What If Everyone Had Cancer?

When my youngest son was four years old he lost all his hair to an autoimmune disorder called Alopecia Areata. Over the course of a month all of his beautiful red curls fell out, then his eye lashes and eye brows. My heart broke on a daily basis. But he was four, and hair to a four-year-old is not necessarily a concern. When a classmate at the snack table in preschool asked if he’d gotten a haircut, he looked confused until another classmate spoke up and said, “Nah, Ian’s hair fell out.” Everyone went back to their juice and animal crackers unalarmed.

As a parent you begin imagining your child’s life when you first see those two pink lines, perhaps even earlier if you’re a true romantic. I couldn’t imagine what elementary school would be like for my newly bald child. Or maybe the problem was that I could imagine it – teasing, bullying, heartbreak. For a few months we stayed in, but then it became obvious that the hair would not be re-growing so we resumed our life with our three kids, but I hovered close to my youngest ready to defend him at the slightest provocation.

While my husband was traveling, the kids and I ventured out for dinner one night at the local pizza shop. We snuggled into a booth and I tried not to notice the obvious stares of the other patrons. The kids were oblivious to anything odd and happy to be out to dinner for the first time since Ian’s diagnosis. When it was time to pay, I left the kids in the booth and went to the cashier. She told me not to worry, our check was already paid. I didn’t understand, but she assured me another patron had taken care of our check and wished my little boy well. I stumbled back to collect my children and made for the exit. Driving home it finally dawned on me that the kind person who paid our check must have thought Ian had cancer.

Protesting the PSSAs

Last night as he crawled in to bed one half hour early, my ten-year-old said, “Pennyslvania’s super stupid assessment,” with a grin on his face. It’s that time of year. PSSA tests. That’s two weeks in which my children will learn nothing new, will consume all manner of junk food at school, and be given extra recess almost every day. Anything to keep the little darlings motivated and happy. Motivated and happy kids do better on standardized tests.

Lucky for us our school typically fairs well in these tests. But I’m somewhat concerned that our streak may be coming to an end. At the onslaught of these illustrious tests mandated by “No Child Left Behind” the very ambitious and inclusive goal of 100% proficiency by 2014 was set for students in math and reading.

Back at the turn of the century it seemed very noble to shoot for 100% competency in our kids. And the date was so far off – 2014, so everyone applauded the all-inclusive goal. But now that we are on the cusp of reaching that date, just how many schools will meet the goal? I can’t imagine any will unless they follow the lead of the schools in Georgia whose teachers systematically cheated on the tests.

Here’s the painful bottom line. Not every kid is going to pass. And this has nothing to do with teacher

competency, curriculum, or healthy snacks during testing. I don’t mean to be cruel or pessimistic, but it ain’t gonna happen. The world needs people to work at McDonald’s. That’s a very crass way of saying that not everyone’s brain is capable of retaining math concepts. And some people struggle with reading for reasons that may be physical or emotional. I’m not saying throw in the towel on these students. Quite the opposite. Most likely they excel in other areas, but we’ll never know that if we judge them solely on their math and reading scores.

What’s wrong with these tests and these goals is that too much hinges on them. Schools who do poorly receive less funding. Teachers whose students struggle will lose pay over this. And lets not forget the kids who spend a too large portion of their school year preparing for and taking these tests. They should not be this important.

Disregarding the Fish

Sorting through the mess accumulating in my hallway this morning, I came upon a pile of stuffed animals abandoned in the giveaway box. We keep this box in the hallway outside the kids’ bedrooms so it is conveniently located when they determine that an article of clothing, a book, or a toy are no longer needed in their lives due to physical or emotional growth (and sometimes due to the wax and wane of teenage culture). My ten-year-old rarely contributes anything except for clothing he received for Christmas, so I was surprised to find a collection of once treasured stuffies in the bottom of the box.

I admit that my eyes got misty when I spied the colorful fish amongst the other animals. The fish was my child’s first Webkin. I’m certain that Webkins will someday be what Smurfs are to my generation – a relic that causes a mixture of nostalgia and embarrassment when they appear in present day media or in the back window of someone’s car. My two younger children amassed a sizable collection, which is impressive considering those were the days of dial-up.

Talking to Toddlers or Teens

My toddlers

When communicating with toddlers, you have to speak literally, basically channeling Amelia Bedelia and thinking carefully about every word you use. You must be clear as a freshly washed window.

And when listening to a toddler, you have to search for the unsaid words, while simultaneously sorting through the garbled interpretation of the language presented. Many times what a toddler says makes no sense, especially out of context, which is typically how a toddler talks. He might say something like “Today I was dinosaur and kitty was up there. I had the yellow one.” And what the toddler is referring to is sometime last month when there was a kitten in the neighbor’s tree and he was wearing his favorite dinosaur t-shirt and carrying his yellow bucket.

I would give anything to go back to the simplicity of communicating with my teenagers when they were toddlers. It was much easier.

This afternoon my daughter arrived home from school. “Hi!” I said brightly. She continued to rummage through the cupboards without acknowledging me.

I’m used to this because my oldest has ear buds permanently installed in his ears. It’s necessary to physically get his attention. I must clap or yell (just like our 15-year-old dog who can’t hear either).

Home Alone

Home alone. Lately it seems to be the story of my life.

Having a husband who travels frequently for his job has its pros and cons. Mostly I’m thinking cons. When the kids were young, it was tough because all the diaper changing and long nights fell to me. The unrelenting toddler talk and constant baby carrying simply wore me out, body and soul. These days the children are big enough to bathe themselves (but apparently not big enough to pick up their wet towels or carry their dirty clothes to a hamper), yet the exhaustion can still be overwhelming. I’m the only one who can help with homework, wash the pans, chase down the errant dog, or locate the form that was supposed to have been signed yesterday. No one but me can be trusted to lock the doors, turn off the lights, and throw the cat out at night. The game pieces, dog toys, and snack leftovers will lie where they are on the living room carpet until I pick them up. No one else feels responsible for their whereabouts.

"Fat": A Lifelong Label

The school sent home their BMI reports last week. These reports inform parents of their child’s weight, height, and body mass index. They also let us know where our kids fall on the scale of underweight to obese. I’m assuming they also share this information with the government and that’s how states track their childhood obesity rates.

When I was a kid, schools did something similar although BMI had not been created. They did make us line up in the nurse’s office to be measured and then checked our spines to make sure they were straight. I hated this day. Well, actually that day never registered on my radar until after third grade. Third grade was the year the doctor informed me that I was fat. It was the year my mother started watching what I ate. It was the year that food became an obsession. Prior to that, I didn’t have any real memory of what I ate or whether it mattered.

When I look back on my childhood pictures, I did start to look a little chubby around third grade. But I wonder now, if that isn’t normal. Kids seem to begin to grow wider faster than they grow taller in the years before puberty. I have to wonder whether my doctor did me a disservice by labeling me. I wonder if I had been allowed to continue on my course, if my weight wouldn’t have just leveled out on its own.

Instead, his pronouncement set me on course for a life time of dieting and obsessive exercising, interspersed with periods of weight gain in which I would throw in the towel and remind myself that I’ve always been fat. More than that it gave me a new picture of myself: I was fat and therefore according to our culture I was unattractive. That fact colored my adolescence and undermined my confidence. These days my weight falls in the top of the healthy weight on the BMI index, but that number does nothing for my mental and emotional assumptions. I still feel fat. I think I probably always will.

"UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER"

“UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER” reads the caller ID. Do I pick it up? I do. But only because my beloved is traveling on the other side of the planet at this moment and all his calls come in with this title. The calls from credit card companies, non-profits in need of my financial commitment, and energy companies enticing me to make the switch also come in with this label. During the school day I feel compelled to answer these calls because my children’s schools come in under the heading of UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER. As you can imagine I field more than a few solicitation calls. It tries my soul.