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I want to admit upfront that this INCREDIBLY LONG POST which has taken me FOREVER to finish does meander a bit. That said, if you stick with it, there is actually a unifying thread. (If you don't get it, hey, that's your problem.) Secondly, I did put up two posts a week or two ago, about an education rally, but something random with Blogger deleted it and by the time I figured it out, the rally had already happened. I am NOT being defensive, why would you even say that?)
So the people from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) came. It's official, not just acute paranoia: my sweet baby daughter has a developmental delay. They assessed her in five different areas; she qualified as "delayed" in physical development (delay, in this context, means she is three months behind). Cognitively, even though she's not mimicking back "ba" when I enthusiastically shriek "BALL!", the girl is certainly babbling, testing how loud her pipes get (where does she GET that?), practicing varied pitch and intonation, known amongst those in the baby know as "pre-talk". This suggests she gets what is going on even if she cannot yet put a name to it. As my pediatrician aptly noted, "It appears the lights are on and someone is home." But physically, instead of having the motor skills/strength/coordination of a 13-month-old (she has yet to crawl or pull up on things, but does stand with help and take steps) my sweetheart is closer to a nine or ten-month-old baby.
So big deal, right? You know, depends on the day. I'm trying to figure whether I should be spazzing out, because sometimes I am. Some mornings, admittedly before coffee, I stare at her chubby little appendages and will them to harden. But on the other hand, some days, I enjoy my latte, and it's one of those life things--not what you'd choose, but certainly deal-able in the scheme of things.
For the last couple of weeks, we have been visited by an affable occupational therapist who comes for an hour in the morning on Tuesdays. We learn exercises. I have been taught to compress Isabel's little joints at her shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles (something akin to the song, in my mind, at least, to: "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, Knees & Toes!"). The therapist suggested also the purchase of little white baby shoes from Stride Rite--those shoes that people used to bronze?? do they still do that?--for a ridiculous $45 dollars. But they are painfully cute and do seem to ground her. And then there is the other prop: an enormous purple exercise ball that Isabel is supposed to balance on. The only problem being, my baby HATES. THAT. PURPLE. BALL. WITH. A. PASSION. She weeps just to look at it. I can't blame her.
She seems so vulnerable propped up there, while I, ironically, her mother and supposed protector, attempt to knock her off balance, rolling back and forth, side to side, front and back. She is supposed to have a reflex--apparently some of us are born with it but some of us aren't--the innate ability to self-protect. As you hurtle towards the ground, this mechanism fires, something in your body tells your brain to put your hands out to break the fall and soften the blow. You know the feeling.
Only Isabel doesn't have this built in, so when she falls, she falls, face plants, hits, hurts. So the drill is to toughen her up to the rough and tumble world, the hard cold ground. Like some baby version of cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure is key. You've seen it on Oprah or the Discovery Channel: Carl is convinced the potassium in bananas will kill him, so they coax Paul into eating seventeen bananas, upon which he hopefully notices he's still breathing. He does the banana thing for a week or however long it takes to blaze a new more healthfully realistic neural pathway.
With Izzy, we put her as close to the concept of gravity, the idea she will fall, as often and as many times as possible. We do this to normalize the notion of danger, all the while being on soft carpet atop the purple orb, with me at the ready to catch her should she fall. Until she's so strong she won't fall nearly as often or hard, and better, she won't be afraid. Only catch is, I have to get out of her way. The parental paradox.
Yes, I get it: the more we are put in the element that terrifies us, the stronger we become. It's the theme of Rocky, for God's sakes, get yourself back in the ring after having the crap beat out of you. I had a childhood crush on Sylvester Stallone and secretly wanted him to stand outside my suburban home in the middle of the night and bellow, "Errrriiiiinnnnn!" But this 'stand on your own two feet' theme happens to be the definition of irony for a parent. It's the quintessential question with no clear answer, or rather lots of answers in various shades of gray. Forget black and white. It's never that easy. As long as they are your kid, you are confronted, daily, with the conundrum: when do you intervene, when do you save them by bringing their cleats to practice or securing that alarmingly small piece of Lego or "helping" with their homework, and when do you hold back and let them fail because natural consequences are the most brutal and therefore effective way to learn?
The enormous dupe in having kids is that this "instinct" will suddenly kick in from all the progesterone poisoning and you'll naturally intuit what to do. [SIDEBAR: It's supposedly instinctual, for example, to breastfeed. The LaLeche League makes certain you are aware of the many and varied benefits behind their stepford smiles on shiny pamphlets before you are allowed to leave the hospital, and if you don't feed your vulnerable new infant ANTIBODY RICH PERFECTLY MADE BY GOD MILK, even if your nipples bleed or you are literally going crazy, you will scar your as of now perfect child for life. (Saved for another post, gotcha).] But what strikes me is the antithesis--how often my impulse is the exact wrong thing to do.
When I see my kid hurting, I am not driven to stand back but to bolt in, knock down the stupid kid who tried to cut in line and wrestle back my son's baggie of Teddy Grahams. Then perhaps a long wimpy cuddle for my bawling progeny clutched to my useless chest. To me, in the moment, that is what feels just, what feels "right", my instinct to protect him against pain. But it's a whole different ball of wax, isn't it--what feels good in the moment and what actually stands the test of time as ultimately being good. What's best in the long run is often what in the moment feels the worst. Consider exercising, becoming good at anything. It's takes time. It's painful.
But we learn to delay gratification, understanding that working now will pay later. Essentially, this is why we all, or at least a large percentage of us, are not heroin addicts. We have to get up and go to work the next day. Who's going to cook dinner? Sure, it must feel euphoric, but it's temporary; not a winsome risk/reward value. I was not born with this wisdom: I wanted only to eat peanut butter, to watch Speed Racer. Actually, that was not a problem with my parents, focused as they were on destroying their marriage; hence my love of sugar and issues with authority. I had to learn it the hard way. (Natural consequences are so much crueler, uglier in your twenties.)
So as parent, yet another part of the job is to teach them that even though they want what they want when they want it SUPER BAD, like NOW, (and you get it, you really do), in the long run, they really don't. But being present-tense creatures, they are not thinking about some day in the future, they are in now, which is part of what makes children so breathtaking. It's complicated. So I've created my own undisciplined little system: when making parental decisions, I find a good rule of thumb is to note what I want to do and do the opposite.
For example, part of my instinct is to hold Isabel tight and keep her my baby forever. There is something so endearing about her, so fresh from heaven or angels or God or the universe that she has not been adequately bruised yet by life to sense she should put her arm out. That kind of trust, fragility, I can't help it, part of me finds it beautiful. Remember who you were, who you could be, before someone broke your heart? How ridiculously bold you were? It is brilliant precisely because it is improbable, fleeting, because it will go away. Part of me hates that stupid purple ball right along with her. While knowing it is necessary. While being grateful her delay is something we can work on, something she can most likely grow through, so that when she is three next to another three-year-old, there will likely be no appreciable difference. Other than the fact that she might not be an Olympic athlete. It's probably just fine. She's going to have to face her purple ball whether she wants to or not: her own Apollo Creed. Ultimately it's good for her. Something she won't even remember. Something I always will.
Because for a a blink our babies are perfect, the possibilities are endless, and then they aren't. Some limits set, traits show their stripes, and our babies are no longer just babies--a special limbo state, in my opinion, hovering near perfection--but little people. And like all people, big and small, they are full of flaws, some subtle, some terrifying. Some luck of the genetic draw and the way life greets who it turns out, I believe, they already were. Mysteries slowly unfolding while we bear witness, some clear from the beginning, which you can only see in hindsight. My son's low frustration tolerance (no doubt handed down from me, reinforced by his silent study of my bad attitude in traffic) and ability to create amusing rhymes.
And it's not like this goes away when Isabel learns to walk and talk and sing too loud and possibly off-key on very long road trips. It continues past toddler hood to kid-dom and beyond, maybe scarier because the bigger they grow, out and away, the higher the stakes are. But then these vulnerable children are also unbelievably resilient and have lovely ways of reminding you. In this way you are not a constant nervous wreck, because just when you think they're toast, they do something to amaze you. If you let them.
Jack had his friend over to play after school. After they had exhausted Legos, Pokemon, castle guys, and Nintendo, Jack's friend suggested, "Why don't we watch a show?" Jack kept ignoring him (yanking the head off a Lego figure and attaching it to various bodies can be singularly absorbing). So his friend kept repeating himself periodically, like maybe Jack really had been so engrossed that he hadn't heard him. "Let's watch a show," his friend suggested more and more vigorously. I fought the urge to jump in with "Jack, stop being a pill and turn on the TV." I held back, waiting to see what they would do. "Jack," his fed up pal said finally, "I WANT TO WATCH A SHOW." My son finally acknowledged him with this: "I hate shows," before continuing with his work. "But it's the same as XBox," his friend pointed out reasonably, "you just don't have to move your fingers."
Jack didn't argue with this sound logic but still wasn't buying it. "Let's go outside," he offered, abandoning his Legos, so out through the kitchen they went. A few minutes later, busy with the baby, sopping juice from her chin, I heard "ummphhff!" from Jack's friend outside the window. Just as I turned to run outside and wield a new-fangled parental technique found in Parents, Jack said this: "Now we've both hurt each other. I think we're equal." Which seemed to make sense to both of them. I stopped in my tracks. They switched to something else, baseball maybe, laughed, screeched, and continued to have fun. I admired them from my spot as resident adult in the kitchen. They had glided through a potential obstacle to their friendship effortlessly without even realizing it. They made it seem so simple.
So I've been considering this as a life philosophy for grownups, a no holds barred adherence to the Golden Rule. It has it's validity. If Rick Perry were in fourth grade, for instance, at a Texas public school, he would find using a portion of the Rainy Day Fund a no brainer. Being that the Texas Constitution states every kid has a right to an "adequate" education, the structural deficit we have been facing (or not facing) would be acknowledged and attacked systematically. He would be compelled to stir the pot in a different direction. Using "I won't raise taxes EVER!"as a campaign slogan and placing the deficit on the backs of teachers to the detriment of kids wouldn't happen. Because he would be that kid he is hurting. He would be forced to feel it by living it, and I believe that is all it would take to make him do it different. I feel certain somewhere in there is a decent man who happens to have a really nice head of hair.
But we grow up and forget. Or our own priorities get in the way. We have fallen and hurt ourselves too many times, had to put ourselves back together. Humpty Dumpty is a cautionary tale, a prophecy. We know to stretch out our arms, to protect ourselves first. We don't mean to be selfish. It's natural, isn't it, to think of your own before other people's children? But if we didn't--if for some reason we ripped that very human quality out of the collective gene pool, did away with it--would we be better for it? Or would that instinct be the end of us? I honestly don't know.
Alas, after much consideration, my husband and I have decided not to send our son back to his public elementary school next year. This has been a terribly difficult decision, one I have lost sleep over, one my son is actually angry with us for. He loves his school and doesn't want to leave his friends. But what can I tell him but what we've told ourselves? We would be part of the public school solution for as long as we felt sure he would get a solid education. We were taking it year by year. We were prepared to see how things progressed with the district and budget cuts, particularly with the magnets, which we thought we would pursue in 4th grade.
But here we are, at the almost end of the year, and still a real number eludes us. We don't know if the cap for K-4 is going to raise to 25, we don't know how adversely the magnets will be affected, we don't feel certain about the future of DISD, and apparently, as of last night, we do not have a Superintendent. My husband and I just aren't sure. And that's not good enough. This has nothing to do with how wonderful our experience with our neighborhood school has been--particularly the amazingly involved teacher/parent community. This has everything to do with the very slloowwwlly moving political machine. We can't know what effects a drastic budget cut would create, so we at least have to consider possible scenarios. The stakes are high.
I've been asking myself if this decision is hypocritical. I wonder if that is what people from school will think. For the past five months, I have attended school board meetings and the rally in Austin, called and written my representatives, been interviewed by Channel 11 as part of the "grassroots movement" in East Dallas. I've written SAVE TEXAS EDUCATION!! on my car windows and wheeled around town noting everything from a thumbs up to a middle finger. It is in no small part why I picked up this blog again. I have done these things, of course, for my son, but also for his friends and his teachers and kids across Texas. Because I believe it is right, incumbent upon us all to take action. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Right? Sort of. Another shade of gray. Representative Sheets and Dr. Hinojosa have both said, "This is the new reality." I don't see this ending after this biennium. I think this fight is going to be around for awhile and could get worse before it gets better.
There are only so many hours in a day. My kid gets one chance to go to second grade. So we dissected our instinct to "save" our kid, considered alternatives, and made what we think is the safer bet. Could he end up being stronger, better, for having stayed in the public system? Was watching his mother fight for his school and his teachers just as important as a reasonable class size? Maybe. The truth is, we can't be 100% sure until we are there. What we do know is this decision gives us some certainty: smaller classes, less standardized testing, less bureaucracy. Though I believe my son would be fine were he to stay in his current school, stepping in to ensure some control feels appropriate. It also feels awful, like I am stepping away from being part of the public school "solution". But I eventually return to where I was in the first place. This is my son; he trumps philosophy. I reflexively put my arm out. Was I born with this instinct or did I have to learn it? Is this like the oxygen mask? You've got to put on your own before you can help anyone else? Is it necessary for survival?
I have so many more questions than answers. This is what it is to be a parent. You go with what you know to be true for you and for your family at the time and you pray more often than not you will make an at least acceptable decision.
I am not finished with my role of accidental activist. I can and intend to continue to be an advocate for reform in public education regardless of where my son goes to school. I write this down because I want to be held accountable. Don't hesitate to ask. Because when education becomes a privilege and not a right, I believe the very real and not too distant future of us all stands in question.
