The woman in the picture just posted one of the loveliest meditations on family I’ve read. Since I write them frequently, I’m almost envious, but since it’s Liz that’s not possible. Read it. I promise my next post will NOT be about somebody else’s post. This was just too good to keep quiet about.
Tag: children
LEAVING WAY TOO MANY BEHIND
This is the kind of thing my friend Cooper usually writes about, but foster care has been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember. Kids who, because of the incapacity of anyone in their families to care for them, get placed "in the system" and shuttled among foster homes – some group homes, some loving families and some just plain horrifying. It’s a disgrace.
Now, there’s some particularly disturbing news. When foster kids turn 18, they "age out" of the system. Often they have nowhere to turn and end up on the streets, in jail or both. They don’t know how to get a job, open a bank account, balance a check book, fill out a resume or be a family. As of this year, reports the Pew Charitable Trusts Kids Are Waiting campaign , the number of kids aging out of the system is up 41%. Here’s some of what they say:
The report, Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own, found that although the total number of children in foster care has decreased, the number who "age out" of the system has grown by 41% since 1998. In total, more than 165,000 young people aged out of foster care between 1998 and 2005 – nearly 25,000 in 2005 alone.
"When children are removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect, we, through our government agencies, assume responsibility for their protection and care. We have failed these children if they ‘age out’ of foster care without a safe, permanent family they can count on," said Jim O’Hara, managing director, health and human services, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
"Every day we do not reform foster care, we fail 67 more young people who exit foster care completely on their own."
Think about that – 67 kids a day set loose with no moorings, nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, no apartment, job, phone, home address.
I have no answers for this; I know there has been work to try to reform a foster care system which has been burdened by budget cuts and a surge of (truly) broken families. But I don’t see how we can continue to allow our supposedly "child centered" society to allow these kids to tumble into adulthood with no safety net at all. Not much help to rant without suggestions — I know that in LA for a while there was a group that held formal "graduations" and "proms" for kids aging out and that in some places there is some effort to help the kids learn how to live on their own before they have to — it just seems we should have it on our radar.
YOU ASKED FOR IT
That’s me with my older son, Josh, in Muir Woods outside San Francisco — pretty many years ago. I don’t know if you can tell but I’m pregnant with his brother. Happy to join the virtual shower although despite my adoration of and respect for both Liz and Catherine, I’m from the generation that put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and so may sound a little old-fashioned.
1. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right no matter whose advice it is. 2. Trust yourself. 3. Remember that everybody makes mistakes and anyway a child is not a product, she is a person. You’ve heard that kids are resilient. They are. Do your best with love and if you don’t dwell on your mistakes neither will they. 4. You can’t turn a child into someone. You can only help them become the best somebody they already are. 5. Don’t be afraid to say no. Parents who don’t set limits and help their kids learn self-discipline are selfish. It’s easier but it’s not right. 6. No experience is wasted on a child. Maybe they’re too young to remember, but if it happened, it had an impact. So share as much of what you love as you can – music, museums, trips to Timbuktu or Target — poetry, cooking, washing the car. 7. No child ever went to college in diapers. 8. Listen to experienced people you respect, preschool teachers, friends, even, God forbid, your mother. Experience really is a great teacher. Then, though, think it through and then do what you think is right. 9. Everything is not equally important. Pick your fights and win them. 10. Leave time to just be. Lessons are great but quiet time is where imagination and a sense of self emerges. 10. LISTEN to your kids. They are smart and interesting and wise and if you respect them you have a far better chance of having them respect you. 11. Did I say trust yourself?
With love, admiration and the joy that comes from knowing all you wonderful, poetic and caring, committed and in one case, very new mothers on the occasion of this lovely virtual baby shower.
UNKINDEST CUT
I’m having a very hard time. For a project, I’ve spent most of Wednesday reading infertility, IVF, adoption and other blogs written by would-be parents who are unable to conceive. This 25-year old photo is of two boys, my sons, conceived in no time. Granted there was a miscarriage in between that hit us very hard, but the blessing of these two little boys came rapidly and without incident.
I’m familiar with this issue – I have so many friends with adopted kids — but the articulateness of these women and the agony of repeated technical failures they describe, is unthinkable. It’s so ironic – years spent in your twenties worrying that you ARE pregnant, then this.
I can’t imagine many experiences more painful — though they existed even in biblical times (remember the pain of Sarah, Hannah and Rachel?) and they’re for a lifetime. "Do you have kids?" is the classic ice-breaker. It just reminds me one more time of the blessings in my life. It’s not that I don’t appreciate my kids every day; as my sons will tell you I’m a bit over the top where they are concerned. And I’m tiresome on that fact that they’re a blessing and a joy.
What I don’t often consider is the fact that we had them so easily – that they are, quite literally, a gift. My heart breaks for my sisters not blessed with this privilege – and I won’t soon forget their pain.
Teach Your Children Well
Much of what I enjoy about other blogs, particularly "mommy" ones, is the sense of irony that is so different from my own sentimental view of parenthood. Brutally honest and often painful, they reveal wounds and issues I don’t think I could talk about on line. Loving mothers and beautiful writers, women like Liz at Mom 101, Mir at WouldaCouldaShoulda, Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored and Jenn at Mommy Needs Coffee are all gutsy beyond measure in their honesty. Mocha Momma Kelly, Liza from Lizawashere and BeenThere’s Cooper Munroe are just as honest but with a different tone – one more familiar to me. All perspectives are worthy, moving and wise.
Here’s one of the few times I really feel generational difference though. These bloggers are substantially younger than I am; I’m old enough to be the mother of most of them. I don’t feel that difference often, but today, with one of my boys gone already and the other leaving tomorrow, I just can’t get un-sugary.
The great gift of raising children is I am sure the most profound privilege life brings us. The pleasures are infinite. To my delighted surprise, they don’t stop when these tiny people emerge as full-blown adults, taking their places as productive, loving, principled men. The entire time they, and Josh’s girlfriend Amy, were here this week, was so great that I’m struck dumb with gratitude and love.
For an entire afternoon excavating six boxes of treasures from 20 boxes of childhood stuff — from broken Nintendos and the Jerry Garcia’s death issue of Newsweek to Double Dare sweatshirts and high school yearbooks, they worked, sorted, laughed, read aloud, complained, laughed some more, and got it all done despite my best efforts to help. I wish I could tell you what it felt like to see them laughing together over a first grade "book" Dan had written or once-treasured but minor value baseball cards, remembering the pleasures and joys of their lives.
Nobody’s life is perfect and our family certainly has had its share of pain, but there is a beautiful foundation that holds us up – draws us to one another and fills us with love. That’s corny. We have two sons who are funny and attractive and honorable and productive and considerate and who clearly love us. We are grateful. That’s corny too. I don’t know how to say that with any self-restraint or discipline – stylistic or otherwise.
I adore these young men even as I struggle to retain the distance they deserve (reasonably successful), welcome them when they want to be with us (easy as pie), shut up when they need to be someplace else( do my best), keep my mouth shut when I disagree (getting better all the time.) I am very proud of their self-reliance and accomplishments, their candor about obstacles in their lives, their incredible humor — they are both very funny, particularly when they are together — and their gentle, loving souls. They’ve accepted our newly religious lifetstyle with interest and respect. They are also very good to one another. I revel in their friendship, all the flying back and forth for concerts and birthdays, and great gifts they give one another.
In other words, I’m a corny, unoriginal mom. My sons have brought an unanticipated portion of joy and satisfaction, fun and admiration, adventure and idealism, into my life. And they love us. Stupid us. Despite all the mistakes and complications. I’d love to be able to be a bit ironic about it, to ditch what my kids call my "pink Cindy glasses" for a while just to see how I would sound, but it ain’t gonna happen. So I hope all my edgier colleagues will tolerate this gooey post and understand my inability, tonight, as the year winds down and this family visit winds with it, to say anything except "God I love my kids."
I DON’T WANT TO BE A TURKEY ON THANKSGIVING
We’re going to Seattle for Thanksgiving to see our older son’s new apartment and be with both boys and assorted others. I always get a little nervous when I haven’t seen them in a while; you know how it is — you just love them so much and sometimes if it’s too obvious it becomes a burden. They are wonderful sons and wonderful people and they tolerate my enthusiasm for them pretty well. Like any family, we’ve been through a lot together – good and bad — and understand one another pretty well I think. But I do worry about what I do when I’m uneasy – I get way too verbal and my big effort is going to be to keep my mouth shut except when it makes sense to open it!
One thing I learned from my father (that’s him on the left) is to try like hell not to tangle your kids up any more than necessary. He used to tell us that we should live our own lives and NEVER feel obligated to him; that the gift of us was all we owed him.
His own father was a classic immigrant tyrant and so he, of course, went the other way. I’ll tell you, I honestly believe that his attitude made us MORE likely to call, show up and fuss over him. The only grief of it, aside from losing him, is that my mom kept telling us not to come home in his final illness, that he "would not want you to see him like this." I finally decided to go to him – fed up with being put off and horribly guilty about not doing it sooner – and he died as I was on my way there. I don’t think I’ve completely dealt with it in the 15 years since he died — too painful and nothing to do about it anyway — but I don’t want my kids to have that sort of experience either.
For that reason, I forced myself to call them when I was in the hospital instead of, like my own parents, waiting until I was out and OK to let them know. I really do think of them as grown men now and try to treat them with the respect I would treat other impressive men – but sometimes I slip and go "all mom" on them. They accept it with good humor but I just would love to have the discipline to give them the respect they deserve instead of indulging my own over-expressive self. I’m practicing all weekend. Can’t talk anymore… shhhhh!
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY? (PART 2)
I just found the ultimate wise woman post for how to deal with a teenager. Respectfully. Apportion responsibility gradually. Etc. It dealt with something I posted here a couple of days ago about blogging and our kids. And their privacy. And just who owns whose life? Everyone loves Grace Davis anyway, but this was just such a great thing. Take a look.
When I worked at iVillage Robert Schwebel, who is still their resident child psychologist and a wonderful man, told me he sees successful child rearing as "the gradual transfer of power." Doesn’t that make perfect sense? And what Grace did, with such, well, grace, was to transfer, to her daughter, power over her own story and respect for her privacy. I’m just so impressed.
OF COURSE IT COULDN’T LAST – RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE WEB
I just spent an hour listening to NYT reporter Kurt Eichenwald on a talk show describing the current state of Internet child pornography. It’s just so sad.
I remember as far back as 1998, when I helped launch an Internet safety campaign called America Links Up. We organized teach-ins, a TV program, a family website and a lot of other material to help parents keep their kids safe on line. I, stupidly, thought people were a little overwrought about the whole thing. If you were honest with kids, they could be trusted. [ASIDE: I am, I often observe, a walking demographic… here for the George Lakoff nurturing parent.] How could we deprive them when the Internet was, as John Perry Barlow said, "the most important discovery since fire?"
I was so besotted that I was incorrigible. My boss at iVillage, whom I represented at American Links Up, used to call me a Web rat. But it’s a sign of my eternal naivete that I never thought it would get as bad as it (apparently) is. AND that so many kids would log on when parents weren’t looking and participate. ( If the stories are true, it’s not just toddlers and preteens being exploited, it is also older teens getting sucked in and abused as well. )
We raised our kids in a style very similar to that described by long-time Wired writer Jon Katz, writing as Wired’s Netizen. In 1996 he wrote a kids’ bill of rights on line – linking web rights to responsibilities met. I wonder how that would play just ten years later.
In addition, I still don’t understand – when there are so many Law and Order SVU and a dozens of other programs portraying the dangers of these people – why young people would engage in this stuff to begin with. Either too many kids are too lonely to care or we just aren’t paying enough attention. Parents have to work and if they want decent housing they often have long commutes. They need help.
So what do you think? Is the Web as scary as Eichenwald portrays it? Is some of it hype? How do we keep kids safe and still help them to savor the Internet in all its wonders and opportunities? Holler out some ideas….