"In the end, we will protect only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."
-Baba Dioum
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Who's Got Spirit? We've Got Spirit!
I let the girls go to cheer camp for a cheer clinic... Now it's all they talk about.
I may have unleashed a monster...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Wordless Wednesday
(In honor of all the places dealing with heat and fire this week- the ice sheet over the North Pole)
Monday, June 25, 2012
Are They Twins?
So I find it funny how many times people start to ask me if D and K are twins. Actually it goes more like this...
"Are they twi----, how old are they?"
People start to ask, then realize that the question is well kind of dumb.
But in case there is any confusion...
"Yes, they are sisters- you can tell by how they are arguing."
"No, they are not twins."
"Yes, they are about the same size."
"Yes, the younger one is bigger. Yes I am sure I don't have their ages wrong. And I assure you I haven't mixed them up- if you haven't noticed they don't really look alike."
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Weekend Wisdom
"Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our
common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept
newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify
killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We
make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and
ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too
often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the
shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad
fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting
riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this
much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation,
and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from
our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly,
destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence
of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the
violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men
because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a
child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in
the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to
stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us
all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is
there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must
be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you
teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the
policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you
threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to
confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not
with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with
whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common
dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear
- only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common
impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final
answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our
fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to
enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our
own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the
terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and
learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of
all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be
built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short
life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too
great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we
cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those
who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same
short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the
chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what
satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin
to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those
around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder
to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and
countrymen once again."
-Robert F. Kennedy
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Birthday Photos (finally)
For the first time, he didn't want a party so we just had the family over to swim in the pool and cookout.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
I Really Have Four Kids: a Blogging Dilemna
So it was pointed out to me the other day that I need to get my oldest child to sit still for a photo since based on the blog you would barely know he exists. But here's the thing....
He is increasingly unwilling to be on the blog.
And I have to accept that he is at that age where he gets to have some significant input into what I post about him. He is especially picky about photos. So I suspect stories and photos of him will be increasingly scarce.
(although D is more than willing to take over his "air" time)
That said- he has agreed to some birthday photos so once I find the card reader I know I packed in a box and brought home from work- photos will appear, at least until he changes his mind.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Weekend Wisdom
“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to
help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not
for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for
restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the
minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for
all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think
modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford
them. They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the
private power companies get their rake-off. They think American
standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all
the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much
that they would like to buy it.”
-Harry S. Truman
Friday, June 15, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
3 Months After Trayvon and Here We Are Again
Darius [Simmons] lived just a few blocks from All Peoples Church. I would see
him as I walked past his house on my way home from work. I would see him
on the basketball courts in the neighborhood. I would see him weeding
and watering as he learned job training and life skills through our Kids Working To Succeed work-ministry. And I would see him in worship, praying and singing.
Darius
acted in small ways. He often was recognized as the “Hardest worker of
the day.” He recruited more youth to join the church than any other
kid. And he was funny.
Darius was a beloved classmate at his school. He is remembered for his generous spirit and his playful nature. He was a remarkable young man.
This child, only 13 years old, gunned down outside of his house- in front of his mother- because his neighbor suspected he had been involved in a robbery. Gunned down, because his white neighbor believed the narrative that young and black and male equals criminal. His neighbor never knew the child who brought others to church, or tended the community garden or any other fact that might have shown him the person inside his stereotype. Instead he fired on an unarmed 13 year old kid who was home sick from school.
How many more grieving parents before we demand a new narrative from our media and our leaders?
How many more kids must we bury before we understand this scourge that eats away the soul of our nation?
How long before we have justice for all?
Monday, June 11, 2012
In Case You Were Wondering...
If a person waits until June to sign their children up for summer camps, they should not be surprised when every camp is already full. (and the couple I found that sound really cool and aren't full are either the week we are on vacation or the week we are already committed to attending (for some of us) or working (for others of us) at Vacation Bible School.)
Note to self: Next year sign up for classes in February....
Sunday, June 10, 2012
A's Birthday Interview
How old are you today? 12
What did you pick for your birthday dinner? Papa John's Pizza
What is your favorite food? Pizza, No- Ice Cream
What is your favorite color? Why? Blue, no no Black, no, Neon orange, no, neon yellow. Cause it looks cool
If you could live anywhere where would you live? Why? The Cook Islands. Cause it's like in the ocean and it's cool and way off land.
Do you like school? Why? No. Cause it's boring.
Who is your best friend? I don't know
What do you want to be when you grow up? A marine biologist
What is something that you do well? I don't know. Draw pictures.
What do you want to do better this year? I want to get better grades.
Photos of the birthday boy coming soon (as soon as I find a cord to connect the camera)
Photos of the birthday boy coming soon (as soon as I find a cord to connect the camera)
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Graduation Speech Every Graduate Needs to Hear
(aka- Weekend Wisdom a little early)
It's a long read but a message we would be wise to take to heart as we raise another generation of children who will eventually go out into the world and a message that those children need to hear.
You can find the link to the source here
Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the
board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and
gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege
of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful. Thank
you.
So here we are… commencement… life’s great
forward-looking ceremony. (And don’t say, “What about weddings?”
Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective. Weddings are
bride-centric pageantry. Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable
demands, the groom just stands there. No stately,
hey-everybody-look-at-me procession. No being given away. No
identity-changing pronouncement. And can you imagine a television show
dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos? Their fathers sitting there
misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner
muttering with envy. Left to men, weddings would be, after
limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during
halftime… on the way to the refrigerator. And then there’s the
frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced.
A winning percentage like that’ll get you last place in the American
League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)
But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works
every time. From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health,
through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably
attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing
tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and
otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and
your diploma as one, ‘til death do you part.
No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial
beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism.
Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we
find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés
like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we
are on a literal level playing field. That matters. That says
something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform,
one-size-fits-all. Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or
slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each
of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma…
but for your name, exactly the same.
All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.
You are not special. You are not exceptional.
Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your
glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain
corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt
Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in
to save you… you’re nothing special.
Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon,
helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do
have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom,
trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you,
counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.
You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted
and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly,
we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science
fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and
hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even
had your picture in the Townsman!
And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all
have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the
first to emerge from that magnificent new building…
But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.
The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an
English teacher can’t ignore. Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say
Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right
there, give or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns. Across the
country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from
more than 37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000
class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks…
2,185,967 pairs of Uggs. But why limit ourselves to high school? After
all, you’re leaving it. So think about this: even if you’re one in a
million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000
people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on
Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred
yous go running by. And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your
planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your
solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the
center of the universe. In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe
has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. Neither can Donald Trump…
which someone should tell him… although that hair is quite a phenomenon.
“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my
own version of perfection! Epictetus tells me I have the spark of
Zeus!” And I don’t disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of
perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is
special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become
meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition
with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own
insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we
Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine
achievement. We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to
compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the
quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece,
something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage
ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it
how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or
learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it… Now it’s “So what does this
get me?”
As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a
Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin
than the well-being of Guatemalans. It’s an epidemic — and in its way,
not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the
37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good
enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called
Advanced College Placement. And I hope you caught me when I said “one
of the best.” I said “one of the best” so we can feel better about
ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague
and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they
might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition.
But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can be only one best.
You’re it or you’re not.
If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope
it’s that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the
exhilaration of learning. You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles
assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is
ice cream… just an fyi) I also hope you’ve learned enough to recognize
how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today
is just the beginning. It’s where you go from here that matters.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the
winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you
love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t
believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about,
lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles
comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious
glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be
worthy of your advantages. And read… read all the time… read as a
matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing
staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate
the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for
yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your
might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of
the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are
commencements there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to
enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how
delightful the afternoon.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the
relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your
lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.
You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–quite an active
verb, “pursuit”–which leaves, I should think, little time for lying
around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President
Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr.
Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out
all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the
swirl and roil. Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time
encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point
is the same: get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or
passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and
grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO
tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little
expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every
day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live
Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and
decide it doesn’t matter.)
None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing,
should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades
ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying
byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important
things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the
challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see
the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris,
not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being
worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for
the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do
others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And
then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human
experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for
yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the
recognition that you’re not special.
Because everyone is.
Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.
- David McCullough
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Apparently Shoes = Love
Of course if you know her and her love for shoes, it makes more sense (but I am still a little scared by this)
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Celebrities, Black Babies and a Reality Check
This morning Kristen at Rage Against the Minivan wrote a great post about the "trend" in celebrity transracial adoption. The post was insightful and a beautiful reframing of the debate that goes on whenever a celebrity announces an adoption and the infant is black and the celebrity is not. I have not one issue with the things Kristen said (and I believe she knows and understands what I am about to say here- she just didn't say it in this post). In fact, I fully support her claim that we should figure out why minority children are over represented in the "system" and why they wait longer.
However- based on some of the comments to that post I believe that there is a little more that need said...
For example
When you HAVE a child of any color (and I have them all)....you see NO DIFFERENCE between them. Kids are kids.
I
have them all too and in my house kids are kids, But just like I see a
difference between my boys and my girls, I also see a difference in my
varying shades of kids. They need different things based on their
race. One child just needs a hairbrush and 30 seconds to put in a
ponytail (which will slide out on her silky hair within a half day.
Another child needs a marathon braiding session once a month and
different product for her hair- There is no negative value ascribed to
their differences but to act as if those differences are invisible
requires me to send a message to my children that there are parts of
them so insignificant as to be unworthy of notice. And regardless of
what we adoptive parents do or believe in our own homes- out in public
... there is a noticeable difference in how my lightest kids are treated
compared to my darkest kids.
I'm sure they felt like I do right now, they just wanted to be a mommy and ANY child would be a blessing.
Without
a doubt to them any child is a blessing but adoption is a two way
street. We must ensure that the adoption is a blessing for the child
too. Which means that we must ensure that the parents they receive are
able, willing and equipped to deal with the additional challenges that
come from a transracial adoption, particularly a black/white transracial
adoption.
And another point to make: "black" is just a skin
color. A black baby is still a baby. He or she is not a different sort
of baby, except in the eyes of those that make a big deal about race. If
anything, these celebrities are teaching our nation by example--using
their celebrity as a tool--that skin color shouldn't matter. While they
are only pictures I see a lot of love in these families and they don't
seem to notice a skin color.
Black is NOT just a skin color and that black baby will eventually become a black woman or man and have to live in a world that very clearly still sees color. Skin color shouldn't matter but it DOES matter and it matters from the very moment that child begins to interact with society. Families that don't notice skin color are setting their brown children up for an even harder experience. Race is a big deal and to believe that is not is to hide behind your ultimate white privilege. As a white person, you have no idea how much race matters. That isn't making a big deal about race- it is understanding the very CORE thing you must know to parent transracially. And if you don't think race is a big deal, ask all the white parents of black boys after Trayvon Martin was killed if they still felt that race didn't matter. That was an eye opening experience for a great many white adoptive parents. A quick reading of many blogs in the weeks that followed the killing revealed many posts written by parents trying to come to grips with a lethal reminder of just how much race matters.
White people that adopt minority children in America should not just
treat such a choice as if it is the same as adopting a white baby.
Growing up black in America is not the same as growing up white in
America, for instance. If white parents are not prepared to change their
lives and parenting strategies accordingly so as to fit the millions of
nuances that come with this fact, they may not be the best fit for the
role. Such naivety is not much different than people that don't even
tell their adopted kids they are adopted, hoping they will never sense
it or know it--mistake!!
EXACTLY. I have run into many adoptive parents who believe love is enough or the world is colorblind and that race is only an issue for those who want to make it an issue. Parents who can't hear the message adult adoptees are sending loudly and clearly that race DOES matter.
So I guess I would add to Kristen's essential questions she is asking only one more...
What are we doing to ensure that white parents adopting minority children are prepared to raise them.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Recital Time
The final performance of D's Chinese dance class (as well as a demo of what they had learned in her language class) This is, in part, the same dance the girls did for Chinese New Year, except with a surprise ending for D and on one of the other girls....
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