Tag: children

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The Race Conversation

raceconversation“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” ~Lyndon B. Johnson

I never really cared about race, but race was always concerned with me. Maybe because I was born black, or perhaps because I was born in this country, or probably both. Definitely both. There’s just something to be said about being that “other” that is contrasted with the majority, that absence of color when compared with the presence of all color. I mean, that’s what white is, right? The presence of all color. So why isn’t it all-inclusive? And why should any of it matter anyway?

The United States has been characterized as this great big “melting pot,” where people from all backgrounds and ethnicities are welcome and appreciated, as this giant quilt that stitches people together and creates something new and incredible from each pattern. Yet more often than not it is instead a middle school lunchroom with its cliques and ostracizing behavior. Now, while race isn’t the only dividing line, it is still one of the thickest. And I don’t think I’ll ever understand why.

But that’s a conversation for another time.

What’s important to me at this exact moment is my children having to deal with these issues without really understanding them. Continue reading “The Race Conversation”

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A Father’s Freedom

Father-ChildA colleague asked me today if I lost my freedom when I became a father. I told him, “Yes, but I knew what I was getting into,” but both parts of that statement were false. Having kids didn’t destroy my freedom. In fact, it helped me revitalize myself. And I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. None at all.

Here’s what I knew going into parenthood:

  1. I wanted to spend time with my kids. Real time, like playing games and reading with them.
  2. I wanted to be on the same page with my wife when it came to discipline and enrichment.
  3. Kids go through stages, and I wanted to be prepared for each stage.
  4. Kids like animation, so I would probably be watching a fair bit of animation with them.
  5. I would be a role model for my kids, so I would have to be extremely careful in what I did and said

That’s it. That’s all I knew when we decided we wanted to be parents, and as I look through each of them I see shades of things that have happened over the course of these past 8+ years, but things don’t always happen the way we think they will. Kids are individuals, and no two are alike, so I’ve had to get to know my children. To find out what things they will copy and what things they won’t. To figure out how their minds work in order to absorb information. To learn how to head things off before they begin by being aware of what’s going on with them at all times.

And I’ve realized so much about myself in the process. I used to think I was so patient, that it was some innate talent I had, my superpower if you will. But when my daughter won’t stop repeating a line from one of her TV shows, or when she doesn’t pick up her skirt from the floor even though I’ve told her a million times, I find myself ready to blow my lid. All of that so-called patience just flies out the window and I need to go somewhere and control my emotions. It’s helped me to work hard on being truly patient instead of just saying I am.

I’ve also realized that planning means absolutely nothing when it comes to kids. Continue reading “A Father’s Freedom”

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Little Girl Gone

“I’m not a little girl anymore, daddy. I’m a big girl, and I’m getting bigger every day.” -Alexa (my daughter) When I look at her I still see that little girl who was placed in my arms a little over eight years ago in the hospital. She was so tiny then, like a baby doll, … Continue reading Little Girl Gone

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Those Beautiful Smiles

I have two children, and some days are a bit tricky… logistically. Today is one of those days.

At 8:50 I headed off to my oldest daughter’s school to find the parking lot completely full of vehicles. It hit me that perhaps on Flag Day I should have gotten there about 15 minutes earlier, but hindsight is 20/20. Instead of complaining, though, I simply parked in a non-spot and hoped no one hit me while driving through the parking lot. Once I got inside and saw the sign that said Morning Program would be in the gym, I finally got why the parking lot was full.

Flag Day is apparently a big deal here. I hadn’t thought about that when Alexa told me she was so excited about being a part of Morning Program on Flag Day. I saw it with my own eyes, though, when I walked through the pouring rain into the gym and saw the hordes of people sitting on the bleachers and in four rows of seats set up for the occasion. Then Alexa came in with her class, waving the tiny American flag, and I was so proud. In her other hand, like the Statue of Liberty, she carried a folder that said “Weather” on it.

From the front of the gym, she craned her neck to see me, and I stood and waved at her. It’s always incredible to see that smile, and to know that it’s for me. But then, after she focused on the program that was just starting, my eyes flicked over to the clock. I didn’t want to check it, but the time was already 9:15 and I had a sinking feeling the size of the program would overwhelm the time I had left to give. I was lucky, though, because at 9:20 Alexa stood up and gave the weather report, and she did a beautiful job of it, too. Then she introduced me to the group, one of my favorite parts of coming to Morning Program.

But then it was 9:30 and I had to go. I caught her attention, pointed at the clock and waved goodbye. Her part of the program was over, and I was lucky to have witnessed it, but as I got up to go and said excuse me on my way out, I encountered some looks of derision from other parents who were staying until the end, which by all accounts was probably not until 10:00. By 10, though, I had somewhere else I had to be because I don’t have one daughter. I have two.

So I dashed through the rain again to my car, which luckily hadn’t been hit, and took off for my youngest daughter’s school 30 minutes in the other direction, hoping I made it there in time for the special Father’s Day pancake breakfast they had arranged. I kept checking the clock on my dashboard, hoping the rain wouldn’t slow me down too much, and as I pulled into her school’s parking lot I saw I had two minutes to spare. I wasn’t late. I had made it to both important events in a very small span of time, and I smiled. Continue reading “Those Beautiful Smiles”

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Childbirth Memories: 1995

hupTruth be told, I really hadn’t expected my sister to say yes, but after she did there was absolutely no way I was going to back out. I had actually been joking. You know, the type of joke where you laugh but the other person doesn’t. Yeah, my sister definitely wasn’t laughing when she said yes, and just like that I was going to witness a live birth. We were a month away from her due date but I got freaked out pretty much right away.

I was 18 at the time, having just started college that fall, and I had no clue at all about life beyond school. In fact, I didn’t even know much about school at the time either, having already missed multiple classes by that October. It was a whole new world for me, of parties, parties, and more parties. Eventually I knew I would have to grow up but that seemed to be in the far off future, something hazy to 18-year-old me. So, when my sister said yes, it was a huge dose of reality hitting me hard.

When I found out she was pregnant I was curious. I mean, for ages it had been just the three of us (my mom, my sister, and me), and I didn’t quite know how things would change adding someone else to the mix. And then there was becoming an uncle, something that seemed to me like an old person’s job back then. In fact, the first thing that crossed my mind when I found out was my own uncles, how solid and adult they were. I knew that wasn’t going to be me, not at first anyway. Maybe that’s why I asked to be there in the first place. Perhaps I knew even then that the experience would change me in numerous ways. Continue reading “Childbirth Memories: 1995”