Village Folk

A client and fellow working mom once shared this wisdom with me: “You can only run so fast when you have young children.” At the time, I was sitting in a meeting in her office, boobs engorged and leaking, clutching a breast pump and hoping for some sympathy privacy. I got none. Nonetheless, I’ve always fondly remembered her words. (I’ve also remembered her, only not so fondly.)

These days I go back and forth between being independent consultant, freelance writer (with far too much emphasis on “free”), wife and mom. And I actually run pretty darn fast, most days along concentric circles. Pushing in three directions simultaneously (the wife thing temporarily on auto-pilot) unfortunately means you make little progress in any one direction on any given day.

No matter how hard I try to compartmentalize my many roles, they never seem to stay in their respective boxes. So I end up with this interwoven life. Case in point, I sat down to begin writing after a morning of client meetings only to get a call from my son’s school. Dismissal was at noon that day, and I was 15 minutes late. Obviously, I had to pick up the boy, but the deadline was equally non-negotiable. So I would have to settle for another less-than-ideal article written with a bored six-year old watching Space Buddies on his portable DVD player in my office. (I could only hope that he wouldn’t erase my white board this time.)

Driving to the school that afternoon, cash penalty in hand, I reminisced about the “village” where I grew up in New Orleans. My dad and eight of his siblings raised their children in the same neighborhood; two of my mother’s siblings also lived in that neighborhood. I had six first cousins living on my block (in addition to my four siblings), and more than 50 cousins in the “village”. I always remember that it was a good and simple life, surrounded by love, by family and by so many cousins you were always necessarily befriended. In my family, there was an implied and mandated philosophy that you were your brother’s/sister’s/cousin’s keeper — whether you liked them or not. Fight amongst yourselves, but (you had better!) fight for one another. Younger kids learned the behavior from older siblings, and the culture of care self-replicated.

Now that I’m a parent, I can appreciate that the village provided tremendous support for my parents in raising children. Neighborhood schools. Neighborhoods…and neighborly neighbors who looked out for and cared for one another’s kids. Back up for drop off and pick up (although we walked to/from school, rain or shine!). Kids who knocked on the door to play — what’s a “scheduled playdate”?! Most importantly, reinforced values. And the comfort of knowing that all the villagers had your children’s backs.

I am that village for my children. And my husband, who generally works 12-15 hour days, is my only reliable back-up. We have no family locally except an aunt and uncle, now in their 60’s, who never had kids. Sure there are friends we can call, but unless they are fortunate enough to have local family (and even if they do), they are working it out themselves. And let’s face it: Friends may be “like family”, but friends are not the same as family. It’s just different.

So when did we each become our own self-contained village? And how do we get back to being village folk? Can we recreate the concept with friends? Or are after care, schedules and coordinated playdates suitable substitutes? Are we ignoring and overlooking something fundamental missing from our children’s upbringing? Or am I just nostalgic? What do you think?

An Ounce of Pride

I’m from a middle-class neighborhood in New Orleans. I didn’t grow up poor, but we all saw the footage from Hurricane Katrina — I’ve seen poverty. My children, in their (somewhat) upper NW DC neighborhood, in their (somewhat) private schools and their (mostly) middle class friends, are foreign to the subject. So we go out of our way to instill values in them to ensure that they are inclusive of everyone.

Earlier this week, I had the perfect opportunity. My 6-year old and I had stopped at CVS to drop off his prescription. There was a homeless man outside selling copies of Street Sense, a newspaper which donates its proceeds to provide services for the homeless. Annoyed that it had cost me a day of work and a $50 copay to have two sand particles removed from my son’s eye, I decided he could use a life lesson. So I gave him a dollar and asked him to buy a newspaper from the homeless man. He did, and, with some encouragement, even had a brief conversation with the gentleman about the importance of staying in school.

“Sure is a small newspaper for a dollar,” was my son’s innocent observation. I explained the newspaper and the rationale for buying it. He seemed pleased with his purchase. I was also quite pleased with my accomplishment — a gesture of goodwill and a life lesson for my son.

Later that afternoon, we returned to the same CVS. This time a different homeless person was selling copies of Street Sense. I could double down on my life lesson, I thought, still beaming with pride over my earlier success. I eagerly gave my son a dollar and told him to buy another newspaper.

“I want one too,” my 3-year old insisted.

It was too good to be true — my three-year-old giving to the needy! Blind with well-intended ambition, I gave her a dollar to bring to the homeless woman. She walked over to her brother standing next to the Street Sense vendor. The woman graciously took the dollar from my daughter and handed her a newspaper. And then the fight started.

“I WANT MY DOLLAR! SHE TOOK MY DOLLAR!” my 3-year old shouted, throwing the newspaper on the ground.

“It’s okay, Honey. I’ll give you another dollar,” I offered, ignoring the snickering passersby.

“Not THAT dollar. I want MY DOLLAR!” she insisted, this time somehow louder than before. She threw the dollar on the ground, and stomped her feet as the crumpled bill floated down Wisconsin Avenue. Ordinarily, I would pick her up and carry her, screaming, to the van. But that day, I had CVS bags in one hand and my eighteen-month-old in the other.

“Here, Honey, you can have your dollar back,” the homeless woman offered. Humiliated by the irony of my child taking money from a homeless woman, I offered the screamer a new dollar, then another…then 2 quarters…then 2 pennies, a nickel and 3 dimes.

Finally, she stormed toward the car screaming, “She took my dollar! That was my dollar! And I am NOT getting in that car!”

At this point, my 6-year old, the righteous one, began to scold his sister. “Get in the car! You’re just being selfish. You have lots of dollars……” The baby, prone to imitation, also joined in his brother’s lecture; fortunately, his only audible words were “bye bye” and “poop”.

I looked over my shoulder hoping the woman didn’t notice the display. No luck.

“Is she alright?” the homeless woman asked.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” I assured her as I smiled through gritted teeth. She seemed grateful to have only her stool and the newspapers to contend with.

I finally got all three kids into the car with some struggle and much negotiation. As I looked in the back seat, I could see my 3-year old, content with a fistful of dollars in one hand and a mangled newspaper in the other. My 6-year old, on the other hand, looked sad and confused. Having graciously done his good deed, he somehow ended up with two copies of the same newspaper and no money.

“I’m so proud of you, Honey!” I told him, hoping to lift his spirits.

“Thank you, Mommy.” He paused, then said, “Now when do I get my dollars like my sister?”

Alas, lesson lost! I guess I got a bit ahead of myself ambitiously pursuing life lessons for a 3-year old. Clearly, the newspaper was of no value to her, but the dollar — now that was currency! Nonetheless, I paid the price for my proud ambition. As my mother always said, in her as-only-your-mother-could way, “An ounce of pride will cost you a pound of hide!” Indeed it had.