My son officially entered Middle School this morning and I’m still trying to get over my separation anxiety. Its been hard for me to let go this year, mostly because middle school was the toughest set of years for me in public school and I'm afraid my son is going to get beat up because, like me, he has a smart aleck mouth that gets him in trouble and, also like me, my boy isn’t much of a brawler. (He's going to get clobbered, I just know it!)
As we’ve been getting ready for the new school year at the new school, my panic has seemed to increase in direct proportion to his desire to be more independent. In fact, he informed me this morning after my offer to walk him to class, “I am old enough not to have to have my mother walk me to class. I’m becoming a man, you know.”
No, I didn’t know… well, maybe I suspected, but have been clinging to my denial with more and more desperation rather than face, let alone accept, that fact that he's growing up and becoming a man. In some respects, he’s made it easy for me to remain in denial, especially his tendency towards absentmindedness. Like this morning, when he came to ask me what he should pack for P.E., specifically which kind of T-shirt he should use, long or short sleeved.
ME: “Didn’t we spend hours Friday night, going over what you’d need for P.E.?”
THE BOY: “Yes.”
ME: “And when we went through your shirts, which ones did we look at?”
THE BOY: “The short sleeved ones.”
ME: “Why?”
THE BOY: “Because the long sleeve ones would be too hot.”
ME: “So which kind do you think you should pack?”
THE BOY, in a tone that clearly implies guessing: “A short sleeved one?”
And the conversations go like that… him insisting he's becoming an adult and then doing something totally childlike. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I guess he is becoming a man, after all!
So in the end, after reminding him of everything I could think of, I “manned” up and let him go in to his new school by himself. Because he’s “becoming a man.”
A man who forgot his darn glasses when he got out of the car, but I can’t even make too big a deal about that since as I drove away, plagued with thoughts like “OMG! What if he can’t find the right bus to ride home after school?,” I realized that I had just made the biggest mistake a Mom who worries too much could ever make: I forgot to write our phone numbers down on all his new notebooks.
I wonder if Mr. Becoming A Man knows how to hitchhike?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
It takes all flavors to make a good sundae
Last night, after watching The Daily Show, my son and I got in to a pretty detailed discussion of his heritage in response to a bit on the show about how there’s a movement afoot in the US mainland to change the 14th Amendment, which is the one that says all children born in the USA are automatically granted citizenship. The Daily Show had a great skit (see below) during which a tongue in cheek point was made that the movement is specifically targeting Mexicans versus children whose parents are from other countries, like Canada.
At the end of the bit, my son commented that I was pretty upset that they wanted to change the 14th Amendment. I reminded my son that while he is regularly picked on in school for being white, if we were living in the mainland, he would get probably still get picked on, but for being Mexican. His response was “Well, I just wouldn’t tell anyone I was Mexican.”
It made me sad to hear him say that, so I did what I always do in a situation like this: hauled out my soapbox and climbed aboard!
I told my son that he should never, ever be ashamed of being part Mexican, but rather he should be proud of his heritage. The Mexicans are a proud people with a reputation for being very hard workers. The problem some people in the US have with Mexicans is that their country tends to be much poorer than ours, so parents want to come to the US to get better jobs so they can take care of their families. Unfortunately, they usually are not given permission to come to the US but because taking care of their families is so important, they sneak in to the United States, thereby becoming illegal aliens.
I explained that there are many Americans who feel that illegal aliens take away our jobs and use up our resources, never mind that the areas they tend to settle in were actually once part of Mexico or that the jobs they typically take are ones that no one else wants to do anyway. I told Ezequiel that most Mexican parents are far more concerned with providing for their families than the prestige of a particular job, so they will take menial jobs like working in the crop fields, housecleaning, or building because making money for their families is what is most important to them.
Further, I told my son, his great-great grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution, along side the great general, Pancho Villa, and that the Mexicans won their freedom from Spain, which is something he should be very proud of. He should be just as proud of being Mexican as he is of being Hungarian like his Nagy Papa (grandfather), New Zealander like his grandma, and yes, American, like his other grandpa.
I told him that one thing that bothered me sometimes about Americans is that they forget that the United States is a country that was founded by immigrants, people who left their original countries in search of a better way of life for their families. One of the principals of our country that has made it so great is that we welcome people to come and seek the American Dream. Yet lately, it seems that some Americans forget that what they're currently fighting against is the very thing that once made them so great.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I told my son that he should be proud of all the parts that make him who he is and never let anyone try to make him feel ashamed of his heritage. And when I was done and my soapbox put away, my son said to me (and I cringed as he opened his mouth, fearing that he was about to say “way too much information”),
“Mom, could you write that down for me. I want to remember everything you just said.”
I nearly cried.
At the end of the bit, my son commented that I was pretty upset that they wanted to change the 14th Amendment. I reminded my son that while he is regularly picked on in school for being white, if we were living in the mainland, he would get probably still get picked on, but for being Mexican. His response was “Well, I just wouldn’t tell anyone I was Mexican.”
It made me sad to hear him say that, so I did what I always do in a situation like this: hauled out my soapbox and climbed aboard!
I told my son that he should never, ever be ashamed of being part Mexican, but rather he should be proud of his heritage. The Mexicans are a proud people with a reputation for being very hard workers. The problem some people in the US have with Mexicans is that their country tends to be much poorer than ours, so parents want to come to the US to get better jobs so they can take care of their families. Unfortunately, they usually are not given permission to come to the US but because taking care of their families is so important, they sneak in to the United States, thereby becoming illegal aliens.
I explained that there are many Americans who feel that illegal aliens take away our jobs and use up our resources, never mind that the areas they tend to settle in were actually once part of Mexico or that the jobs they typically take are ones that no one else wants to do anyway. I told Ezequiel that most Mexican parents are far more concerned with providing for their families than the prestige of a particular job, so they will take menial jobs like working in the crop fields, housecleaning, or building because making money for their families is what is most important to them.
Further, I told my son, his great-great grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution, along side the great general, Pancho Villa, and that the Mexicans won their freedom from Spain, which is something he should be very proud of. He should be just as proud of being Mexican as he is of being Hungarian like his Nagy Papa (grandfather), New Zealander like his grandma, and yes, American, like his other grandpa.
I told him that one thing that bothered me sometimes about Americans is that they forget that the United States is a country that was founded by immigrants, people who left their original countries in search of a better way of life for their families. One of the principals of our country that has made it so great is that we welcome people to come and seek the American Dream. Yet lately, it seems that some Americans forget that what they're currently fighting against is the very thing that once made them so great.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I told my son that he should be proud of all the parts that make him who he is and never let anyone try to make him feel ashamed of his heritage. And when I was done and my soapbox put away, my son said to me (and I cringed as he opened his mouth, fearing that he was about to say “way too much information”),
“Mom, could you write that down for me. I want to remember everything you just said.”
I nearly cried.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Born in the U.S.A. | ||||
| ||||
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