More Moola for Schoola

The same supplies box I used in 1st grade. 

When I entered public first grade in August of 1977 I carried with me a small colorful cardboard flip-top box. I picked it out myself at the local drug store. It contained a box of crayons, a bottle of glue, a couple of No. 2 pencil, and extra cap erasers. When I got to my classroom that box went in my assigned desk, where it stayed until the following June. My classmates brought similar supplies. I don’t know if any kids didn’t bring anything at all that first day, but I suspect there were a few. But no big deal, the teacher had extra pencils and a box of broken crayon odds and ends. The big lined paper on which we learned to write was already in the storage closet.

In this millennium, however, parents are emailed an ever-growing list of required school supplies that includes everything from antibacterial hand gel to toilet paper. We’re not talking just one per kid, but multi-packs of each item. With multiple kids in one family, these supplies can really put a dent in the weekly budget. 

This morning a friend whose son just started first grade lamented about what he saw when he delivered his boy and accompanying bagful of reinforcements to the classroom. 

“I’m already pissed off,” he said. “They dumped all the supplies I bought for him in separate bins for all the kids to be used throughout the school year. Some parents didn’t buy shit. So I have to pay for some other kid’s supplies?”

Yes. You do. I’m sorry. Our schools’ budgets are cut so badly that the very essential tools students need have vanished from the supply closet. Teachers are spending their own salaries not only for classroom needs but also for food for some of their students. And they have to ask you, the parent, to spring for essentials. You understand this, and you comply because you’d do anything you could to ensure your child’s success in education. But when it comes to the kid sitting next to him you’re less than enthusiastic.

And you’re being selfish and entitled for thinking that way.

Here’s why:

That mom who always used to help out but now has backed out of every volunteering position? She has lupus, and some days she cannot get out of bed from the pain and fatigue, let alone organize the Halloween carnival.

That dad who usually donates money and auction items from his own business to the fundraiser…the one who says he can’t donate anything at all this year…(and why NOT? He owns the business, it’s a tax write-off you say)…he hasn’t drawn a salary for himself in six months in order to keep payroll going for all of his employees after a decline in business this year.  

And that new mom who drives the nice SUV and has the pretty diamond on her hand, the mom who only has the one child in school so what’s the big deal of buying the school supplies that are on the required list? She’s new to your school because she just upended her entire life to move cross-country so she can take care of a sick relative. She really, really can’t afford the $60 worth of handiwipes and laminated folders.

In every nice neighborhood near every A-rated school there is a family that doesn’t look like they’re struggling, but they are. And yes, you as the keeping-your-head-above-water-at-least-for-now family will be asked to cover for them in some manner. Please don’t complain about it. Please remember when someone helped you out somehow when you were at a lower point in your life. I guarandamntee you somebody did.

Would it make you feel better if your child had three boxes of crayons but the girl next to him didn’t have any? If so, I dare say you are teaching terrible values to your son need to reevaluate your thought process.

Don’t complain to me about this being “socialism at its purest form.” This is humanism. This is giving everyone an equal chance. Do what you can, and stop complaining about being able to do so.

America's Biggest Threat: Little Girls

It’s been a tough week for 8-year-old girls in America.

In Virginia, Sunnie Kahle was denied return to her current Christian school for not being girly enough. In a letter to her grandmother--her legal guardian--the school inferred that Sunnie’s alternative gender identity was causing confusion among other students and that it was not in line with the school’s biblical teachings. Administrators admitted that she was a very good student and that they “love” her, but I guess not enough to let her keep learning in their institution…unless she wears a dress and grows her hair. 

In South Carolina, Olivia McConnell asked her state representative to sponsor a bill making the Wooly Mammoth the official state fossil. With strong historical and scientific support behind his young constituent’s proposal, Representative Robert Ridgeway brought it to vote in the House, and it passed 94-3. All was a go until Senator Kevin Bryant insisted on amending the bill to include a passage from the Bible explaining the creation of life…which is another banging-head-on-desk essay for another day. Olivia’s bill is currently stalled, not for lack of historical significance, but because a Christian fundamentalist cannot remember that religion has no place in our government, or that the earth is over 6000 years old. He must've missed third grade.

And in Colorado, Kamryn Renfro was suspended for shaving her head, which she did in support of her best friend who was bald due to the effects of chemotherapy treatments. Her crew cut was deemed courageous and supportive dangerous and distracting by school officials.

So we’re punishing young girls for being themselves, for honoring scientific discovery, and for standing with those who are too weak to stand themselves. We’re alienating them, diminishing them, and telling them to hush up and sit pretty.

What. The. Heck.

At an age where these girls should be encouraged in their research, individuality, expression, intelligence, initiative, and ability to connect with others, these schools and politicians are stifling their mental and emotional growth which so necessary is to become well-adjusted adults.

I don’t know the circumstances that led to Sunnie being raised by her grandparents, but situations like that rarely arise because the actual parents are doing an awesome job. So let’s assume she has had some emotional discourse in her past. If she does indeed have gender identity issues, kicking her out of school and away from her friends is not helping the situation. Remember, this is a Christian school... I guess they forgot that line in the Bible about “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Nothing in that passage about just the pretty ones.

Kamryn said she shaved her head “because it seemed like the right thing to do.” And it was. That sense of empathy is to be applauded in a child, because it shows strong character. Instead of being sent home, Kamryn should have been given an assembly in which to explain her action and inspire her classmates.

And really, Senator Bryant. Leave your Bible where it belongs, in your church of choice and your own home. Keep it out of Congress. Try to learn something from this third-grader today. Olivia will lend you her science book. 

Don’t banish these girls for their haircuts and their boyish t-shirts. Don’t dismantle their budding interest in government and science while hiding behind your Bible-shield. The times, they have a-changed. 

Keep at it, girls. When grown men in positions of power are threatened by your drive, your passion, and your fortitude, you know you’re doing something right. 

Introverts: A User's Manual (part II)

My mom says she knew I was introverted even as a baby. Long before I could verbalize my needs, Mom knew.

She said that I would be playing with someone, giggling and smiling, and then at some point I'd just get fussy for no obvious reason. I wasn't hungry or need a diaper change, but I was agitated. So she'd take me into a quiet room for a bit and I'd relax. And this was even before I could walk or talk.


As a small child I used to spend time in our cans cupboard. It started out as a good place to play peek-a-boo, but then I started going in there just to hang out. I'd scoot the canned peaches and soup to the side and just...sit. The space was beneath the in-wall oven, so if Mom was baking it would be nice and warm in there. And it was dark, and quiet. It's funny to think about now, but at the time I really just liked to do nothing in there. I was the child who went to Time Out voluntarily.

But I wasn't hiding; the introvert typically isn't afraid of the world or her immediate situation or environment, she just needs a buffer from it. In that cupboard I still could hear what was going on in the house, and I usually let Mom know I was heading in there. It was like my own little office.

Decades before I knew how to label myself, I knew what I felt about my personality. As a kid I remember hearing a song by Gino Vanelli and identifying with the lyrics: "...and I am lost, living inside myself...somewhere inside my own dreams." At 8 years old I already knew that the life inside my mind was far more intricate and colorful than the life outside my bedroom door. It was also more sensical. I would think about situations in my life and then act out all the parts in my mind, concocting various options for how a scene could play out, as if I was writing a screenplay. Except the story lines were everyday occurrences like what I would say to the cute boy in my class if we ended up sitting next to each other in the cafeteria. This "mental rehearsal" is extremely common among introverted children.


It's no wonder I took to creative writing assignments with great fervor early on. It was an outlet for all the scenarios I'd been formulating in my head. The more I wrote creatively--with no rules and with total freedom--the more I wanted to write. Introverts get their energy from within themselves, and writing is a very solitary venture.

Writing isn't the only time I come alive, but it IS when I am most purely myself. So when I'm lost, somewhere inside myself, that's where I find my vibrancy.

One Dish, Gold Dish, Two Dish, Old Dish

This summer I’ve spent weekends in three different beach condos in three different Florida towns. Interestingly, the kitchens in all three came furnished with the same exact dishes…Correlle brand’s “Butterfly Gold” pattern. I noticed this not because I’m a china pattern aficionado, but because this is the same dish set I grew up with in the 1970s and 1980s. Every meal of every day from birth until adulthood was eaten off Butterfly Gold.



First introduced in 1970, Butterfly Gold’s universal appeal was that it matched the harvest gold appliances and countertops so popular at that time. I dunno, I’m making that up, but our house did have harvest gold everything. And it seemed like everybody had that set. Even now when I visit friends and relatives in other states, most everyone has at least a piece or two of this set stashed in the back of the cabinet.

These dishes refuse to die, they’re utterly unbreakable. Countless times one of us kids dropped a plate while drying dishes, and as we braced for the expected crash, all that resulted was a quick smack sound followed by a spin…like a hula hoop that’s dropped to the ground. They never broke!

To this day I compare every cereal bowl I use to the Correlle cereal bowl, which I dare say is the world’s most perfect cereal bowl. It has the perfect lip, contoured at just the right arc for precision drinking. Generation X kids ate a LOT of cereal while watching Saturday morning cartoons, and when it came time to drink the last of the milk after eating your Honeycomb, with the Correlle bowl you never missed a drop.

Twenty-five years ago my older brother took some pieces of the set with him when he got his first apartment after college; my parents still have a few stragglers from the original set. I figure I’ll inherit what’s left someday. It’s a piece of Gen-X childhood that, while not necessarily the most attractive, still makes any kitchen feel like home.

Carpe Dancem!

Yesterday a coworker relayed a story from her days in kindergarten, and it bears repeating.

In many kindergarten classrooms, the bathroom is attached to the main room since 5-year-olds tend to have urges with short wait times, and such was the case with V’s classroom. For reasons unknown, one particular day V wore her fancy black patent leather shoes to school, which was unusual so it must have been picture day or some other dress-up day. She remembers loving those shoes, and remembers the sound they made when she walked across the hard tile floor. V also noticed that this sound was accentuated in the confines of her class's tiled bathroom.

V began clicking her heels and toes, and soon found herself full-on tapdancing in the bathroom, oblivious to the world beyond the closed door. The acoustics of the tile made it that much better. Not a trained dancer, she winged the moves extemporaneously. Jazz hands, scissor kicks, and big finish! The spirit moved her, and she had to dance.

When her big number was complete, V washed her hands, straightened her dress, and opened the door. To her surprise, the entire class was staring at her. The teacher stood stoically, arms folded over her chest. “Are you finished?” she asked. Mortified, V remembers feeling the heat of embarrassment envelope her. She took her seat, never to attempt such a performance again. AT least not during school hours.

I had tears of laughter streaming down my face hearing this story. Not because I was laughing AT her, but because it was such a beautiful display of the joy of spontaneity we enjoyed as children. Who among us didn’t have a moment where we saw an opportunity for delight and took it, without regard or forethought to how silly it might look to others?

There was an episode of Friends where Rachel gets embarrassed when she goes running with Phoebe in the park. It seemed that Phoebe ran with wild abandon, arms flailing. Phoebe explained it simply, “I run like I did when I was a kid because that’s the only way it’s fun.” After reluctantly trying it for herself, Rachel realizes she’s right, “You don’t care if people are staring, because it’s only for a second and then you’re gone!”

I used to do cartwheels everywhere. I was a cartwheel fanatic. I loved that I could do it and I loved how good it felt. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I did one. Somewhere I realized it looked silly for a 6-foot adult woman to cartwheel in public. But so what?

We should look more often toward the way children approach enjoyment, giving less consideration to our possible audience and more to the honest joy it brings us. The amount of time we waste worrying about other people’s perceptions could be so much better used just enjoying simple pleasures.

If you gotta dance, by golly you dance and do it with vigor!

Empty Crosswalks

Yesterday I saw a friend's picture of the fall foliage on a tree-lined residential street, and off in the distance was a little boy riding his bike down the sidewalk. My immediate thought upon viewing this photo was not of how beautiful the changing leaves were, but rather, “Wow, he’s too young to be alone like that.” This was a visceral reaction to changing times, and it surprised me to realize my own thought. (The boy was indeed fine, both of his parents were nearby and closely supervising him. It was only this single out-of-context shot that caused my concern.)

I grew up in a time and place where kids could ride their bikes all over the neighborhood alone or in pairs, for hours at a time. Riding to school or to a friend’s house a few streets away was so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. But that was 30 years ago. Sadly, we can’t give kids that freedom anymore.

Just this week, a 7-year-old girl named Somer Thompson was abducted in North Florida as she walked home from school with her sister and twin brother. She was only out of sight for a few moments, but it was long enough to end in tragedy. She was soon murdered, her body found in a landfill in Georgia. How did such an innocent situation turn into something so dangerous?

When I was 7 years old I was walking to school by myself every day, a distance of half a mile. I’d usually meet up with friends along the way, as so many of the other students walked or rode bikes to our neighborhood school. That was the norm. Even on the days my mom wasn’t working at her job, she never accompanied me on my walk, even when I begged her to do so. But soon enough, the walks to and from school became something to look forward to. It was freedom! The 10-15 minutes it took to make the trek down our dirt road was a tiny bit of independence that we kids had carved out for ourselves. We were trusted enough to get ourselves where we needed to be without adult supervision.

Never once was I approached by an unseemly adult. I was cautioned what to do in case that ever did happen, but I never had to employ those skills. The worst thing I ever encountered was a stray dog that tried to follow me home. A nice lady in a car saw that I was scared of it and she positioned her car between me and the dog until I got to my street. She did what we kids thought adults would do: she protected me.

Normally, walking back home in the afternoons through the school field was a time to talk with friends, to run off some extra energy, or to kick in some ant piles. We never feared being taken.

The terror poor Somer must have gone through sickens me. The guilt her siblings will no doubt live with will take years to overcome.

I hate that we have to take away childhood freedoms and joy in order to keep children alive. But we have to, because kids today aren’t just being robbed of life experiences, they’re being robbed of life.

School Days, Ghoul Days

One of my best memories from elementary school in the ‘70s-‘80s was Halloween. Every year my public school hosted a fundraising Halloween carnival on the Saturday before the holiday, held on school grounds. Each grade or class sponsored a booth, game, or event. The kid whose dad had a big tractor ran a hay ride through the back field. One 5th grade class made a haunted house in their portable classroom where you had to stick your hands in bowls full of scary items: the bowl of eyeballs was made up of peeled grapes, the bowl of brains was actually a bowlful of cold spaghetti, and the vat of blood was just Elmer’s glue. But the power of suggestion was strong in the darkened room with spooky sounds playing on the crackly record player.

There was always a judged costume contest, so everyone showed up fully involved. Since this was back when children were still allowed to walk places unaccompanied by adults, you’d usually see several other kids walking down the street in costume toward the school with you.

The prizes for the costumes and the various games were simple, usually just candy or a cheap trinket. I once won an Erik Estrada “CHiPs” poster there. But we all loved this annual event as if it was the most exclusive black-tie event of the social season.

In music class during the week before Halloween we always cheered when the teacher brought out the film strip projector. Every year we spent that class watching a sing-along film that took traditional tunes and changed the lyrics to fit the holiday. My favorite one of all was to the tune of “There is a Tavern in the Town,” which was changed to “There is a Haunted House in Town.” Even at 37 I find myself singing this to myself every October. The lyrics as I remember them:

There is a Haunted House in town
(in the town)
Where all the creatures gather 'round
(gather 'round)
Where the cobwebs hangAnd the window shutters bang
And all the creatures gather 'round!

There is a Haunted House in town
(in the town)
Where all the walls are tumbling down
(tumbling down)
Don’t you trick or treat, or YOU’RE the one they’ll eat
When the moon shines on the Haunted House!

--bridge--
Oh the bats and cats and witches
Keep the skeletons in stitches
As they sip their spider cider in the Haun-ted House

They're there!
They're there!
They're really there!
(really there)
Watch out
Be Careful
And beware!
(oh bewaaaare)
Don't you trick or treat
Or you're the one they'll eat
When the moon shines on the Haunted House!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeek
Creeeeeeeeeeeek
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek
Shrieeeeeeeeeeek!

On a side note, I credit this film strip for solidifying in my brain the difference between there, their, and they’re. Those sneaky teachers always found a way to teach us even when we didn’t realize we were learning!

I absolutely loved my elementary school experience. I know that in many school districts music classes are being cut for lack of funding of the arts. It makes me sad to hear this because every learning experience at that age is beneficial. What seems simple and merely fun at the time can still teach concepts that last a lifetime.

I tip my witch’s hat to Rosewood Elementary. Every year I miss you but I thank you for so many memories.

The "Off" Button Exists for a Reason

I have a favorite lakeside park that I frequent to bird watch or power walk (really, I bird watch!). There is always a mixed demographic of visitors there, both families and singles, old and young. But practically every time I’m at this park I see something that bothers me to no end. It’s the Cell Phone Distracted Parent.

It’s always the same scene: one adult gabbing away intently on their cell phone while holding the hand of a young child who is staring blankly, grasping their sippy cup and watching the world go by.

This is a beautiful park with lots going on. There is a lake that is filled with swimming ducks and turtles. There are cranes and ospreys circling overhead. There are steps to climb and bridges to cross. There are a hundred different kinds of flowers, dancing fountains, and music playing. In other words, a whole world of discovery for a kid who has a little bit of adult guidance.

But these parents don’t see any of it. Their conversations are more important. They seem to think just being physically present is quality time. But merely being in the same vicinity as your child does not equate to actually spending time with them. These children are aching for interaction.

When I was little, my mom would take me to the park and we’d bring the stale bread crusts she’d saved for such an event, and we’d feed the ducks and seagulls. She’d point out flowers and tell me what they were named and we’d smell them. She’d challenge me to walk across curb as if I was on a balance beam. It wasn’t advanced child psychology, it was simple parent-child interaction, stimulating my interest in the world and opening me up to new things. Common as though they might seem to an adult, everything is new to kids that young.

People complain about the current generation of teenagers and young adults being disinterested in the world outside of their texting circles. Wait till this next batch of young’ns gets to be that age! It’s going to be a whole generation of glazed-eyed, non-verbalizing teenagers who are clueless about anything beyond their own backyards.

Why are these parents SO disinterested in their own children? And why don’t they realize it’s going to bite them in the ass big time when their children grow up to be completely disinterested in not only the world and their future, but disinterested in their own parents, as well?

I saw a woman at this same park on her cell phone, and when her toddler daughter squealed upon seeing ducks take flight, the mom shook the child’s arm sternly because obviously the child’s delight was interrupting the phone call. I just wanted to take the girl’s hand and say to the mother, “Give her to me! You go sit down and finish what I can only assume must be a multi-billion dollar business negotiation, given your devotion to it. I will take your daughter to see the ducks until you are finished, because I would HATE for some quacking to ruin your phone call!”

It makes me sad. These kids aren’t old enough to judge their parents for the stupid things they do. But they are old enough to crave attention, and it’s a genuine desire to have that attention from their parent. I may not remember every outing my parents took me on, but I gained something from all of them. Maybe it was nothing more than learning that you can see shapes of animals in the clouds, or that if you look close enough you can see minnows on the banks of the river. But I remembered doing things, and I remember the interaction. I remembered that I mattered in those moments. Certainly more than any phone call.

Tour de Mom

Whenever I see a parent riding on the bike path with their toddler in a seat behind them, I laugh. It’s not because of the giant safety helmet the kids wear on their already oversized heads that leave them looking like Marvin the Martian. And it’s not because half of these kids are somehow still able to fall asleep despite the wind and bugs in their faces and the bumpy ride.

I laugh because my experience as a tot on the back of Mom’s Schwinn was vastly different…and way more dangerous.

Today’s tot bike seats look like NASA-inspired personnel modules made of space-age polymers. The kids are held in by a spider web of unbreakable woven nylon straps going every which way, the likes of which Houdini would have had trouble escaping.

The bike seat I rode in was made of thin aluminum piping. The seat was vinyl that I sweated on and slipped around in after 5 minutes in the Florida heat. The seatbelt, if that is what we’re calling it, was a single strap of plastic that fastened with a rusty little metal clip that you could probably have bent in half with 2 fingers. My helmet was nothing but a full head of blonde hair, maybe a knit cap if it was cold.. I have never worn a bicycle helmet in my life. We really dodged a visit from DCF on that one!


Mom and I would tool around town in this fabulous mode of transportation; she’d take me to nursery school, maybe drop a book off at the library on the way. I remember a very bumpy ride, and I remember finding out the hard way that many of the sidewalks in our town didn’t have ramps to the street level, requiring us to drop straight down off the curb. Did I mention that sad seat of mine really wasn’t padded? This could be the reason I have a crooked spine today. But I held on for dear life, just like Linus’s little brother, Rerun, in the Peanuts comic strip.

Somehow we never fell that I can remember, and she never stopped short, sending me flying into traffic. I never bumped my big unprotected noggin on the ground. Mom’s deft navigation skills kept us safely on the bike path, roaming the streets of my hometown with the breeze blowing through our hair. These kids today will never know what they’re missing.

Summer = Play Clothes

While reading a chat board for professionals in my line of work I came across a plea by a grandmother. Her granddaughter is heading into 6th grade and the girl’s mother is at her wit's end trying to figure out ways to keep the girl entertained this summer vacation. The mom has a home-based business so she is home, but working. The granddaughter “just wants to go somewhere and shop or have someone over to spend the night, all involve spending money.” Granny was asking for creative ideas on activities an 11-year-old would like.

I’ve got a great idea for her. GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY. I don’t know who I’m more annoyed at, the mother for being at her wit’s end over this no-brainer, or the meddling grandmother for not conking her own daughter on the head for not thinking of this.

What were you doing the summer you were 11? I was playing kickball with my neighbor in the backyard. We were riding bikes. Then we came inside for 20 seconds to guzzle a quart of Kool-Aid before heading back outside to build forts (I can prove this event, I have a picture of it sitting on my desk). We came home when the street lights came on. We were filthy and tired. I thought this was the norm. Am I wrong?

Both of my parents always worked, but they were able to stagger their shifts so we kids weren’t left alone. I suppose a lot of my friends had stay-at-home moms, but this girl in question has a mom who will be home, so she won’t be unsupervised. What’s wrong with telling an 11-year-old to go rediscover what is surely a roomful of neglected toys? Get the kid a library card and tell her she will be reading this summer. Art projects, yard work, these are all basic things all of my friends did. Nobody “entertained” us! Not that I don’t remember whining occasionally “Mom! I’m booooorrrrred!” to which I was then given an appealing choice of washing the dishes, folding laundry, or, if I was lucky I was handed a box of construction paper and told, “Here, make something.” Our choice was either entertain ourselves, or accept a list of chores.

This child is old enough to fix her own lunch, put on her own Band-Aids, and understand the boundaries of how far in the neighborhood she is allowed to go. When did summer vacation become such a hassle to contend with?