Kicking and Screaming

"I simply do not think that yelling, swearing, threatening or belittling will get you to the place you want to be faster than kindness, understanding, patience and a little willingness to compromise."

---Rachel Nichols

This quote really hit home for me recently, and I was all about the Zen. Taking things as they come, learning to wait, developing patience and understanding; that was going to be my new normal. I was going to be kind and benevolent; listening more and talking less and the world was going to sit up and notice and, maybe even give me a parade. A quiet, slow, ceremony with lots of peace and compassion, much like myself…and then I woke up. Seriously, who the feck do I think I am?

No one who has spent more than ten minutes with me can picture me as a peaceful presence, staring at the sky and welcoming the universe or something. More often than not, if I'm looking skyward, it's because there's a couple of mean squirrels in the trees over my driveway, pelting me with acorns and chattering at me as I threaten and belittle them. Swearing? Oh yes, definitely. That's why I had to write a whole book because this is a family paper; some things cannot be said here, and I'm trying to behave, so if you want the entire story, buy the book.

The issue is real, however. It will come as no surprise to anyone who hasn't been under a rock for the last 18 months, that we are a land divided. While it's not quite the Civil War, and brothers are, thankfully, not fighting each other on the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg, within the political arena, and in our own social circles, there is a great divide. It's real, and it's growing wider every day. I don't ever remember it being this polarized. I was a wee tot when the Vietnam war was going on, but I do remember my mother telling us about the time a neighbor found out that her son had been killed in Vietnam. She recalled seeing the car pull up, a Marine and a priest get out and she knew immediately what was going on. All of a sudden it was real and not just some jittery footage on the nightly news.

Today, of course, it's different, and the news is a heartbeat away. Something happens thousands of miles away, but we know about it immediately. It's a whole different landscape and dealing with it is quite a task. That's what I see as an issue. While we want to "meet in the middle" our landscape, politically, is this side or that side. With no middle ground. That doesn't work for me, not at all.

Believe me I'm not a person who wants to hold hands and buy the world a Coke. I'm much too cranky for that. Buy your own damn drink, unless it's my birthday or St. Patrick's Day. Then again, is this separation good for us? Is this what we want?  Wouldn't it be better for us to reach out to those with whom we disagree and ask, "Can we talk?" Wouldn't that be a better idea? I swear I don't know, but I do know that we, as a society, have gone past the idea of working together and have moved on to "Us" vs. "Them." How is that helpful? Oh, right it's not.

Believe me, I have yelled, I have sworn, I have threatened. Yet, here we are, still divided. Man, that has to stink, right? Here I am, a newspaper columnist and I can't fix the world or even the disagreement I see in my own life, how can that be? My father, who would be ninety years old this week, had he lived, would be laughing his butt off at me at this point because as much as he believed in me, he knew that change had to come from more than one person's ranting. Most of us cannot fix what we feel is wrong; that is just reality. We can shout, and cry and stamp our feet, but the world goes on, regardless of what we might think. I refuse to believe, however, that nothing can be done. I will be looking for what I can do, even if it doesn't seem like much. Fair warning, there will be swearing.  Who's with me?

Homework Hassles

“Education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment."

---Dr. Maria Montessori

Growing up, my parents were as serious as a heart attack about school. My father was elected to his hometown school committee long before he ever had children. My mother chose to go to a private Catholic high school using her babysitting money because the public schools were, in her mind, "Not up to the task." She wanted more than sewing class and home ec. In private school, she was allowed to take biology and physics instead, and when she graduated, she joined the Navy as part of a flight crew. While neither of my parents went to college, they were two of the most educated people I've ever known.

 Naturally, when I had kids, I was committed to being the "Education Mom." I bought flashcards and worksheets the summer leading up to the first day of Kindergarten for my oldest. As a writer, I filled the house with books. The answer was never “No” if we were out and he wanted to buy a book. Not that math and science and history are not important subjects, but it mattered a great deal to me that my kids learn to love words. Reading, writing, and really, almost every other subject in school all starts with having the right words.  Looking back, I think I might have been overdoing it. This was pointed out to me when I went to my first back to school night and read the cute note that all the kids leave for their mom or dad on their tiny little desks. For what it's worth, it's overkill to take a red marker and make edits in the margins. Sorry, Andy.

Once my other two children came along, I relaxed. Schoolwork was (and still is) always a priority, but I didn't go all Tiger Mother about it. With my first, I would never have considered giving him an answer to a math problem. Mostly because once he got past third grade, I usually didn't know the answers, but still, homework was his job, not mine.

Now, with my third? Yes, OK, maybe back in elementary school I "helped" her with the spelling word sentences a few times. I specifically remember her thinking the word “underdog” referred to body parts that were on the underneath of our puppy, Oscar, the Wonder Pug. There was no way she was going to school having written, "Oscar likes to lick his underdog parts." That wasn’t something I wanted on her permanent record.

Homework has changed over the years; actually, it seems to change every school year. With each new teacher, new grade, and new school, the homework issue morphs into something different. The teachers I always respected the most and who were genuinely gifted educators, were the ones who didn’t make a big fat hairy deal over homework.  They looked at the child’s entire set of skills. What they did well, what they needed help with, and they went from there. 

If I had my way? Homework would cease to exist. While my background isn’t in child development or education, I’ve read and written about enough neuroscience studies to know a little bit about how the brain works, and pages of math facts, test prep worksheets, and arts and crafts do almost nothing to help children really learn. The dreaded "Group Projects" should be entirely done during school hours because then there is no 9:30 PM mad dash to Staples for poster board, note cards and at least one impossible to find item like green play dough. Then it becomes a Google search for "Playdough recipes" at ten o'clock because your kid forgot to tell you his part of the eco-system project was pond scum. Children are already too busy, and so are their families. Most homework, in my not-so-humble-opinion, is a waste of the precious hours kids have after school.

We need to take education seriously, but it doesn’t need to involve math homework that takes ten minutes to finish the equations and another hour to illustrate a cartoon story of Pete Protractor and the Pythagorean theorem. Why do students in some other countries have higher test scores than we do? Because they don’t color in math class, that’s why. 

Homework is here to stay, despite a lot of evidence that it doesn't improve the education our kids are getting. I just wish it could be more thought-provoking than the latest photocopies of MCAS "practice" tests and more relevant than whatever bits of glue and construction paper you can shove into a shoebox diorama. But what do I know, I got all the way through college without ever having to make a model of the Great Wall of China out of sugar cubes. It's a wonder I can think at all.

Just Be Happy

″The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy is to come home at the end of the day.″ —Aaron Sorkin

Recently I was talking with some friends, and the topic of anxiety came up. An anxiety disorder is a real, medical, neurobiological condition, no question. It’s one I wouldn’t wish on anyone, it’s crippling at times and not well understood. But there’s also the regular run in the mill anxiety we all feel sometimes. Work deadlines, family pressure, stress and the like. What about that? I wish I knew, because then maybe I could help a few young friends of mine, but I don’t have all the answers.

I have some questions though. Why is the rate of teen suicides up so much? It’s horrifying. In the period between 2007 and 2015, the number of girls ages 15-19 who took their lives doubled. For boys, it went up 30 percent. We are losing too many precious kids to depression and anxiety issues.

Another question I have is: Why are so many teens so incredibly stressed out? Even some who are not harming themselves still suffer. Panic attacks, aggression, strained relationships with family, and risky behavior with drugs and alcohol are all hallmarks of stress. Remember when being 16 years old meant you hung out with friends, went to school, played a sport or joined the marching band and maybe on a Friday night you got to borrow your mom’s car and go out with your friends? It’s so not that simple anymore.

Where is this stress coming from? Some kids have diagnosed anxiety disorders, and my heart is with them and their families because it’s incredibly hard dealing with that kind of illness. Some kids are just born high strung and put pressure on themselves over grades, SATs, college and so much else. Sometimes though, the pressure is coming from a parent. We’ve all seen those parents, and while I never like to assume I know everything by looking at someone, sometimes you can just tell. Haven’t we all been at a game where a parent is screaming harsh criticism from the sidelines? Heck, I’ve been to a game where one parent punched another parent over a goal that was denied. This pressure cooker way of parenting is happening more than any of us realize, and our kids are at risk.

How did some parents get this way? Another unanswerable question. They aren’t all ogres, they aren’t all looking to borrow Joan Crawford’s wire hangers, but they’re stressed too. They want the best for their children, but some of them have gotten it terribly wrong. Perhaps they’ve read too many books like “How to Prepare Your Pre-schooler for the Ivy League.” OK, that’s not a real book (at least I hope not), but there are plenty of similar books. Maybe they’ve gotten caught up in some societal rat-race competition thing. I sure did a few times, thinking that my kid just had to take a particular class or stand out as a stellar athlete or they would be left behind, choking on the dust of failure and desperation. Do we all want the best for our kids? Yes. Is getting into an Ivy, or having the highest GPA in town or being an MVP worth their health, their sanity or their lives? No. I’m not making this up: There are kids dying over grades, over SATs, over social drama and while there could be hundreds of causes besides parenting, it’s one of the few things we can control. It’s got to stop. How do we make it stop?

I don’t know any parent who doesn’t love their children so much they’d walk through fire for them. Maybe before doing that, we parents could all take a long hard look at our kids, their strengths and weaknesses, their faults and fears, and remember that they are, for a little while yet, still children. Remember when they were babies, all pink and giggly? Somewhere under all the stress, the eye-rolls, and the sarcasm, we have to remember that they are still our babies and some of them are in a world of hurt. Surely we can fix that, right? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m with Sorkin on this one. If my kids come home at the end of the day, to me, that is everything and more.