Posted by Kimberly on September 4th, 2006 — Posted in Diva Girl, Kipple, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat, iVillage
Diva Girl is flitting between her toast, the television, and her new outfit, unable to settle down to one particular thing. I keep shooing her peanutbutter sticky fingers away from her clothes, but I don’t think that’s the source of the butterflies in my stomach.
I want this year to be good to my baby. I want to send her off on a wonderful adventure every morning, confident that her wild, difficult spirit is being nurtured and fulfilled. I’m not too concerned about the academic stuff; she’s a smart kid, and she’ll figure it out. The social scene, however, terrifies me. Sabrina doesn’t really have a stellar track record in that area and, more than anything, I just don’t want her to have another year like last year. A year spent chasing the “popular” girls, kowtowing to them in the hopes that they will take pity on her and let her play.
It’s not like she doesn’t make friends. The past two years, she’s formed very close friendships with little girls in her class. Little girls who inevitably move away sometime in October. This year, all I really want is for that girl, whoever she is, to stick around and be my daughter’s friend. More than a straight A report card or some sort of sporting accomplishment, what I want for this year is for Sabrina to find a best friend.
Well, time to go see what the day brings.
No Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on September 4th, 2006 — Posted in Diva Girl, Kipple, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat, iVillage
There are few days that hold as much anticipation and sheer possibility as the first day of a new school year. Christmas maybe, or the beginning of a long awaited vacation; but niether of these have the fresh start aspect of that magical day in September. I’ve mentioned before that for me, tomorrow marks the start of my new year.
I don’t make resolutions in January. I don’t change my life. I don’t vow to start fresh. Even though my birthday is little more than a week after New Year’s, I just don’t feel like the middle of winter is a time of fresh starts. By the time the new year rolls around, I’m already well entrenched in the daily grind, and just don’t feel inspired to make changes.
At this time of year, on the other hand, I’m filled to brimming with potential and possibility. I have plans aplenty. I vow to become organizied. To get a handle on the stuff–both physical and ephemeral–that clutters my life. I make resolutions–This year I’ll get up earlier instead of getting the panicked rush out the door down to a science. I’ll be the mom who returns the field trip form the day after it comes home, and never have to scrounge in my pockets on the playground because I forgot it was bake sale day.
It won’t last, of course. Sure, for the first few weeks I’ll make lunches the night before, careful to tuck a treat or note into the box. We’ll lay out clothes, too, all the better to establish a new and organized routine. I’ll set the alarm for 7, and we’ll be up in time for a leisurely breakfast and some cartoons before we head out the door. I’ll check the backpack every night and create some sort of “system” for the paper. There will be lists and schedules. But gradually, the “system” will become “lose things in a swirling vortex of paper covering my desk.” I’ll start hitting the snooze button, and eventually stop setting the alarm altogether, setting the stage for the mad dash to school–an event in which I am an olympic contender. The clutter will creep back in, and possibility will be ground down in the face of reality.
Still, every September I’m filled with an overwhelming optimism, a feeling that all things are possible. And really, looking at all those pristine notebooks and shiny markers, how could anyone feel otherwise.
No Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on September 3rd, 2006 — Posted in Kipple
Remember when I got a little defensive about my friend’s father getting bent out of shape over a flippant remark I made? Yeah. Well, seems like the shoe is on the other foot now.
This week I took an amazing PD course on Tribes. It was a truly great experience, both in what I took away from it and in the way it was run. You know how most training courses consist of you sitting there, bored to tears and doodling on your notepad while the course leader painstakingly reads you each and every overhead–all of which have been photocopied directly form the manual you were issued? This course was nothing like that. It was a practical, dynamic, hands on introduction to the Tribes philosophy and strategies. I left it engerized, inspired, and offended.
I know that the facilitator didn’t mean to offend me with her comments. I realize that she was just trying to break the ice and put everyone at ease. But still, I think her statement that, while we didn’t need to expose our deepest, most personal moments in our life maps, if we weren’t “ashamed of the third divorce or that illegitimate child” we should feel free to share. Everyone else laughed when she said it. Me? I cringed.
And then I asked myself, “Did she really just say illegitimate? Did she really just imply that having a child out of wedlock, in the year 2006, is something to be ashamed of???” Yeah. She did. Was I being oversensitive? Reading too much into what she had clearly meant as a lighthearted joke? Should I just keep my mouth shut, smile, and not make waves? Afterall, this was my workplace–a Catholic schoolboard no less.
Not bloody likely.
I refuse to be made to feel ashamed of being a parent; I refuse to apologize for the existence of my daughters. I’m very proud of my children, and, frankly, of my status as a solo mom. I don’t feel that my family is any less “legitimate” than any other family simply because its makeup is, shall we say, “nonnuclear.” I don’t like the implication that I should feel that way, which is really the underlying message of that “joke.”
And, from my children’s perspectives, in 2006 should your parents’ marital status really be one of the criteria on which your worth as a person is judged? What does which side of the blanket you were born on have to do with the content of your character? While slightly more PC than, oh, say, “Bastard,” “illegitmate” is still an offensive term, and should be confronted as such.
I didn’t make a scene, but I did take a quiet moment to let the facilitator know that I found her comment to be deeply offensive. She was mortified and deeply apologetic. She assured me that she won’t be making that particular joke anymore; I assured her that I didn’t believe she’d been intentionally offensive. So many people do, which is why I think it’s important to confront this sort of thougtlessness. To speak up, politely and with empathy, to invite people to question their language and the underlying attitudes that their word choices imply.
All in all, it was a positive conversation–one that acknowledged that every person has a story, and we need to be careful of devaluing those stories through thoughtless words that promote outdated attitudes that are best left back in the Nineteenth Century, not brought forward into the Twentyfirst.
No Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on September 1st, 2006 — Posted in Kipple, Scarlet Letters, iVillage
Remember when I got a little defensive about my friend’s father getting bent out of shape over a flippant remark I made? Yeah. Well, seems like the shoe is on the other foot now.
This week I took an amazing PD course on Tribes. It was a truly great experience, both in what I took away from it and in the way it was run. You know how most training courses consist of you sitting there, bored to tears and doodling on your notepad while the course leader painstakingly reads you each and every overhead–all of which have been photocopied directly form the manual you were issued? This course was nothing like that. It was a practical, dynamic, hands on introduction to the Tribes philosophy and strategies. I left it engerized, inspired, and offended.
I know that the facilitator didn’t mean to offend me with her comments. I realize that she was just trying to break the ice and put everyone at ease. But still, I think her statement that, while we didn’t need to expose our deepest, most personal moments in our life maps, if we weren’t “ashamed of the third divorce or that illegitimate child” we should feel free to share. Everyone else laughed when she said it. Me? I cringed.
And then I asked myself, “Did she really just say illegitimate? Did she really just imply that having a child out of wedlock, in the year 2006, is something to be ashamed of???” Yeah. She did. Was I being oversensitive? Reading too much into what she had clearly meant as a lighthearted joke? Should I just keep my mouth shut, smile, and not make waves? Afterall, this was my workplace–a Catholic schoolboard no less.
Not bloody likely.
I refuse to be made to feel ashamed of being a parent; I refuse to apologize for the existence of my daughters. I’m very proud of my children, and, frankly, of my status as a solo mom. I don’t feel that my family is any less “legitimate” than any other family simply because its makeup is, shall we say, “nonnuclear.” I don’t like the implication that I should feel that way, which is really the underlying message of that “joke.”
And, from my children’s perspectives, in 2006 should your parents’ marital status really be one of the criteria on which your worth as a person is judged? What does which side of the blanket you were born on have to do with the content of your character? While slightly more PC than, oh, say, “Bastard,” “illegitmate” is still an offensive term, and should be confronted as such.
I didn’t make a scene, but I did take a quiet moment to let the facilitator know that I found her comment to be deeply offensive. She was mortified and deeply apologetic. She assured me that she won’t be making that particular joke anymore; I assured her that I didn’t believe she’d been intentionally offensive. So many people do, which is why I think it’s important to confront this sort of thougtlessness. To speak up, politely and with empathy, to invite people to question their language and the underlying attitudes that their word choices imply.
All in all, it was a positive conversation–one that acknowledged that every person has a story, and we need to be careful of devaluing those stories through thoughtless words that promote outdated attitudes that are best left back in the Nineteenth Century, not brought forward into the Twentyfirst.
No Comments »