Tag: Facebook

My Daughter and Me…

zanz9

It was about a year ago, following a college visit trip to Washington and Oregon, that my daughter said a profound thing, “$54,000 feels like a lot of money for “I think I want to study developing nations.” Grace went on, “How am I supposed to know, Mom?  How can you know, if you’ve never been to one?”

It was three months ago when I said goodbye to that same developing girl on the curbside of Jet Blue departures at JFK. Tears escaped my eyes as she hugged me and then hoisted an enormous backpack on her shoulders and blithely announced, “See ya in 3 months.”  And she was off: San Francisco to Tanzania to Kenya to Uganda to Zanzibar.

When I got home, I went to Grace’s room girded to take on her post packing tornado.  But there were no remnants of a storm.  Rather, the floor which had been covered for years with discarded clothes was bare, and drawers perpetually half-opened, spilling out tee-shirts, were closed. Pillows were neatly set atop a comforter which spent most of its life in a billowy ball. Shoes, sneakers, boots, and moccasins were lined up like soldiers.  Jewelry hung from a metallic tree, and as I opened her closet door, which in the past was an invitation to horror, I marveled that before she left she gave hangers the respect they deserve.

On a chair in the corner were clothes she regularly snuck out of my closet.  They were folded with precision.

My girl was more than ready to hop on that jet to spend three months in East Africa.

I adjusted to her absence and utilized Facebook to try and document her Gap Semester. I think it’s fair to say that Grace has never appeared so frequently on my Facebook feed. I have been careful to avoid editorial comment in my posts.  I posted so that my friends, who have invested so much love in my child, could follow her travels; could taste a little of East Africa from afar.

I have something to say about pride and parenting and millennials.

Our children are the most celebrated generation in history.  Social media has made it so.  Or maybe it started with the bumper stickers in middle school, “My son/daughter is an honors student at…” Pretty quickly, though, Facebook turned up the volume.  I chuckle every late August when the march of pictures of so many children appear, from pre-school to college, with the narrative.  “So proud of …, first day of school.”

Wait, wut?  We are proud that our kids hop on the bus, or drive a car, or get dropped off at the only job they actually have; being a student?

I know, I know… Our parents took our pictures, too, which found their way to photo albums or in frames set in built-in bookcases.  They did not, however, make placards and march around the neighborhood announcing our every minor accomplishment.  And I suppose, those posts we see today are as much for those grandparents, aunts, and uncles who live in other states.

I know that there is a reasonable, other side in all of this. But part of me just wants to scream, “Stop!  What happens to them when the celebrations end; when they get a “c”, or don’t make the varsity, or curl into a ball with a broken heart, or meander down a dark path that breaks our hearts?”

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see those faces of innocence and wish I could suspend them in time.  But, the world waits for them and if they disappoint, that same world will pounce and tsk and whisper not so sweet nothings in criticism. I know because I’ve lived it.

The students with whom I work through the college selection and application process are most often high achievers by any standard.  The pendulum swings wide; they either believe they are indeed exceptional or, often, they think they are not quite good enough.  After all, there is usually someone better. Anxiety rules the day in my business and it is most likely why I am still in business.  I try to tamp down expectations in a viciously competitive college admission world for the over-confident and put a little wind in the sails of those who don’t quite believe.  Anecdotally, the pendulum swing has widened in the last ten years.  Bumper stickers and Facebook and parent’s watching not only every game but every practice?

I remember an old friend of mine shared this the first time we spoke about his daughter, “She lives in the rarified air of the top achievers.  She amazes me.”  She was a sophomore in high school.  When she fell, the thud was deafening.

Pride in our children is essential, applying exceptionalism to them seems unfair.

Grace returns from East Africa tonight.  From afar, it appears that the semester was everything she dreamed it would be

In my documentation of her experience, kind-hearted people have written, “You must be so proud of her.”  It’s not really the right emotion for how I have felt these last three months.  It hints that maybe I think she is exceptional.

She’s not. Grace has magnificent strengths and glaring weaknesses.  She’s just a girl on the edge of becoming a woman. She’s a kid who thinks that maybe, just maybe, a three-month service program in Africa might help her figure out what her next step is.  College this year felt like something through which she might meander. Last spring, as parents announced their children’s college decisions on Facebook, I asked Grace if I could post her decision for a Gap Year. She groaned and with a classic eye-roll said, “Fine, but I hate when people talk to me about it.  They either think it’s heroic or I must not have gotten into college!”

And there it is in a nutshell: over the top praise or ‘gotcha’ cynicism.

Grace went to Africa because she has the privilege of financial comfort. She understands that the gains are more self-serving than world-changing.  She knows that the benefits of privilege are often choice and options.  Did my daughter change the world?  Of course not, but if the world reached her and she gained perspectives which inform her toward genuine compassion and humility then the choice was right.

She wrote this in a piece about her experience:

“Regardless of what we think of as constraints in our life, hijab’s, poverty, misogyny, or even American excess, through education and the prompting to think deeply, we can navigate the world and find happiness in it. I have loved this opportunity to learn a global perspective on life.  This year has taught me something that was elusive for me in high school; knowledge really is power, and whether in a classroom or through simple human interaction, being open to it is crucial to leading a fulfilled life.”

She comes home tonight. She will be exhausted, while I will be hungry for every detail.  I suspect that, within hours, clothing will be strewn across her bedroom floor and her dirty dishes will once again sit in my sink.

Three months in Africa is a step toward exceptionalism and, yes, I am proud that Grace navigated the three months with apparent joy.  True exceptionalism, however, takes a lifetime to achieve.  My beautiful daughter is all wrapped up in human skin and her exceptionalism requires many more years to marinate.

The Old Man and The Sea… Of Women.

 

suffragettes

I seek to understand.  I try to make a rational argument, but responses are irrational and facts are muddled and dressed up as truth.  So, I walk away. The fact that I was a participant in the Women’s March, an eyewitness to history, seems to mean little to those determined to diminish it.  Apparently, those who had the audacity to walk are extremist, anarchists, and, naturally, angry. Those positioned to pounce and pick from the comfort of their home appear to have the inside scoop.  Peaceful demonstrations reimagined:  Anarchy!  Fox News told them so!

That wasn’t my experience on a sun-drenched Saturday in Key West, Florida, as I walked with three thousand plus along Duval Street, chanting, singing, smiling, hugging and admiring.  I walked alongside a red trolley, seated within were extraordinary men and women, most on the north side of 80, whose aging bodies made the walk impossible.  They carried signs, and some wore silly hats. They all looked alive, purposeful, and grateful that they found this moment, late in their life, to exercise the rights the Founding Fathers gave them: peaceful protest. It was a meaningful moment in time which they thought might never be realized as their lives look to the twilight.

I spoke with an African American woman grinning from ear-to-ear with her best friend.  Her tee-shirt said, “I Am My Ancestor’s Wildest Dreams.”  My God, that’s a sobering, wonderful thought, isn’t it? It was not lost on that beautiful lady that this great country, in the Bill of Rights and Amendment’s to the Constitution, gave her the right to this day, to walk peaceably with her sisters and brothers along a palm-shaded street on the Southeastern most tip of the United States of America.

Young women, many with their husbands beside them, marched pushing strollers.  Most of the children were girls, the daughters for whom they dream big dreams; that the world will not threaten to dismiss them because of their gender.  Maybe, just maybe, those baby girls will grow up in a world where this conversation is spoken in a nod to history.  How I wish my own girl had been with me.  She wasn’t.  Rather, she was wielding a lacrosse stick in an indoor pre-season league preparing for her senior season.  Title IX at work.

In Key West, Los Angeles, Washington, Paris, Stockholm, San Francisco and throughout this great world, women gathered and welcomed the support of men in The March.  I had friends marching in Washington, New York, Hartford, Phoenix, and Omaha.  All of them reported joy, empowerment, and an appreciation that we live in a country where such a thing remains an inalienable right.

Key West is an interesting place.  This is the first time I have been to the Keys, and as I write, in the near distance, I see white caps dancing on water whose shades of blue seem to change with each gust of wind.  My view of that vast Atlantic is disturbed only by majestic palm trees and thatched palapas where weary northerners lounge, desperate to re-energize on a late January day.

Key West belongs to Ernest Hemingway.  If there ever was a man’s man, it would be Hemingway.  He was a big game hunting, deep-sea fishing, safari-loving, bombastic man with the soul of a poet.  It took me years to appreciate his writer’s voice.  He had none of the grandiosity of my favorites: Fitzgerald, Austen, and the brilliant Oscar Wilde. My literary palette has matured with age, and I now find Hemingway’s direct, simple, potent narrative powerful.  For all his surface bravado, Hemingway had a fascinating perspective on women.  Despite his traditionalist view of them, his women were strong, complex, and clearly important in his personal and literary life.

From the book “Hemingway and Women”,

“While Hemingway was certainly influenced by traditional perceptions of women, these essays show that he was also aware of the struggle of the emerging new woman of his time.”

As I marched in Key West, I imagined Ernest sitting on a Duval Street Veranda, in a rocking chair, cigar in one hand, and a potent Bloody Mary in the other, fascinated by the scene that played out in front of him.  I imagined Ernest Hemingway, with a nod and great guffaw, shouting out, “Have at it, ladies!”  I think Hemingway wasn’t intimidated by women, as much as he was bewitched and besotted by them.

Ah – but it’s not the early twentieth century.  It’s the new Millennium and so I’ll return to my thesis: I’m trying to understand…

Perhaps the most off-putting accusation about the March was about violence and broken glass at a Starbucks in Washington DC.  Please don’t muddle the facts.  That despicable act happened Friday during an Anti-trump incident that was not part of the Women’s March.

Regarding demonstrations, the people’s right to participate, and the charge that the President’s supporters would not have marched had Mrs. Clinton won the election?  A tweet from the President on November 6, 2012:

trump

Would I have preferred that Ashley Judd control her rhetoric?  Sure.  Do I wish the same thing of Madonna?  Yup.  But what about the magnificent Gloria Steinem, Scarlett Johansson, America Ferrera, and Michael Moore, who reminded all of us to stay involved in the process, be doers, be dreamers.  What about all the organizers throughout the world who have no celebrity cache, but pulled off one of the greatest, most unexpected, most peaceful mass Marches in history.

I’m proud I was part of it.  Those who stayed home? Maybe save your rhetoric for the things you show up for?

To my friends who share my perspective, here’s a thought that might surprise you. I wish, for the love of Pete, that those who supported the March might tone down the oratory and banish base language from their social media.  Rise above it, use your intellect to state your case. Don’t take the bait. We have a responsibility to elevate the conversation with thoughtful, factual discourse. I believe our better angels possess a better vocabulary.

One last thing which might seem small, but here we go:

Mr. President, when you walk the walk of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush, Sr. and Obama, maybe you could give some thought to the gravitas of the Office of the President of the United States of America.  Is it too much to ask that you button your suit jacket?  A little respect, that’s all we are asking for.