Different Definitions

Parenting is exhausting, but sometimes it's the other grownups making it hard work. Today I went to the town square with Ladybug, who was well behaved and cooperative. On our walk home I began to reflect on my level of emotional exhaustion. I noticed that most of my interactions had been stressful because of assumptions others were making about us.

First we went to the dentist's office to pay a bill. There was a nice elderly gentleman in the waiting room who wanted to interact with Ladybug. He addressed me in Spanish, because my daughter and I have olive skin and dark eyes, so he was hoping there was a cultural connection there. Unfortunately I had to disappoint him (this happens to me a lot). I could have said my husband speaks Spanish, but that's beside the point since Chris is black and didn't learn Spanish because of any family heritage. He also knows some Japanese, Arabic, Latin, and Italian, 'cause he's a language junkie. Not what the elderly man was looking for. Again he asked me (in English) if we were from South America, and I just shook my head and muttered about how we're from here.  I thought briefly about showing the man a picture of our family, which would help him understand why Ladybug is the color that she is, but what is the point? I can't be who he expected me to be. I have no simple way to explain that we're descended from slaves, slave-owners, poor European immigrants, and Native Americans, but (to the best of my knowledge), no one who spoke Spanish. This interaction is one so tired and familiar to me that I shrug it off.

Then the gentleman kindly shakes Ladybug's hand (with my permission) and feels that she's cold. He tells me she's cold, and exclaims that she has no coat. She's actually wearing a sweater and a coat, both with hoods up around her ears. It's 50 degrees outside, and we've just come from the playground. I am not concerned. I try to placate and say we're going in to the library where it will be warm. "She's cold," he says again. I just nod.

In the library, I am reminded that libraries can be more about rules than reading. In the children's room the librarian hears Ladybug's footsteps and without looking up, calls out, "Walk please. No running." Okay, she's not even three. The fact that she isn't eating books and climbing the shelves is a major accomplishment. Her gross motor skills are only just past "toddle." To keep a pace with me she has to move her little legs quickly, but she isn't running wildly through the library. This librarian, as nice as she means to be, is clearly clueless about young children if she thinks barking instructions from behind the desk is any way to achieve results. But just to make sure I'm not one of "those parents" who won't discipline their kids, I kneel down and pull Ladybug close. I explain that the library is a quiet place. It's not a place to run fast like the Ornithomimus. Can we think of a dinosaur that moves slowly instead? She does, but she also doesn't want to go pick books now. She wants to go to the cafe. Score one for reading, Ms. Librarian.

We get to the cafe, and by now I'm tired. So, when asked about Ladybug's age and preschool status, I don't have the heart to tell the nice lady working at the cafe that we are homeschoolers. To delicately explain that I've made a different choice, based on my family's deeply held values, than the one she has made. That I don't judge her for sending her daughter to public school, because she loves her daughter dearly and it isn't my job to parent that girl. But my daughter, my girl, I saw perfectionism in her at only four months old, while she pushed herself to reach milestones her friends (three months older) had attained. Apparently perfectionism is genetic. I wanted to cry for her, watching it. Don't be so hard on yourself, baby. Goodness knows I've put myself through the ringer, and I know it does no good. Go gently. At almost three, she continues to be hard on herself, internalizing everything she can't yet do as if it's a failure. So no, I'm not sending that child to schools where your worth is based on a letter grade and a standardized test score that will be held up against other districts, even other nations.

It's an understatement to say that our family values learning. My husband and I hold it so dearly, that spark of inquiry, the delight in puzzling and discovering. It's as precious to us as any deeply held religious belief. So no, I'm not sending my child to school, which will violate our family's values. I don't want her deciding at age five that she's smart or dumb based on whether the teacher or the curriculum are testing her particular strengths. Frankly, I don't want her worrying about being smart or dumb at all, because those kinds of nonsense ideas are not what learning is about.

I'm tired, and there's no good or short way to say any of that while I'm adding cream to my coffee. So I just say she's not in preschool. The nice lady presses on, about how she's young and maybe next year. I mention how we do play groups, and it's like she didn't hear me. She continues on about preschool, "so that she can be around other children." Never mind the fact that we were at play group yesterday. That another kid snatched the tool Bug was using, and without complaint, without direction from me, Bug found another tool (sitting unused), waited patiently for a younger child to move out of the way, grabbed it, and went back to work. No, my kid clearly won't learn to navigate social situations unless I pay for preschool.

The nice lady means well, and I don't feel like offending her with all my radical thoughts about education. So I lie by omission and nod and smile as she explains that the local elementary school is "good." Whatever that means. Everyone you meet has a different definition.

Everyone you meet has a different definition of a good school. Of running inside. Of what language you ought to be speaking. We ended our outing on the playground, with no other children or adults around. What a relief to simply play with my young child, both of us at home with ourselves and free from concern about these definitions.

Black Ecologists?

I was reading a lesson in Nebel's Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding about nature observation. I was struck by this quote: "On a purely aesthetic level, becoming able to recognize common plants and animals of your region is, to me, rather like getting to know and feel at home with neighbors versus forever being in a world of strangers."

And this got me to thinking about the lack of African-American ecologists. A Google search turned up a 2007 study confirming my suspicion. The abstract explains that "ecology in particular has among the lowest proportions of underrepresented students and professionals of any science." Then I found this blog post which sums up some of the rationalizations people try to give for why "black people don't like wilderness," and therefore don't become ecologists. I did find a cool post, Black & Green - The New Integration, profiling five urban ecologists. So there are some!
 
It's hard to talk about this without veering into the massive "Why are there so few minorities in science?" topic. Obviously they're related. But I want to know if teaching children to observe and appreciate nature is a cultural practice that some engage in while others don't. My father (a black man) is a land surveyor, but he's a rarity in his profession because he is not an outdoorsman. I learned to identify birds and flowers from my mother, who is a white woman. My personal experience is anecdotal, and I can't draw conclusions about entire groups of people based on it. But I will ask the question, do African-American families in general place a low value on nature observation with their children? If that were true, would it contribute to an explanation of why there are fewer black ecologists than most other sciences?

I think what I'm talking about is placing a value on nature. Going back to Nebel's quote, I think he has identified a kind of literacy. Nature literacy. Understanding the plants and animals in your area is one more way to engage with your world rather than be isolated from it. This is a valuable literacy for anyone to possess.