A minister once told us we were “remarkable.” He wanted to know something about the couple he would marry, and we told him how two military brats had met in an Alabama newsroom, became friends, and then decided to live happily ever after. I remember thinking we weren’t all that remarkable. I mean, people fall in love every day.
I suspect the minister, who had been married as long as I had been on the Earth, knew what we couldn’t have known at the time. Marrying someone of a different race was nothing compared to all the challenges we would later face — buying a house, the death of my mother, the births of Simone and Nadia, getting new jobs, selling a house.
There’s no way to articulate what couples are signing up for when the decide to marry. If you could, I have no doubt many couples folks would not get married.
It is amazing we get through each week with both girls and ourselves intact. It’s not always pretty. We often pinch hit. Ken will start an appointment while I finish work and then I will relieve him so he can go to work. There are drop offs and pick ups, a slew of appointments, deadlines for four. When it all seems too much the girls do or say something, and we laugh at and with them. Now that is what I call remarkable. Maybe that’s what the minister meant all along.
I am calling a moratorium on all things little. Little letters. Little cars. Little baby dolls. No more little things until Christmas, if then. I am certain toymakers aren’t parents. I mean, who would make little things parents can step on in the middle of the night? Who would make things so small it takes 100 times longer to pick them up than to scatter them across the floor? And who would make little things that can so easily be lost in corners, under the bed, anywhere else they may find a new home? They have to be anti-parent. They have to be. Maybe I should start a revolution against all things little, except kids, of course.
The joys of parenthood include watching your children learn. They are learning, taking it all in, from the moment they enter this world. I understand more and more each day why some parents get angry when a child doesn’t do something the parent knows the child has mastered. We invest so much into our children, and it is personal. I have big hopes and dreams for Simone and Nadia, and there is no doubt I will be disappointed as they grow.
Nadia is potty training. Sometimes it’s like a bell has gone off inside her head and she announces she has to go potty. Then, there are times when she announces she is wet. You have to tell us, we tell her. She’s learning, even if it is not as fast as we would like. We also realize we have to ask her if she has to go and take her to the bathroom even when she thinks she doesn’t need to go.
Simone is learning how to read. She enjoys learning and is like a sponge on most days. Some days, though, she wants to take a break. I try not to push. After all, we want her to love learning and not feel like it is some kind of punishment.
Simone and Nadia learn something new every day and so do we. It is not always clear who is teaching whom.
If you’re going to blog, you’ve got to read blogs — a lot of them. Here are this week’s finds.
The SITS Girls — So, this is one of the ways many mommy blogs get all those comments. When bloggers see the SITS button, they comment. I put a button on my site this week. Bring it on.
Urban’s Family –Urban is named after University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer, and the site gets a thumbs up from me because it has a lot of craft ideas. I can’t wait to try making stamps with lids and puffy paint. It will be messy and fun.
My Brown Baby — This site proclaims, “Intelligent thought. Fresh ideas. Confident moms.” That sounds like me. Plus, I like to check in and check out the Mom Blogger of the Week.
Thetamom — There are Alpha Moms, the ones who have it together, and there are Beta Moms, those who might walk out of the door a little disheveled. And then there are Theta Moms — or THE True Authentic Moms. You know, moms like me.
Twittermom.com — This is a meeting room for mothers and all things electronic. I recently became a member of this site and look forward to all the great things I’ll learn there.
This is an early Simone coloring. Circa 2009. She doesn’t color like this anymore. She stays within the lines and matches all of the colors. Still, I love her rainbow people. I am trying to see if I can somehow incorporate this piece or something about it into the book I’ve written about three conversations I had with Simone about her skin tone.
By SpelHouselove
© SpelHouselove
A few years ago, I took Amari to a MLT info session in New York. Hubby came when he got off work to look after Amari as I served on a volunteer panel. As the Citi staff were setting up the venue, two women asked me if Amari’s dad was white. I said no, and then they asked me if his father was Indian. To that question I said no as well, and added that he was black to stop them from continuing down the cultural list. This was a first for me. I have always realized that Amari’s skin complexion and hair texture appear as though he is multicultural, but I didn’t realize that for the rest of his life when some people look at him they may ask, ‘What is he?’ To some people it is very important to racially determine which bucket a person fits into.
Nevertheless, my sons have a very different hair texture than mine, and I able to simply wet it, apply oil and go. We use Proclaim hair oil in their hair and it has worked for both of them since birth.
SpelHouselove is a blogger and mother of two. SpelHouselove describes relationships between Spelman and Morehouse college graduates. Visit the blog at www.spelhouselove.com.
By Karyn Langhorne Folan
© Karyn Langhorne Folan
I spent an hour or so yesterday completing the forms necessary for my family to travel on our Mediterranean cruise next week. The cruise line asks that you send in your passport information— as well as certain details like your travel plans, your emergency contact and of course, your credit card number for on-ship spending. What I hadn’t expected them to ask was for the primary racial identification of all of our travellers.
It’s funny, I had completed that section for my husband, myself and my older daughter without really thinking about it. White, black, black… and then I came to my baby, who is bi-racial. I couldn’t call her primarily white any more than I could call her primarily black. If she were old enough to ask, I would have written whatever she said. Experts on the subject say that it’s normal for bi-racial children to bounce between racial choices: black at one stage of their growth, white at others. They may also insist on both– or neither, claiming themselves to transcend classification. I’ve read enough literature to be prepared for Sommer’s choices as she grows older.
But right now, Sommer’s a little shy of 4 years old. At this moment, the choice was mine. We’ve never come across this before: she goes to a private preschool where the question was never asked. Perhaps in a year or so, we may confront the issue again on some public school form. But this was my first time– my virgin moment– with racial classifications in my own family– and I was surprised my the conflicting emotions it brought up.
I re-read the form. This section was optional– the cruise line was only interested for marketing and consumer information purposes– but I hadn’t hesitated or even questioned the use of their data for the rest of my family. Sommer’s status made me re-think whether that was information that I cared to share– or at least whether the cruise lines marketing database was a good enough reason to provide it. But righteous indignation aside, there will be other forms, more crucial ones. Medical forms, for example. What is the appropriate response for a child whose parents are of different races?
Organizations like ProjectRace.org have been focusing on this issue for years. They have lobbied against boxes like “other” and argue that, in our increasingly multiracial society, forms should allows to “check all that apply” instead of being forced into a single category box. The wisdom of this approach seems obvious to me: it allows a person of mixed heritage to honor all of his or her cultural influences.
But the larger questions remain about why any of this matters so much outside of the medical context (where certain genetic markers may affect compatibility of treatments). What does it say about our society when a cruise line collects racial information “for marketing purposes”? What does it say about our school system if racial heritage is important information to tracking the performance of a student?
The truth is, if I knew more about my own racial heritage, I could probably check every box on any form you give me— most of us probably could. I know for certain there is white/Dutch ancestry in family, as well as English/Anglo Saxon blood. But I’m certain there is a far more rich story that I don’t know and that that rich heritage is present for us all.
Perhaps the ProjectRace.org approach is the beginning: we check as many boxes as apply… until science and geneology make it possible for all of us to check all of the boxes. Only then will the necessity for racial categorization become unnecessary.
For today, I left Sommer’s form blank… and when back and erased the categories for the rest of my family. We’re a family travelling together and that’s really all the cruise line needs to know.
Karyn Langhorne Folan is the author of Don’t Bring Home A White Boy (And Other Notions That Keep Black Women Single) scheduled for release January 2010 from Karen Hunter Media/Simon & Schuster. Visit her website www.karynlanghorne.com.
