I’ve been reflecting on how relationship with our children comprises a profoundly spiritual experience. Though love and awe are independent from the material world, their presence is real and true. I’m at my best when I approach parenting from this mindful place. But it isn’t always so easy to get to that place – amidst the big and little curveballs life throws at us (!?!).
with my mother and daughter, celebrating Spring's arrival
I was riveted by Keith Bradsher’s NY Times piece on the front page of the print version of the paper today: In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children.
Through the journey of one family’s incredible, heart-wrenching sacrifices that the Times has been tracking for seven years, the piece showed how millions of Chinese sacrifice heavily for their children’s education. The reality is that as graduates saturate the job market, the security they seek is increasingly elusive. The story was sad, sobering, and a sense of overwhelming injustice pervaded my thoughts, as I read how rigged against less privileged families the bounties of education can be for hundreds of millions of young Chinese from poor families. Bradsher also compared costs of U.S. college for families that must sacrifice to send their children on for higher education, to get a sense of relative terms.
As I was processing the overwhelming odds against students like Wu Caoying, I continued to read and turned to the next page, with the photo of the family, some text, and then a half-page ad for a luxury hotel in South Beach, Miami. The ultimate in pleasure and privilege. I just gasped at this and had to share. ….The irony of it! I think it also makes for great discussion fodder for high school and college students to consider:
page A15 New York Times Sunday, February 17, 2013
I have a running list for an article I want to write one day that I think of as “The Dirty Secrets of Growing Up Global.” This basically covers the anguish, expense, and sleep deprivation (due to emergencies that arise in various time zones) parents experience when they send their babies (of any age) off into the world to explore and grow. We know the experience is a good thing, so that knowledge takes the sting away, but we still really, really miss them – and maybe worry a bit, too.
Our big girl recently returned from one of these trips, going to Shanghai and Hong Kong during three of the four weeks of her university winter break. She had just under 48 hours at home after the trip which mostly consisted of an internship shadowing a physician (and dear friend of ours) in a hospital. She’s such a trooper, immediately bouncing back to our US time zone, 13 hours different from where she was. It’s so great to be young, where, as she says: “time zones don’t matter to me; I can sleep anytime, for as long as possible.” About 60 hours after her return she starts classes, so we’ll see how that works out for her (I feel like that sounds like it would be said in a Sarah Palin accent, as in “how’s that hope-y, change-y workin’ out for ya?”).
Here’s a picture we managed to get of our three girls just minutes before walking out of the house to take her back to school. I’ve avoided sharing family photos on this blog but it’s a new year, and I’m thinking, “why not?!” I shared so much about the girls in Growing Up Global. Maybe 2013 is time for more of that. This photo just makes my heart sing. It captures joy, sisterhood and the spontaneity that comes with it. Gratitude wells in my heart for our healthy, lovely girls, warts and all.
A friend of Growing Up Global, Heidi Stevens from the Chicago Tribune, recently contacted me to ask about who I might remember as a memorable mom, with some unique, magnetic qualities that stuck with me. Her story that resulted is here:
Here’s my original response to the question, which has been excerpted:
I’ve been lucky to have been surrounded by many amazing mothers, notably my own! I recently was “found” on Facebook by a friend from my neighborhood in elementary school and as much as I remember her, I remember her mother even more clearly, who was the first French person I think I’d ever met. Unlike so many immigrants in the early 1970s, this mom wasn’t trying to blend in or give in to the pressure of her children to be like everyone else. Her husband was an all-American guy from Indiana, and I don’t recall anything French about him, except his wife. Unlike most other moms, who came outside in a housedress or sweatpants and curlers and who considered a special meal a Salisbury steak TV dinner, Bernadette (I can’t believe I remember her name!) always looked fashionable, wore light make-up and heels in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, made gorgeous French dinners, and never, ever spoke English with her children. Now I realize that I often positioned myself to play at their house before dinner so that I could see what they were having and possibly be invited to stay over. (Although my mom also cooked full Persian meals, never cutting corners with frozen food.) More importantly, now I realize that I was influenced by how exotic and glamorous and interesting she was, at the same time that she was friendly and funny and totally down-to-earth. I never thought of this before, but her example might have planted a seed for my own interest in learning French, in travelling and in becoming “that” mom that was not afraid to be herself, while also really interested in her kids and her neighborhood.
My mom and her friend, fellow adult college students ca. 1975
Then I wrote her a clarification:
I want to add that my telling this story is NOT TO FEED the French Parenting frenzy!! I realized later that this might give such an impression. My point here was not the mother’s “French-ness,” but rather her poise and pride in who she was – different from most others in her setting – that made such an impression on me. (Also, it’s more similar to my own mother’s experience. These were the two immigrant mothers in the neighborhood at the time, and my mother also carried (and continue to do so) herself with grace and was a great cook – even on weeknights. So it may have also validated my own mother’s different-ness.
Didn’t want to analyze myself here, but just clarifying that I hope it doesn’t come across as a French Parents Are Superior nostalgia!
Time's Cover - Hoping to Fuel the Mommy Wars
I also found it interesting that this story ran in the syndicated Tribune shortly before Time Magazine’s incendiary cover photo titled “Are You Mom Enough” with a gorgeous young mom breastfeeding her almost-4 year old. The actual story was about Dr. Sears’ attachment parenting approach, but the cover was intended to sell magazines, fanning the flames of media-manufactured mommy-wars. Can you tell how I feel about that so-called controversy?
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