I should have lied? This would have been one of those times when a white lie is harmless and maybe even beneficial?)

Fortunately, at this age, they do have the attention span of the fly, so he was quickly distracted by some other mysteries in life. Crisis diverted. For now.

Note to self: research books on "How to talk to your kids about religion if yours is a multi-faith family"... Yikes! Who says parenting gets easier as they get older?!

"I wish Mary Poppins is my mom..."

The other day when my 6-year-old was very frustrated with me for saying NO to most of his requests, he sighed and said with longing, "I wish Mary Poppings is my mom."

 

Startled but not offended, laughingly I said, "Yeah, I wish she were your mom too."

 

He in turn was shocked by my non-reactive reaction. 

 

Then today, after pointing out to me that I didn't feed him a "proper" dinner (Note to self: Bagel with cream cheese does not count as a "proper dinner"), he said, in mock-earnestness, "I am going to ask Santa for a better mom."  "Oh, I am just kidding."

 

Ah, a great sense of humor is the sure sign of intelligence, I always say. 

 

Being self-reflective to a compulsive degree, I often picture my kids sitting in a shrink's office, discussing their childhood with their unstable mother and her effect on their great novels of the decade.  Perhaps all the tribulations in our repressingly liberal suburban household will become cannon fodder for their artistic endeavors one day.  One can only hope.

 

Coda: Turned out that hot dog on a piece of white bread (since I don't buy buns because they always go bad before we can finish them) is an acceptable entree for dinner.  Thank goodness.

 

p.s. I am well aware of this:

 

self-reflection + lack of action to correct any un-motherly behavior = rampant self-indulgence in the guise of mock self-pity

"Is it difficult to take care of kids?"

My 6-year-old boy asked me this question last night when I was putting him to sleep.  (Actually, I still need to sleep with him every night to get him to fall asleep which has been a subject of heated argument sometimes between me and my DH...  I guess I do tend to take the easier way out.  Sorry, Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" is simply not for the time-crunched...) 

 

My boy asked, "Mommy, can I ask you a question?  Is it really hard to take care of kids?"  Startled by the innocent yet loaded question, I employed the age-old trick, "What do you think?"  He thought about it and then said, "It must be hard.  But why?" So I tried to explain to him that unlike complicated machines that we have, babies do not come with instruction manuals, and each one is so different, and they behave differently on a day to day basis, so it is very difficult to know what the right things to do.

 

I am such a lame parent...

 

Of course, now I wonder whether I have complained verbally out loud and he has heard me complaining about raising kids.  The natural extension of the complaint is, for a straight-forward thinker not privy to the complexities of parenthood, "I wish I didn't have kids". I hope he did not draw that conclusion on his own. 

 

But I do have a confession to make: sometimes I do wish that I have kids that are more easy-going... which is, probably every other kid that is not mine that I have seen.