My latest offerings at the Center for Working Class Studies

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Naughty and Nice

Don't get me wrong. Both of our children are wonderful. But Jacob is guileless. I don't know that I have ever caught him in a lie. Once, when he was 4, he took a Sharpie and drew all over his bedroom, including the radiator. But I think that's one of the only times he did anything covert. Most of Jacob's mishaps occur in the shape of "accidents." Last time we were at a restaurant he managed to spill his entire cup of water even though it had a tight lid on it!

Let me give you another example. This morning I packed Jacob's lunch for "art camp." The Pittsburgh Public Schools are closed this week, and we signed Jacob up for one week of "puppet camp" at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. We were out of bread, so I packed him boiled egg whites (he doesn't like the yokes), 2 cheese sticks, cantaloupe, a protein bar, and 2 small lollipops, of the caloric value of 25 calories apiece.

Jacob assessed the contents of his backpack to see what I had packed for lunch. "Why did you give me 2 lolipops, Mom?" "I don't know," I said. "Maybe I just wanted you to have an extra nice day." "Well, I'm going to take one out. I don't want to get fat."

Now let's take Casey. When Casey wants to do something naughty she says, "Mom, I need some privacy." This seemingly reasonable request precedes various naughty acts, including sucking the toothpaste directly from the tube, or cutting up paper on the bed, or pulling a chair over to the snack shelf and helping herself to the candy.

Yesterday Casey made some epic messes with some blue silly putty that had found its way into our house. She got my favorite silicon pastry brush from the kitchen drawer and got the putty stuck into the bristles of the brush. She also got putty stuck into her clothes, and, apparently, when I was at work yesterday and Josh was at home with the kids, she made another mess with the silly putty. I know this because Jacob reported the crime to me over the phone: "Mom, Casey made a mess with the silly putty and it's Dad's fault."

I guess I know better than to label my kids. If I decide now that one of them is "naughty" and that the other one is "nice" I'm bound to make them ever thus. But, like any parent, I'm fascinated by the differences between my children that don't seem to result, as far as I can tell, from how they've been parented.

Spring Cleaning

If you know me, you know that I hate to clean. Getting ready for bed tonight Josh complained about the chaotic state of our bedroom. "Please," I begged him, "don't do anything about it tonight. When I'm tired I can look right past it." Josh retorted: "And even when you're not tired." Touché. Guilty as charged. I'm messy. And I'm OK with that.

But this last Saturday, when the temperature climbed to 72 degrees, and sunlight literally poured into our dining room, I suddenly felt like a woman possessed. Casey was napping and Jacob was playing Wii. "Jacob," I said. "Let's clean the dining room. You can squirt the walls and scrub them." "OK mom," Jacob replied. "I like to squirt stuff."

For two hours Jacob and I tidied, scrubbed, squirted and swept. At the end of our session the dining room sparkled. We didn't make much progress in the rest of the house, but we were both proud of efforts and the fun we had working together.

I have discovered that there may be good cultural, seasonal and historical reasons that March brings out my secret inner cleaner. I have to wonder, though, why did I feel weirdly pulled, by some force greater than myself, to clean? What was it? If only Josh could figure out the source of this mysterious desire, bottle it, and slip it into my coffee every morning!

Chewing on Literacy

In recent months, Jacob's literacy skills have been exploding. He rarely talks about what he does at school, but some pretty amazing things are happening in his brain.

I recently had the idea to get a dry-erase board on which I would write the weekly (or daily) menu, in order to get the kids more involved in menu planning, and, hopefully, dinner eating! I got one at Target last week, and Jacob was very excited to write out, and then, to draw, the night's menu.

Inspired, in part, by my friend's blog about learning to be domestic, I decided to make Chicken Pot Pie. This is a bit tricky for me, since I don't eat meat, but Josh was my taste consultant and he helped me get the sauce to taste good. At one point he gave it the highest possible compliment: that it tasted like his mom's cooking!

It took me all day to make the pie. I made the crust from scratch while I cooked the chicken in some home-made chicken broth that I had in the freezer from an earlier experiment this year in which I roasted a chicken (eewww, it was gross) and then cooked down the bones into broth. When I was done with the pie crust, but while the chicken was still cooking I made a roux out of cubed carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, flour and milk. Then Josh salted that to taste, and I cubed and added the chicken.

Before I cooked the pie I covered it in the pie dough. I made a little chicken out of dough so that it would photograph well for the blog, and Jacob wrote the menu on the board. The only technical difficulty has been presented by Casey. Whenever one of us is not looking, Casey selectively erases bits of the board, which sends Jacob into a rage! When he calms down he goes back to the board and re-draws it.

All in all I've been very pleased with how the experiment is going. Ironically, though, everyone has been a bit sick this week, and no one besides Jacob has been terribly hungry for the chicken pot pie, the pasta/cream cheese/soy hamburger dish, or the home made vegetarian chili in the refrigerator. But at least we have a beautiful white board, and a fridge full of home made food! And a kindergartener who is learning how to read and write! And a pre-schooler who knows exactly how to make her brother insane!

Gregson Street

When I was in Durham last week I found myself on Gregson street. What gives, Gregsons? Do y'all have a pack of relatives in North Carolina that I don't know about yet?

What Vacation Looks Like for a Working Mom

Years ago, after my friend Tina adopted her first daughter, she told me something that her mother had once told her: "Mothers never go on vacation. They just change sinks." I laughed at the time, but I knew it was going to be true. Now, with two small children, my husband and I have been on a dozen trips with them both; we travel to Seattle and Alabama every year, often more than once, and they are wonderful trips. Our families are a huge help, and often give us time to sneak off by ourselves, sometimes even overnight. But these trips are not vacations.

What is a vacation? As an academic it's a little hard to say. I have "worked" every major holiday of the year, except, perhaps, for Christmas. I have worked on my dissertation on the 4th of July, finished a book manuscript in August, and used many, many a Thanksgiving Break and Spring Break to do research and writing. So what is a vacation?

For me, a vacation is taking at least 30 minutes to wake up. For most of my adult life I thought I was the laziest of creatures, lying there in bed, every morning, telling myself to get up. But then I had kids, and I began to realize that those 30 minutes were important. That was my process for waking up. I used those 30 minutes to remember my dreams, or I thought about what I wanted to accomplish that day. Sometimes I fell back asleep again, and woke up again. 30 minutes of half-waking bliss.

For me a vacation is also visiting an archive. Right now I'm at Duke University looking at film "press books." These are large, 11" by 17" broadsides that tell theater owners and movie distributors how to advertise a particular film. This collection specializes in press books for films starring African Americans.

This might not be most people's idea of a vacation. It's weirdly arduous work, involving odd shaped boxes, dusty documents, and bad lighting. I'm always a little cross-eyed at the end of the day. But it's fun, and creative, and liberating---liberating because it's just me, and the past. Sometimes I emerge into the light of the day and I forget where I am, or what year it is. Is it 1958, when Sidney Poitier starred in The Defiant Ones, handcuffed to Tony Curtis as the ultimate metaphor of postwar race relations? Or is it 2010, where, at Duke University, whites and blacks walk side by side in pleasant conversation.

For me a vacation is also getting to be as messy as I want with no one there to grumble at me. Right now the floor of my hotel room is covered with towels, clothes and sugarless gum wrappers. I put a "do not disturb" sign on the door so that not even the hotel maids would have to see my mess. It's my mess. I can't wait to go back to it after I'm done in the archives!

I miss my kids. I miss Josh. The novelty of being in a hotel room by myself wears off quickly. But make no mistake, I am on vacation. And, now that I have people I really love to come home to, I can savor the loneliness while lying in bed for those precious 30 minutes every morning. I know it won't last, and that's a good thing.

Vice Principal from the Black Lagoon

I picked Jacob up from his after-care program tonight and on our way out we found ourselves walking behind Jacob's Vice Principal, Ms. Brown. She is a tall African American women with close cropped hair and a wide, open face that lights up when she smiles. Tonight she was wearing a beige sweater and slacks and small gold hoop earrings. She made an impression last summer when Jacob and I turned up for an informational session for parents and children.

Jacob and I had crowded into Linden's cafeteria on a sticky, August night. As we entered we heard Ms. Brown shouting that she was going to be telling us the rules for using the Pittsburgh School buses.

"Rule number one, is, get on the bus." The crowd laughed, but Ms. Brown was serious. "You think that's funny? Well, you won't think it's funny if you're one of those kids waiting on the bus, or the driver, or the parent, or the cars all stopped for the buses while your child is idling on the curb in front of an open bus door. So stop laughing and get on the bus."

"Second rule is: keep yours hands to yourselves." She had our attention now. No one was laughing.

"Third, get off the bus." Parents and children were nodding now, thinking, yes, Ms. Brown. Whatever you say, Ms. Brown.

When she was done talking Jacob and I looked at each other. Jacob's eyes were wide and earnest: "Mom, I sure I hope I don't get sent to the Principal's office this year."

Cut back to today, in the halls of Linden Elementary. As we shuffled behind Ms. Brown Jacob started to talk, quietly, at first, almost as if he were talking to himself.

"I'm very good in school." Ms. Brown didn't hear him.

"I don't have any tallies, I've never gotten any tallies. I've never been sent to the Principal's office this whole year. I'm a good boy in school."

Ms. Brown stopped and turned around. She bent down to get a better look at Jacob.

"You've never been sent to the Principal's office? Well, I guess you are too busy following directions and learning, like you're supposed to! I guess that also means that you will get to go to the good behavior party this Friday, right?"

Jacob nodded, embarrassed now, tongue tied. He held out his hand for her to shake it.

"What's your name?"

"Jacob."

"You know, I spend so much time with all of the other kids in the school I don't always get to meet the kids like you, who never get sent to my office. Jacob, I am glad to meet you."

I stammered, "I'm Jacob's mom. We've been very happy with Linden so far."

"I'm glad to hear it." Ms. Brown turned and strode towards the door, in the opposite direction from where we were headed. "See you later, Jacob," her voiced ricocheted off the mint green lockers. And then she was gone.

Jacob and I picked our way over the snow and ice on our way to the parking lot, where Josh and Casey were waiting for us in the car.

"I sure am glad you've never been sent to Ms. Brown's office," I said.

"Me too," said Jacob. And then he started to run for the car like he'd been shot out of a canon.