Parenting vs. Big Parenting

Last spring, Edline sent a notification about my stepkid's Biology grade. For those not familiar with Edline, it's utilized by schools to host their internal websites, student records and staff contact information. Emails from Edline come in every few days — primarily with updates on grades so that parents can track a child's progress over the course of the school year. It feels sometimes like an unwelcome shove into hovering parent mode. Other times it's a useful tool — like when my husband, Michael, and I were virtually informed that his son hadn't turned in his Biology homework for a month.

"Looks like you haven't turned in your Biology homework for a month?" I said.

"Ayuhuh." (Translation: Ayah, sometimes pronounced "Mmnnm.")

"So, you haven't turned in your Biology homework for a month?"

"I guess."

"What's up with that?"

"Mmnnm." (Translation: I don't know)

When someone answers "I don't know," but does, but isn't in the mood to talk, or to deal with the issue at hand, I get ... testy. Throw me a bone, already.

("I don't know," of course, can be a powerful, liberating statement — for 16 year olds and everyone else — a demonstration of humility, and the confidence to display a lack of knowledge alongside the desire to acquire it. As a lifelong know-it-all — even/especially when I didn't — this has been a revelation in the past few years. I actually kind of get off on it. Just yesterday, my manager in my new-ish role at work referred to the Something or Other Special Report. "I don't know what that is," I said. I swear I had a little dopamine pleasure surge. When I catch myself opining on something I know absolutely nothing about, I will cut myself off, with a motto adopted from an old colleague [who, in fact, knew more than a little about almost everything]: "Often wrong, never in doubt!")

"Can we talk about this in 15 minutes (or tomorrow, or never)?" would be a fine response. And is rarely the response I get, despite years of modeling, suggesting, and asking for this. So, I get the opportunity to remind myself that the brain of a 16-year-old boy looks something like this:

And, since I know that neither polite inquiry nor relentless nagging can be processed by said brain, I employed a new tactic:

"Since the only thing I've liked less in my life than nagging you about your homework was doing homework, can we bypass the bullshit here?"

Lip twitch (Translation: smile)

"Why aren't you doing it?"

"I forgot."

"Huh. As far as I can tell, you have an excellent memory. Do you mean 'Homework is stupid busywork and I'd rather stab myself in the eye than do it after sitting in school all day and then kicking ass at wrestling practice for three hours'?"

"Yeah, something like that."

That right there? That was big for us! Because somewhere along the parenting line, step- or otherwise, I'd forgotten that basically all a kid needs (besides housing and benzoyl peroxide) is to be heard, and to be understood. Or, for there to be a willingness to understand, so they will hopefully talk, and thereby be heard. 

Most often what they need is for adults to shut the heck up. My go-to in this department is Vicki Hoefle of Parenting On Track, and the author of Duct-Tape Parenting. Some of her suggestions are too radical for me — not that I doubt they'd work; I'm just not evolved enough to employ them — but the basic premise that 1) training one's kids for self-sufficiency from Day One and 2) putting in the time and mindfulness for a fun and trusting relationship naturally result in cooperation, familial connection and respect. Managing, micronagging, and keeping under surveillance, on the other hand, don't exactly engender an open and communicative relationship. Hoefle asserts that when there are problems with kids, they're either due to breakdowns of relationships or lack of training.

(The duct tape is for us, not them)

I suspect this homework thing is a training issue, despite the hours and evenings logged over the years. He knows how to do his homework, but does he know when and where to do it, aside from while cross-eyed tired at night, or during a 45-minute study hall? And, do we really know if he knows how to do it? He was an honors student until two years ago, then had a slight-but-not-red-flag-raising dip in his grades that could be chalked up to the difference in academic challenge — and hormonal distractions, and heavier sports schedules — from middle to high school. He had always brought home report cards with smiley-face-accented comments written in the margins, and we were lax about checking his homework or appraising his time management methods, because it seemed that whatever he was doing was working for him, until it didn't, in the form of Cs and Ds.

Also, he came to live with us when he was 9, and while I was the grown-up most game to do so — his dad has a PTSD response to math worksheets and the smell of chalk, having been sufficiently shamed by the nuns for what was likely dyslexia — I didn't feel comfortable, at all, jumping into classroom-parent mode. His mom was suddenly, temporarily out of the picture, our living arrangement a few months' out was a big unknown, and my aim was to covertly do the parenting stuff necessary while maintaining lady-friend-who-happens-to-live-with-your-dad status. 

My involvement with his education prior to that was one incident, the weekend before he entered fourth grade. I asked if he had summer reading. I was working at a magazine for K-8 educators at the time, so I had elementary school curricula on the brain. Plus, we'd tentatively connected by reading together the four nights a month he spent at his father's. I was hyperconscious of not treading into the mom realm, but as they didn't have a read-aloud routine, I felt comfortable bringing on the kid lit, with a wall of review copies at work to choose from. He had never gotten his summer reading book. As we drove to the library, I had to chew my cheek to prevent uncharitable thoughts from slipping out in spoken form, and to remind myself that it was unfair to judge someone else's oversights when I only had one life, my own, to keep track of at that point. He picked out Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, and applied for his first library card. It was my first experience feeling parent-y with him. It was thrilling, and complicated. It would get way more complicated, then necessary, then easier, but never easy, to determine when I needed to parent, and when I needed to leave it to the people on his birth certificate. 

I wish I'd owned the academic arena with him more, and sooner. It's clearer cut now. He'll be the first in his family to go to college, and I'm the de facto docent on that journey. Come to think of it, while both my parents have their BAs and beyond, my stepmother brought me to visit a college campus or two, and she was the one who suggested I just might love my now-alma mater, a school I never thought I'd get into, never mind be able to afford (the higher the ivy, the deeper the pockets, as it turned out).

So, homework: "I get it," I said. "The problem is that it affects your grade, and grades affect your grade point average, and colleges care about those things. So, if you want to have more choices about where you go to college, you have to do your homework." As I said all of this, I felt deeply tired, and wanted to pack up all our crap, buy one of those little trailer campers, head to South America and call it home schooling, which Michael and I have seriously contemplated, if only the other parent in the picture would go along with it (not literally, since those campers comfortably sleep about one petite person and a napping cat, and she has myriad small children and a Winnebago-sized personality).

Then I had a radical and unthinkable thought. What if he's a morning person, but doesn't know it? I realized about a year ago, only out of a desperate attempt to find quiet, uninterrupted time in my day, that I work better early in the day than late at night. Really early, like 5 a.m. Maybe it's a new development borne of being forced awake by small people around the hour I used to go to bed in the old days. Or maybe it's always been the case, and unfortunately I didn't know it in high school or college, or in all my years as a freelancer.

Indeed, he didn't look impressed with my theory. I said I'd wake him up, and would make him breakfast,* if he was willing to try it for a week. Since his bus comes at the obscene time of 7:07 a.m., this meant 5 or 5:30 a.m.

This is rather counterintuitive, considering teens' night-owl circadian rhythms. Which was clearly not considered by whatever geniuses in education decided it made sense for those humans most biologically prone to staying up til midnight to start their academic day while it's still dark out four months of the year. Our kindergartner is up, dressed and ready to party on the playground by 6:30 a.m., and her school day doesn't begin til 8:55. This schedule had to have been built around bus/traffic logistics, or to accommodate high school athletics — because field hockey is critical to academic competitiveness for the 21st century, and football is a viable career path.

Anyway, he agreed. (!?) It wasn't a fix-all, but he did most of his homework for the rest of the year. His grades did go up, and he consistently ate breakfast for a change (which no doubt helped, as well).

So, here we are, at the beginning of 11th grade — the PSAT this fall, the SAT and ACT in the spring, college visits, the make-or-break year for hiking up that GPA. At this point, a few weeks in, he's entirely unwilling to get up before 28 minutes before his bus.** Edline is now Infinite Campus — an even more Big Parent-like name. I have resisted checking his grades online so far. His dad and I recently asked how it's going, and are told, "All right, I guess," which could mean he's in the front row with his No. 2 pencil and graphing calculator, or sitting behind the tall kid, texting under his textbook. But he wants to, and expects to, go to college. He said, "I averaged my GPA in with the possible best grades I can get, and I don't think I can get it to a 3.5." (Translation: I'm concerned. I'm disappointed. I might go into "I don't give a fuck, self-protection mode" in about 30 seconds if you don't say something hopeful.) I opened my mouth and urged something smart to come out. "That's good, to know what you're working with. Colleges look for improvement, though, and give a lot of weight to test scores and application essays, too. What can you do to be certain about that GPA average?" He said he'd check with his guidance counselor. I pulled up a U.S. News and World Report article, optimistically titled "A+ Schools for B Students." I watched his face loosen up a bit. Hope, restored. What I didn't say at this juncture is that community colleges are an excellent starter option, and may end up being the most strategic way to afford his higher education. Part of parenting is holding high expectations for your kids, so they can think big, but how to do that without Big Parenting? There should be a night course on the subject. Or an early-morning one.

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*Another Vicki Hoefle gem is that our job and responsibility as parents is to train up, relate closely to, and back off from our kids, so they can sail out the door at 18, confident, self-sufficient, and able to cook their own dinner — and will want to come back for visits, versus feeling compelled to flee our familial clutches and be basically MIA for the next decade. While we neglected to spot the time-management issue for a while there, the stepkid has done his laundry since he was 10, puts his lunch together if he wants to brown bag it, and theoretically knows how to make a bed. And he certainly can boil up a bowl of oatmeal. But I know I certainly appreciate having breakfast made for me sometimes. There's an importance balance between fostering independence, and easing another's burden because that's just a nice thing to do, and to teach, in a family. 

**Breaking news: At 6:50 this morning, he asked for a ride. His Algebra teacher offers extra help before school, running through practice questions on test/quiz days. Just now he texted us that he got a 98.8%. (After a futile attempt to ban electronic devices, his school has an amorphous policy where students can use them — to listen to music or to look something up online — or not, at each teacher's discretion. He had to leave his at home for most of last year after being caught texting when not allowed — in Biology).

Welfare Wedding: Part 1

The real reason the baby daddy and I waited so long to get married was money, or the lack thereof. We nearly headed to town hall and called it a day a while back, just to get the legal deal done, but 1) our Town Hall doesn't officiate marriages, and 2) we have kids who are old enough to both participate in and remember the occasion, which seemed particularly important for my stepson. Let me rephrase that. The only opinion he ever expressed about the wedding was the shrugging of one shoulder, over which he said, "That's cool, whatever," as he headed into his Man, Jr. cave. But the concept of him standing up for his dad and witnessing our community witnessing our commitment to each other and our family...that just felt correct, and solid, and worth a few grand. Because sometimes our family of four still feels ad hoc.

The stepkid came to live with us suddenly and via circumstances that were out of his control, and out of control, in general. He hadn't lived with his dad since he was a baby, but his dad stayed within visiting distance (often walking distance), seeing him on weekends and more if possible. "Possible" depended on the cooperation of, and answering of the telephone by, all parties involved. There's a slew of info that isn't mine to share so I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that when the opportunity -- the imperative -- arose for his son to live with him, it was an answered prayer (despite his avowed atheism).

For our first two years together, we lived around the corner from the stepkid and his mother and baby half-sister. Our relationship -- the stepkid's and mine -- was friendly if distant. I knew from my own childhood experience with steppeople neither to come on too strong nor to infringe on his time with his father. If they invited me to all do something together, great, but I never made that assumption. I certainly never minded when my boyfriend opted for time with his kid over with me. In fact, it would've been a turn-off otherwise; his commitment to his child was one of the first things I loved about him. Let's be honest: I was in the market for a future coparent, and it was assuring to know from the get-go that he was capable of both making a kid and caring about it. I'd also learned from the success of my mother's relationship with my stepmom the importance of cultivating the stepkid's mom's trust and being clear about my role -- particularly that it wasn't hers. This grew complicated when he suddenly lived with me and she was unavailable for a while, and her son was in need of some parenting the likes of which weren't my boyfriend's forte. Like establishing a bedtime and introducing the concept of a "family meal." Don't get me wrong -- this stuff didn't come naturally to me, either. He and I ate dinner, often take-out, at 9pm. We spent our nights at jazz shows and movies, not helping with homework.

The day we found out he was coming to stay, I opened the fridge, surveyed the contents (soy milk and batteries) and wondered what people with kids kept in their pantries. I probably Googled it, then went shopping and hoped for the best. (Beyond the domestic learning curve was the fact that I was vegan at the time and had literally never cooked meat in my life, while he and his dad both liked a side of meat with their meat.)

We had moved to our suburban homestead just three months earlier, a two-flat we cohabitate with my aunt. The idea of an extended-family domicile appealed to us, and afforded us more space and the chance to have a dog after our tiny rental apartment. We were also fairly freaked out by being 30 miles farther from NYC, and homeowners. But the stepkid had his own room, which proved precient when he went from spending four nights a month to moving in. Honestly, we'd picked the location largely with him in mind, whether on a part- or someday full-time basis. The neighborhood is multicultural and mixed-income; the school system is excellent; the town's a few shades more laid back than Greenwich, where he lived at the time, the only kid in his peer group to live in an apartment, a residence the square footage of his best friend's foyer. He was just becoming aware of class difference when I met him. I remember the shock on his face when he learned that most of the world does not, in fact, live in homes with indoor swimming pools. But knowing this is different than experiencing it, and I can't help but think it's more comfortable to now have a group of friends with a true array of cultural and class experiences. Or maybe it just makes me more comfortable...

So, money and marriage. We'd been hobbling along on Michael's carpentry salary plus unemployment  benefits plus some freelance income since our daughter was born (my company had closed shortly beforehand). We could barely cover the bills, never mind fund a wedding, when my mother and grandmother offered us $3,000 toward the cost. Now, I know some brides spend more than that on a gown alone. But my groom and I both agreed that the most -- really, only -- important thing about a wedding gathering was quality eats. And my one Bridezilla demand was a caterer. I'd do everything else myself on the cheap or for free, but if we tried to cook the food or have a potluck I'd either feel stressed out or like a miser. Then we set a date three months out so it would be summer and we could do it outside, before the stepkid's football season and all the back-to-school brouhaha started. Then I booked an ice cream truck. Unsure what to do next, I Googled "how to plan a wedding."

None of the legion of downloadable prenuptial to-do list offered online, however, include "Apply for Food Stamps." But my fiance would soon be out of work for the next three months (and counting) with a back injury-turned-back surgery, following two years of barely scraping by in professions (and hours and paychecks) deeply impacted by the recession.

(They don't actually look like this anymore. Recipients are assigned a discreet debit-type card, much to the ire of conservatives who think people ought to bear a big, scarlet $ sign in the grocery check-out line.)

Let's pause a moment here. Are you as uncomfortable as I am at the mention of welfare? Or of personal finances, in general? Did that $3,000 a couple paragraphs back make you squirm, or is it just me? I get as embarrassed hearing a person's financial specifics as I would the details of their sex life. Wait, that doesn't embarrass me, even a little bit! In fact, nothing feels as private a matter as the state of one's bank statements. Which is why I'm writing this, really. I feel shy discussing money, but I feel shame for being poor, especially poor and a parent. Yet, politically and intellectually, I balk at that reaction. There is nothing shameful with using "the system" as it's intended: a safety net for the welfare, the well-fare, of citizens when they need it. Funds for food have got to be some of our government's most sensibly spent dollars, when one considers illegal wars and bank bailouts and $74k teacups and what have you.

But rest assured, all you critics of the social welfare system: You would totally commend the efforts put forth by the CT Department of Social Services to discourage its use! First, no one answers the phone, ever. There are no hours or directions listed on the website. The area in which it's located would be dangerous if anyone cared enough to commit a crime, but they're too poor and tired to make the effort. Or maybe they're just lazy! Which is how my caseworker likely would have regarded me had I been someone else. But what with my ability to collect and present all relevant forms of ID and paperwork in a neat, labeled file and my Aryan good looks, combined with children to feed and negligible assets with which to do so, procuring food stamps was, all said and done, a snap. And despite opinions to the contrary, I'm thankful, for the stepkid's sake especially, that we can use a card versus Monopoly money at the check-out. He's well aware that times are tight. We've been candid, but with an emphasis on reassurance and sharing with him -- not in detail, but as evidence to that reassurance -- our plan to get outta the hole.  It's so critical to keep the fear and shame shit to our adult selves.

(to be continued...including the Vows-n-Vittles radically transparent budget.)