So, what had happened was- in mid-June, Hero, Nick and I fled the floods of New York (now hurricanes), for Dayton, Ohio, where Nick performed in The Lion King for two weeks; we then hightailed to London-town, for some working family fun (work and fun for me; all fun for them). After two weeks of British bliss, my jet-lagged babies arrived in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. A mere week later, it’s there that I joined them, and we’ve had almost a month of Gazelle Company fun. Coincidentally, it’s there (Ottawa) that I write this post. Correction… wrote this post. Past tense- as in it takes us new bloggers an average of 4 weeks to get our posts up. This should be fun. Full stop.
So… Ottawa… the capital of the entire Canada; a beautiful place, scenic really- so many picture-perfect, stand alone environments: the statuesque and statue-filled parliamentary compound, lush hiking and biking trails on Rideau canal, and the vibrant colors of fresh produce being hawked along Byward market. Honestly, our lives felt so chaotic leading up to this time, that I really had no expectations for Ottawa. I have been was delightfully surprised! And… as I search for a segue… it dawns on me that surprise may very well be the codename for this summer… perhaps the rest of our lives (as parents at least). Surprise- life as a family on tour has begun! Surprise- the Canadian dollar remains stronger than the US’. Surprise- your 9-year-old is really 9, so like it or not, the times they are a-changin’.
At the heart of the latter are two instigating concepts, which I will quickly share; they are centered on the FBI’s definition of rape and the pimp hat.
Moment 1: Sitting at the dinner table on our 5th floor balcony in downtown Ottawa, we chat, grill our meal, and Nick checks his email. We fondly reminisce about the trip to London, our beautiful weather, and lament mom’s broken leg, when the conversation turns to an email Nick receives from CHANGE.ORG. The email is focused on a petition asking the FBI to widen its view and qualifications of rape. As Nick reads the email and we dive into discussion of the issue, 9-year-old Hero stops us all in our tracks asking- okay, so what’s rape?
Flash Forward to Moment 2.
Moment 2: As Hero and her friend Kailah are getting ready for the put-in of their original show, Motha Don’t Belong In My Room No More, they begin to costume the production. Included in their list of needs is some headgear, so naturally Hero calls out from the rehearsal room (my bedroom), and points to the top shelf of the closet: MOM! Can you pass me that pimp hat, please?
RIGHT!!!!! I mean, that’s two paradigm-changing moments in two very compact sentences. You have to know that Hero has cleverly avoided any talk of sex, with Nick and I at least, and from the clues that she unwittingly drops, we are pretty sure she got as far as the word “erection” in Human Development this year, and promptly turned off all functioning listening devices. So, our explanation of rape was purposefully simplistic. We jointly took a parental deep breath, and stated what we believe the definition to entail, in the most concise way possible. I wasn’t so fortunate when the pimp-action landed in my lap. My reaction was reactionary, to say the least. While introducing the names fedora, Indiana Jones, and Humphrey Bogart into Hero’s vocabulary, I simultaneously offered a lesson in globalization, hegemony, misogyny, and capitalism. She was wide-eyed… with boredom.
So here's the deal… and it seems kinda unfair, so deal may be a poor choice of words, anyway… she, Hero, our 9-year-old child (I feel I cannot stress this enough), has a lifetime to develop her understanding of these major ideas. We, on the other hand, her loving and thoughtful parents, have mere moments to plant the seeds of that understanding, and we can only hope to plant them in a way that they offer her depth and flexibility. Why the face? That’s why. How in the heck can we begin to prepare ourselves for these types of family learning moments? And more importantly, how do we try and scaffold them? How do we do all of this in such a way as to provide logical steps, in terms of a thinking process? I mean the jump from erection to prostitution is in no way a small one, so what sort of crash pad did I offer once we took the leap?
And, oh wait- there’s something potentially more disconcerting: I continue to ask myself about the margins of error within Hero’s growing understandings that I will realistically be willing to accept. Do we, as parents, actually believe ourselves when we say that we want them to be their own people? I mean, I do hope that Hero will develop flexible understandings of life’s major issues, but what if that flexibility leads her to conclusions vastly different than my own (no doubt that it will)? Am I really as amenable to this as I say I am? That question is rhetorical… but only sort of. All I know is, I don't know how to do anything but ask questions these days. 
PS- Today 4 weeks ago, my kid threw me another curveball as she staged an actual protest against my decision-making (such a New Yorker). The issue: she would say that ballet DOES in fact require leaping and bounding onto the rented couch in our rented living room, and I was suppressing her right to artistic freedom by asking that she resign herself to doing cartwheels on the rented laminate flooring.
See- flexible understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment