Follow-up to Poop, Pee, and Destruction

I told M-ito he couldn’t sing the Barney song anymore. We went to lay badmitton at the park and were resting in the sun after an hour of swatting birdies at each other, most of the time missing and laughing. No more stabbing, or cutting off heads, or crushing the purple dinosaur in song. He took it with a nod of his head. Okay.

Mom-ita added on the banning of the Monkey song – which went something like this: I had to pee. I couldn’t find a tree. So I peed on a monkey and the monkey cursed me. She said this in the car a few hours later. He argued it a little but gave in quickly. Mom-ita’s word is law.

My idea of just letting the two boys get this out of their systems in the first five minutes of the car ride just didn’t feel right. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But not in execution. You got to trust your gut. Some of their wordplay I do find funny (a problem in and of itself). I’m a sucker for toilet humor and slapstick. Still it doesn’t feel right to hear it come for 7 and 8 year olds. So much of a 7 year old’s world is about these kinds of things. Violent slapstick can be funny. Toilet humor always big for belly laughs. But when is it okay for them to repeat it or make it up themselves? My gut told me to stop it. Mom-ita took action way before I’d taken mine. That moment in the car brought me up to speed. No more monkey song. Now the decision is easy. In order to stay in line with what Mom-ita has decreed (No toilet humor or violence) I’ll just say no. I can’t wait to try this out this week when I drive M-ito to school. Gulp. Oh the trials of fatherhood.

Hobbit Tales

I’m reading The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, to M-ito. I’ve been waiting to read it to him forever. Well, since I read it when I was ten or so. My friend Joe showed it to me and I read it and fell in love with it’s total sense of adventure immediately. I’m a sucker for a fantasy story. Dwarves, dragons, elves, hobbits, hero’s wizards – you can’t beat it. Since then I’ve read it twice but it’s been over ten years since the last time. I’ve told myself it would be great to read it to my son or daughter one day. Now that I have a son, I’ve been eyeing it each year, and looking at M-ito to wonder if it was time yet. This year since starting school he read How to Train Your Dragon by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (traslated from the Norse by Cressida Cowel) and a number of other books on his own that speak of adventure and new worlds, swordplay and dragons. With Hiccup under his belt I thought it was time for The Hobbit. It’s dark and there’s lots of danger and the tone is menacing, but so far he’s loved it.

Reading it has been hard, though, bitter-sweet to be exact. My friend Joe, who told me about the book after he’d read it, had been my best friend since we were both in 4th grade together. We met the first day of school – a new school for me – I left my lunch box behind and Joe took it home with him. He lived down the block from me. I went to his house to retrieve it and so a friendship was born on a sunny September day. We saw each other every day until, when we were both in seventh grade, maybe a month away from the end of school, he was killed. It was a freakish accident. He walked home from school early without letting anyone know. There were torrential rains. Crossing the rail road tracks he was hit. I can still picture the black sky, still hear the downpour against the school roof while I sat in math class. They announced his death over the loud speaker just before school ended.

So many things I do as a father remind me of my own childhood. I watch my son and watch myself as a child, or I watch my son and think of what was and what could have been. I have to remind myself, like so many other parents, that he is not me. Now that’s a challenge they never told me about in the school for parents.

The Hobbit is a wonderful book and I love the way my son pulls the covers up closer around him while I read to him about the three Trolls arguing about how to kill and eat good old Bilbo and his dwarven companions. He peers over my shoulder, snuggling in close. At the scary parts he covers his ears with his hands and closes his eyes. “Don’t read anymore!” He says, then takes his hands off his ears and asks me to read on. “Which do you want?” I ask. “Read on!” he says. I love being able to comfort him, being able to be his warmth when the story makes him shiver.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says, “Hold the sadness and pain of smasara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.” I try to remind myself of this, when my heart aches. I try to see the beauty of my son’s smile.

Today M-ito told me he wanted to write a new book of his own. In school they’re writing stories now – fiction. They’ve moved on from non-ficiton memoir and he’s thrilled because he loves to tell stories. “I’m going to write a story,” he says, “about a character I’ve had an idea about for a long time. His name is the Sizzler.”

All I can think of is the restaurant chain called The Sizzler, but I tell him to go on – to tell me about him.

“It’s about a Sizzler that has never had any adventures but he gets dragged into a bunch of them and all kinds of things happen.”

Now I can see the Great Eastern Sun.

In-school Bardo

Bardo – Buddhist term – an intermediate state. The term usually refers to the term between death and rebirth. The Wisdon of No Escape, Pema Chodron.

My son is in bardo – the place between comfort in his old school and his end destination of fitting in at his new one. I’ve heard a little through M-ito but mostly late at night or via phone calls while I was away in New Orleans and then Lansing Michigan – working. But the picture is pretty clear to me. My son is in bardo. It’s a hard place to be, but it’s a place of growth. My son doesn’t want to hear that, though. He just wants to be out of bardo and on the shore of fitting in.

M-ito made his first friend during his first week at school. He called them aquaintences up until then. He named his first friend, Jacito, a boy from the other 2nd grade class. They played tag together with some other boys. Tag is one of M-ito’s favorite games. He laughs when he plays and his laughter is a sound that makes you and anyone around you smile. I thought, from my hotel room, listening to Mom-ita tell me of his adventures, that things seemed to be moving along. The process of forming with a new group had begun. I had expected it to be rocky but so far so good.

After he made his first friend, he told Mom-ita that he waited for the other class to come out for recess the next day. He waited by the door. I have this picture of him waiting for the other class to come out. “Will they come out today?” he told me later  he wondered. “Are they out sick?” Two days a week the two classes did not have recess together. He learned this while waiting for them to come out. Then on Friday, M-ito’s friend changed the game of tag to bullfight tag. A different game – out of my son’s comfort zone. He was still in bardo. He didn’t want to play. I know some things about my son and one thing is he likes to have mastery over games he plays. He doesn’t like games that he thinks he’s not good at – especially games that he’ll look bad playing. Embarrasment is a big factor even for 7-year olds. I understand this.

He sat on the fence watching the kids for two days. Mom-ita didn’t know what to do but she waited it out. She bounced her ideas off of me but she knew in her heart what was right for her son. I listened and agreed with her. M-ito’s teacher came to Mom-ita at the end of the second day and said, “I’ve been watching and waiting too. Other kids have asked him to play games bu he’s saying no. I’m not going to let it go on much longer.” The next day she asked M-ito to sit by her so he wasn’t by himself again. Some kids asked him to play bull fight tag then and he said yes. This time he got the rules down and played better. Perhaps the choice of sitting next to the teacher, whom he seems to like, or playing tag pushed him to play. In any case it worked.

He’s played other types of tag since then and played soccer yesterday. He played goalie. He says it’s easy and he likes it – with a shrug. No one else wants to play goalie so he steps up. He found a place from which to participate. I give him a lot of credit. Bardo is not an easy place to be. It’s so much easier to stay in your comfort zone, so much harder to step off into a strange land.

As a father I have found the whole process to have a hint of the unreal about it. I’m experiencing much of it second hand – through Mom-ita. M-ito is close to her because she drives him in and picks him up. She is his lifeline to see at the end of the day. I am the guy he sees most evenings at 6pm – regular time, usually coming home while he’s in the middle of his homework. He doens’t ask me for help, that is Mom-ita’s domain. Even trying to make one day a week driving in with the two of them – it’s still hard to stay part of things. Drop-off happens so quick. Mostly, like so many Dad-ditos these days, I try to catch up on the weekend. You see, I’m in my own bardo too. I’m adjusting to change and allowing this new aspect of our relationship to grow also. It sounds good on paper but it sure is hard to do.

Meeting Your Edge

A Buddhist story related by Pema Chodron goes like this.

A group of travellors gets ready to climb a mountain. After a few hundred feet a few can’t go up any higher so they stop. As the group goes up higher others stop, unable to go further. Finally a few reach the top. Those that stopped along the way, met their edge. They reached a place where the word “no” rang so loudly in their ears that they simply had to stop. The key is that the ones who made it to the top are not the winners. They had no fear of hieghts or had it but it was bearable. The ones who had to stop along the way are not losers either. They simply met their edge and could go no further. Meeting your edge means you have something to learn about yourself, that you need to open your heart to the experience, be kind to yourself and recognize that you have something to learn. Those who made it to the top will meet their edge on some other expedition. Everyone meets their edge, sooner or later in life. Engaging in life means you go up the mountain, you show up for the expedition, not knowing how far you will be able to go.

Sunday I watched my son meet his edge. He’s seven so he meets it often. But I’ve never seen it so viscerally before. A classmate whom he has only just met, had invited him to his birthday party and M-ito went. It was at a rock climbing gym out on Long Island. We’d been there once before on a reconnaissance of the place. The first time we went M-ito climbed half way up. The second time a quarter of the way up, then two thirds of the way up and finally a quarter of the way up, four different lines. I still can’t believe he kept at it even though it was clear that he was not enjoying himself.

At the party I saw all kinds of edge-meeting going on. Some kids did not come so they met their edge in their minds. One boy didn’t put on a harness, though he came for cake and pizza. One boy put on a harness and tried to climb only once, making it up half way then coming down, his arms and legs shaking. Several boys made it up half way and came down. Some made it to the top. One boy left in tears.

M-ito watched and when a few had stopped at the halfway point he gave it at try. He made it a few feet up then stopped. I watched as he tried with all his abilities to make his hand reach up for the next rock. It shook and trembled reached up then down, up then down. It was so painful to watch. Finally he looked down at us and asked to come down. He tried to climb twice, the second time with the same results. He sat down next to me afterwards, angry with himself, his arms crossed across his chest. He wouldn’t let me speak to him.

“You did great,” I said.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“You really did your best. It’s only what you could do today. Tomorrow will be different.”

“Be kind to yourself, you did great.” I’m afraid of heights but I can climb in spite of it. Still I know how hard it can be to keep going up. But it didn’t matter what I said.

He walked away from me with a scowl on his face. Mom-ita got him to speak to her by talking about something else. Then he settled in. He recovered about fifteen minutes later and seemed to move on. I had to watch while he processed and dealt with his damaged ego. It broke my heart to see and not be able to do anything about it. But my son is resilient and he seemed to be able to move past it. I wish I could have helped but I’m also glad Mom-ita was there to be of help.

Sometimes it just works that way.

As Pema Chodron says, meeting your edge means you’re showing up for life, you’re engaged on the journey. Practice loving-kindness to yourself and you open to life’s possibilities. Well, it’s something to shoot for.

Buddha Sutra

The Buddha, in talking about our own true nature, gives a talk on the four kinds of horses: the excellent horse, the good horse, the poor horse, and the very bad horse. I’m reading Pema Chodron’s The Wisdon of No Excape and the Path of Loving Kindness (only she could group those two statements together and get away with it) and she talks about this teaching with regard to our approach to meditation. The moral of the story is it doesn’t matter whether you are the excellent horse or the very bad horse because in any case it simply is your nature and you will learn from and through it.

When it comes to meditation I konw I’m the very bad horse. My innate “badness” at the task is probably what makes me teach it well. I have to really work at meditation and I make lots of mistakes from which I learn what to do and what not to do next time. This insight would have been lost on me if I’d simply started meditating and found samadhi. I’d be telling everybody, gee all you have to do is sit down, stop the chattering of your mind and find the peace that resides within. No big deal, see? Watch and I’ll show you. You can cross your legs into lotus, can’t you?

I was wondering how this would translate into fatherhood. First, what kind of father am I and then how does that then relate to my own true father nature? But perhaps here I have to also add in, How does it effect my son and my family? Not as simple as in the meditative analogy - my mind is chattering away like a monkey (monkey mind supreme) but I’ll learn how to manage it in a year or two and then, oh boy, then I’ll have such insight on it. When it comes to being a Dad-dito, any mistakes I make, well… my son feels them in the here and now. I lose my temper over him taking too long to get out of the house on a school day and my son hears me yell. He cries. I cry. We both suffer. Him for getting scared at my yelling and me because of the my own terrible guilt over yelling at him and seeing him get upset. And the lesson? Don’t yell. Get up earlier. Simple really but the drive to get more sleep is deep and insistent. It’s an interesting paralell.

I hear my own father and many other parents of his generation say, “I hope I was a good father to you,” and looking back now I can say he was (and still is), though at different times I’ve gone up and down on the rating scale depending on how our relationship is going- none of which makes me love him any less. I don’t think any of us wants to think of ouselves as the very poor horse when it comes to being a father – even though I know there are times I clearly am – perhaps more than I care to admit. At those times, I take it to heart that though my son has suffered through my inability to get on track, if I at least learn something from the experience and do better next time, he may not have to suffer in quite the same way again. I may be a very bad horse out of the starting gate but I’m an excellent horse on the turns. It’s good to know there are turns up ahead. The straight-aways make me humble. The turns make me smile. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Shower Power

It’s evening and M-ito has to take a shower. I still shepherd him into the bathroom and wash his hair – though many of M-ito’s friends already wash themselves he’s only partially reached that goal. He mostly laughs while he washes himself, tickling himself and playing all the while oblivious to the T-word, time. His technique for washing his feet is to put the washcloth on the floor, step on the washcloth and move around on it, sometimes dancing the Mexican Hat Dance. It’s ingenious in its own way.

But I digress.

Getting him to take a shower is still a fight. From the moment we tell him he has to take one – at this point only once every three days or twice a week – to the attempt to get him in the bathtub. Once he’s in these days it goes pretty smoothly. I sit back and watch while he showers until it’s hair time, trying not to fall asleep.

But getting him to take his clothes off and actually step into the shower, very similar to the longest ten steps to the front door, is almost impossible. And at 6pm after a long day at work and the commute home, it’s even harder for me. I have little patience left in me and if I’m not in touch with it I’m in big trouble because a yelling match will ensue followed by guaranteed tears. I can tell I’m on empty too. I can feel the gas tank meter knocking on the E and the light on. I can feel the feelings of frustration rise up into my chest and throat from my belly. But sometimes I just can’t do anything about it. It works that way with me.

Two feet from the bathtub… yet so far.

Five minutes of telling me stories about Pokemon and he has finally taken his shirt off.

Another five minutes of telling me about Humphrey the Hamster and his pants go wizzing by over my head while I duck.

Wondering about the nature of Phineas and Ferb and his favorite episode where Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platipus fence with bratwurst and hotdog ends with his underwear off.

I’m not kidding you. It really goes on this long. The socks, one at a time.

Then he plays with his penis, wondering why it looks sometimes like a tree and sometimes like a rocket, and sometimes just sits there staring back at him, pondering the possibilities. “Dad-dito, what does it think about?”

If I last this long I’m usually steaming by now. If I can’t hold it in anymore I usually yell, “GET IN THE TUB!”

Friday last week this comment made M-ito say, “Why are you so angry at me? You just got home and you’re already yelling. Why?”

My son knows how to get to me. I lowered my head, shook it from side to side and said, “I don’t know.” Other days I add, “I’m  sorry. I’m tired.” Or, “Work with me here, will you?”

What to remember?

1. My son likes his time with me and when he talks he’s enjoying telling me about what’s important to him. So, even if it seems unimportant to me, I need to remember it’s important to him. His world is Pokemon and Phineas and Ferb. Mine is yoga, HIV/AIDS, and Drug Treatment. One is not more important than the other.
2. I need to warn him – which sometimes I do – that I’m losing my patience and that I’m tired so he needs to move it a little. This helps me to remain calmer a little longer – staves off the yelling for another minute or two. Letting him know it’s me, not him is a good thing.
3. Sometimes you just have to let things take a long time. I find I’m always trying to make my son go faster. Why? Whose deadline is it? How important is that we’re on time? What does it mean to be on time? Can we instead be in time? What are we late for? Can it take twenty minutes longer? I have to remind myself to take my time – allow him to take his.
4. And last but not least, it reminds me that it’s the simple, mundane things that make up being a Dad-dito, not the big things, which come up rarely. Why? Because the small things come up every day. Or in the case of the shower, at least two times a week.

Green Frogs

“Every father should have a favorite animal and a favorite color.” So says my colleague and friend, Big H. said at work. His kids are 20 and 16. The older is a girl and the younger is a boy. I was in his office when he said this to me. He has two shelves filled with green frogs of all sizes and shapes. Some are made of wood. Some are puppets. Some are musical instruments. Some are stuffed animals.

“This way, ” he continues, “your kids always know what to get you. ‘It’s time to look for a new green frog,’ is what I hear them say to my wife every father’s day, and birthday, and holiday.  I used to have a lot more, but I lost them all at the Trade Center.”

I nodded. We both remember that day. He came up out of the subway and went right back home. I got out from the 16th floor with the rest of the staff at work that day. I remember looking for Big H. when two of us cleared the floor, knocking on doors and telling researchers to leave. I had wanted to make sure he left the building with everyone else.

“That’s a great idea,” I said.

For father’s day M-ito gave me a great card with a stick figure of him saying “Hi” on the front and one saying “Bye” on the back. In the center it said, “I hope you have a great day, love M-ito.” I also got a Pokémon pencil which I’d bought him earlier that day at Rite Aide and a small toy orange ninja he’d gotten from a bubblegum machine at the supermarket.

My son said, “I didn’t want that one so I thought you would like it.”

I loved it all.

By the way, my favorite animal is an elephant (satvic, grounded, ganesha-like, wise) and my favorite color is green (heart chakra). I wonder how those two things can go together.

One Hand Clapping

I took M-ito to work with me today. Mom-ita was working, teaching a consulting gig, and out all day. I had work that had to be done so I couldn’t take the day off. We walked to the express station – what is normally a fifteen minute walk – in half an hour. The trains were fast though, and instead of 11am I made it in by 10:15.

He sat in my office for almost three hours, reading a Pokemon Manga and playing games on my iPhone. He’s so good. He even waved, his small, shy, bent-elbow wave, to everyone I introduced him too. They smiled back at him.

We had lunch and walked about twenty blocks downtown to the comics store, Forbidden Planet. I had him avoid all the “adult” sections and the “monster” sections. He bought two ugly dolls with his allowed funds, eyeballing the USS Enterprise model and a Godzilla action figure.

On the R train home, both of us exhausted, nodding a little, I took out a book of Zen Koans I’d been reading (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones) and asked M-ito if he wanted me to read him some stories that were like puzzles.

He said, “Sure.”

I told him the story of the Zen Master who had a young student who wanted to the master to give him a koan to help him to study and learn. The master asked him if he knew the sound of two hands clapping and the student said, “Yes.” Then he asked him, “What’s the sound of one hand?” The student went back and forth over a year coming up with answers like, the wind, an owl hooting, the breath and each time the master said, “No. Come back when you have figured it out.”

Well… I only got to the first time the master asked, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping,” when M-ito interrupted me and said, “there is no sound.” My mouth hung open for a moment. Then I shut it and continued the story, ending at the same place my son had already been to, camped out at, and completed. It took the student a year. It took my son about three seconds.

Classroom Blues

One of the most difficult tasks I’ve had  as a father has been to choose a school for my son. It should be simple. You have a good public school nearby  and you send your child there for free. That’s what I did where I grew up in Nassau County. I didn’t like school too much – there was a lot of drug traffic and some violence and I was glad, breathed a huge sigh of relief, when I left High School. I remember two friends burning their books in the school yard our last day. I can still see the flames in my mind’s eye. I loved books too much to burn them, but I understood the significance of their act. I was tired of learning and had been for a while.

M-ito’s last day of first grade at his school was yesterday. There was a small party – his class had only twelve kids – and a meloncholy air. A good third of the children, including my son, will not be returning next year.

For pre-K we sent him to public school, one for which we were zoned. We found it not to be a good fit for M-ito. I’ve learned that fit is important. A good school for one child will not be a good school for another. M-ito got lost in the pre-K in our neighborhood. He follows rules, raises his hand, does what his teachers tell him, doesn’t speak out of turn, and listens to what his teachers say. What happened to him in pre-K? His teacher didn’t pay attention to him. She didn’t know M-ito outside of his trouble getting his coat on by himself. (He liked it when she helped him put his coat on because she paid attention to him and talked to him, listened to him tell her stories, while she helped him put that jacket on.) He knew how to put his own coat on and he also had figured out a way, within the rules set out for him, to get a little attention for himself. In his class there were three other kids who had behavioral problems. The only other way for my son get attention was to hit others, yell, take other’s toys, push kids in the hall or on the stairs – but that’s not his way. The kids who did this took up 90% of both the teacher and teacher’s aide’s time. The teacher tried to shame the children into leaving their stuffed animals at home in preparation for kindergarten. I still can’t forgive her for that. The school had no idea how to use parents to help them with the children. They said they wanted parental involvement but they didn’t. We pulled him out of there after one year. Many other parents pulled their kids out too.

M-ito didn’t get into the charter schools in our area. He didn’t win a seat based on either of the two lotteries we entered him in. We didn’t have any contacts or “know anyone” who could influence our chances either. We looked at private schools. I still can’t believe it. Both Mom-ita and I went to public schools and I just assumed M-ito would too. After one year’s experience with public school as a parent I don’t want to do it again.

So I starting saying yes to every consulting gig I could get. I still say yes to them all. Private school is expensive – but we both think it’s worth it.

In kindergarten we sent M-ito to a local private school and it was terrific. The school seemed good and the kindergarten teachers were excellent. But around the kindergarten class, in the classes above, there were problems with bullies, and there were behavioral problems that we encountered and heard about throughout the year. We stayed in our kindergarten bubble and tried to ignore the other problems. A child was asked to leave the school in the grade above. A younger brother in M-ito’s grade left with him. This happened past the half way mark of the school year. The administration took a long time to act – but eventually did.

In first grade M-ito overall had a good experience. His teacher was good and the small band of classmates created a nice bubble again within which learning could occur. But another bully appeared in the grade above – and M-ito’s class had recess and gym with him. There was an outbreak of stomach aches in M-ito’s class in the fall because of the upper grade’s less supervised and rough play. They were switched to have recess with the kindergarten. Gym was still held with the upper grade and the threat of the second grade bully was felt all year. He made M-ito’s classmates cry, making fun of them or calling them names when the teacher wasn’t paying attention (which seemed often), and the bully’s own grade suffered his behavior too. The last day of school my son had a long discussion with us about whether he could wear a favorite shirt – a tie-dye shirt – or not. Was the bully going to call him names? Make a comment to him? M-ito stopped wearing any colorful shirt by winter’s end. Pink left the list of his favorite colors. It wasn’t worth it to him to deal with the bully commenting about what he wore. It was safer to go below the radar. M-ito knew which teachers were good in afterschool class (ie: kept control of the kids and didn’t allow bullying) and which did nothing and let the kids run riot. I’m still amazed he made it through ballet all year, walking from his classroom to the music room one floor above in t-shirt and black tights – his leotard hidden underneath. He must have really wanted to dance.

Bullying in a private school is a challenge just as it is in a public school, but the school had and still has no comprehensvie approach to address it. It’s done on a teacher by teacher basis. But not all teachers are good at classroom management. It seems most are not. Private schools also have the issue of  dealing with troublesome children whose parents make large donations of money to the school. Behavior that should not be permitted sometimes is. That’s another thing I learned.

And there are good teachers in good schools, bad teachers in good schools, good teachers in bad schools and bad teachers in bad schools. It’s tough to get a match. Friends of ours with kids in an upper grade suffered through a year with an abusive teacher. the teacher will not be coming back next year. There was some disturbing violence done to a teenager in an upper grade also. A teacher was fired. A child was expelled. What is the atmosphere of a school in which all these things happen? How is it taken in and absorbed by my son? Should I pretend that it doesn’t affect him? I know that it already has. But how much? Is he safe in his school? Administration dealt with each problem, but always seemed slow to react. I’ve found that administrators of schools are always slow to react. It’s not easy running a school with all these variables.

It’s been hard to pretend my son’s in a bubble when events happen around him. I can pretend but at a certain point I need not to. I worry what will happen next and whether it will happen to a child I know or if it will happen to my son. I wonder if every school is that way. Many people have told me it is so and that I just need to take the good with the bad and leave it at that. Others say, “boys will be boys.” I hate that. Boys are “boys” because parents and schools allow them to be. It is fostered by the school environment. There you have it. That is part of what is eating at me.

When I was in junior high school my best friend was hit by a train walking home from school in a downpour. I witnessed a kid I played football with – who later overdosed in high school – beat up a bully he’d been paid to take down. I witnessed it and walked away. Many of my friend’s lunches had been stolen by the bully. Many of us had been pushed around in the halls by him and his gang, had our books knocked out of our hands by him. I played football so was exempt from much of it. My smarter friends who didn’t play sports were not. 

For this upcoming year, the tuition went up a significant amount. We were notified only a few months ago. We’d already been looking at other options for a school but that was just about the last straw. We decided M-ito would be going to another private school in the fall. 

M-ito will be leaving behind friends as will we. Many families are leaving for similar reasons. Many are just tired of fighting and advocating again and again for slow and only partially satisfactory responses. Is this the way all schools work? Does change move so slowly? We’ve tried to find a school that matches the needs of our son. Will it be the right school for him? We hope so. We’ve investigated this new one in depth but the truth is you never know. There are so many variables. There is the school itself. What the school says it does and how it says it functions and how it in reality acts and functions sometimes are two different things. How teachers will be with your child may or may not work. What will be the mix of children? Will there be bullies? Will the staff be capable of handling him or her? How will my son fit? These are the thoughts that wake me in the early morning hours and stare at the ceiling with my heart racing.

We went to M-ito’s last day of first grade with heavy hearts. Other parents who are staying are not happy with us for leaving. Lines have been drawn, pickets thrown up and demilitarized zones created. It’s been lonely for Mom-ita. These are women she has called friends. Now some won’t talk to her. That’s another tricky part of your child’s school. You meet parents and develop new friendships. Your child’s friendships bring on new relationships for you as a parent also, whether you want them to or not.

I’m sure the parents who are keeping their children in the school are questioning themselves just are we are questioning ourselves. Should we stay? Should we leave? They care about their children and we care about our child. M-ito feels it too. He played Uno with his teacher and friends most of the party, smiling and laughing. But he has told us he’s scared about going to a new school and having to make new friends. We’re scared too. It’s a daunting prospect. Change is a scary thing. But sometimes status quo is even scarier.

And change is not only about loss, even if today it’s hard to see around it. It is also about growth. As a parent I have to remember to honor this both for myself and for M-ito. And for us, we hope, it will bring about a better education for our son.

The Men’s Room Rag

It’s an hour before M-ito’s dance recital and we’re rounding the corner of the hall in his school that leads to the bathroom. M-ito has to go – bad. we dash the last twenty yards as if in a race. There are two doors, one the men’s room, one the woman’s. M-ito hesitates and looks back at me. He has taken a step towards the woman’s room. Then, as if he realizes it’s me and not Mom-ita, he hangs his head and goes over to the men’s room.

“I guess I have to use the men’s room,” he says between gritted teeth, then scurries into the dark room where urinals, pee on toilet seats and toilet paper on the floor rule. “I hate this bathroom,” he says softly.

I have to tell M-ito to wait at the stall door while I maneuver past him (it’s a very tight fit) with a wet paper towel to wash off the toilet seat which is, indeed, covered with other boy’s pee. I think some gets on my pants leg. I dry the seat while M-ito hops from foot to foot. 

“It’s coming Dad-dito, hurry!” he says, scrinching up his face into a knot.

“Done,” I say as I flatten myself against the stall wall and M-ito spins to sit on a now clean and urine-less seat. I crouch down inches from M-ito as he relieves himself, my back pressed against the door.

“Why,” he asks me, “is the boys’ bathroom such a mess? Why is it so dirty and why is there no light? It needs to have light.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Boys tend to make a mess in here. They pee all over the toilet seats and throw their paper on the floor.”

“Why do they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wish you were Mom-ita so I could go in the girl’s room. It’s so clean and light in there. And it doesn’t smell bad like it does in here.”

“I understand,” I say, my feelings not hurt at all. “I’d rather be in there too.”

“They should put a light right over our head so we could see,” he says looking up, his face in shadow. “Or right here on the wall. Why don’t they do that?”

“I don’t know, son.”

Ten minutes later, M-ito is lighter, walking easier, and still drying his hands on his pants legs as we walk back to the playground for another fifteen minutes of Pokémon play with his friend, Willito. Then it’s time for his ballet recital.

“Feel better?” I ask.

He nods and runs to his friend after we cross the street.