I am not a good mother. Or rather I am not the kind of mother who relishes going to parent meetings. When I was a child, I always wanted my mother to be a member of the PTA or to be the homeroom mother. I remember, in particular, the year that we had an "art" mother whose job was to bring in reproductions of famous art (did somebody say Western Civilization = ART in 1970s suburban Illinois?). The mom who did it came in with a large black carrying case and unrolled or lifted out the reproductions, as every child (even the ones who were not so "smart") let out a gasp of anticipation. I learned to both love and despise "Art Lady" visits. I also knew better than to ask my mother to volunteer or to dare to ask why she did not go to the meetings. (Note: I had already been socialized like most youngsters then and now to believe that moms should be the ones at the PTA meetings and that women are the norm for the role of homeroom MOTHER/chaperone). My mother worked full time and worked loads of overtime--for pay. She came home and did the second/third shift of domestic work. My father worked loads of overtime as well, but guess whose job it was to do all that domestic stuff, until my maternal grandmother came to live with us when I was in 4th grade?For many years, I "excused" my mother's non-cookie baking, dance-organizing, field-trip chaperoning on her work schedule. Yet as my 6th year of motherhood is about to begin, I realize that even if her hours and energy levels had permitted, my mother would probably not have been a part of the "concerned parent" contingency. I realize this because, despite my relatively open hours and schedule, I imagine that I share what must have been her aversion to the glories of organizing, involved, and "caring" parents.
I spent this evening at Roxanne's preschool's parent meeting/art show. Roxanne's preschool is in the heart of downtown Detroit. Many of the children of the movers and shakers of downtown Detroit go there. Chauffered black cars with tinted windows wait for parents to retrieve children, while across the parking lot, well-heeled parents (both men and women) try to maneuver their expensive SUVs into the small Prius-sized spaces. Yet there is also a good number of parents that clearly are not yet the movers and shakers, but through scholarships and/or penny-pinching, have decided to place their children in one of the "best" centers in the city. Young children at the core of power and privilege.
I attended the parent meeting alone tonight. Single mom to the stars. The meeting was supposed to be light, as there was an "art show" that would allow the children to join the parents afterwards (An auction for each classroom's group art project will last until next week... one parent asked if there would be a payment plan for the winning bids). The lightness soon left the room as one mother angrily demanded that the incidents of VIOLENCE and bullying in her child's classroom be reported on a regular basis--crime statistics for Toddler Room A (children from about a year to a year and a half), as it were. The center's director assured the concerned mother that although for privacy reasons there would be no such reporting, that if there was a problem with an individual child, then interventions would be taken, including bringing in Child Care Expulsion Prevention Program (CCEP) specialists. This program is one of the few things that I can say the state of Michigan is a leader in (positive leader, not leader in the depressing/embarrassing ). It works to keep young children with severe behavioral problems in childcare. Not only does the program help the children with early interventions that could hinder their progress towards kindergarten readiness, but it also helps parents to have a place to send their children during the day while they are at work or in school.
Get it, Michigan.
Open the floodgates.
All of a sudden the meeting turned into a forum for the pro-black manhood fathers. The director of the center is a white woman. Dressed in conservative suits and ties, two of the fathers (with no woman/wife/mother/partner in attendance) took issue with the very notion of the intervention program. One had issues with the notion of "our children being labeled" and was concerned that such labels as being an "expelled preschooler" would haunt a child for the rest of his/her life. He also offered up his child's name and told parents that if his child bit their child that they should let him know and he would "handle it. Make no mistake about it." The other father, although he said he agreed with the first father ("You can bet that there will not be a second time, if my son bites another child"), really wanted to go back to the concerns of the woman who had started the "discussion."
"We as parents need to know if there is a particular child who is always hurting other children. We need to know about the children, who are basically predators."
It took all the self-control I had to keep from busting out laughing or perhaps more appropriately screaming, " WTF?"
Other parents joined in with their own suggestions to the director (none of them, as far as I know, have any training whatsoever in early childhood development) about what until that day, I had not known to be a major problem in the center. Toddler violence. These suggestions included meetings out of the childcare environment (playdates) between children involved in aggression. Parents could work things out, if the teachers could not. I shuddered to think of what the parents in the room would think of our house in which girls play with trucks while dancing around in tutus. Oh the horror to know that in our house we spend a lot of time "correcting" the gendered stereotypes/assumptions that are already firmly rooted in preschool/Kindergarten belief systems.
We also found out that one of the parents was concerned that one of the children had called the teacher the "B" word. The director reminded parents that there was a range of "normal" behavior and that different families have different ranges of acceptable behavior. This reminded me of the outrage last year when some parents were upset that teachers were using the appropriate names for children's genitalia. Concerned parents wanted teachers to not talk about anything even remotely "sexual" with young children. At 3 Roxanne not only knows that she has a vagina and that a boy has a penis, she also knows that babies grow in uteruses and that every month "ladies bleed out the blood," if there is no baby to use it to grow.
As I sat there with the various ideas, opinions, outrages, posturings, and heartfelt concerns swirling around me, I thought of my mother. As much as I love my children and as much as I want to be involved/care/be informed, I realize that I am just way too much of a weirdo/alternative type/hot head/feminist/anthropologist to sit in these meetings without letting the evil tongue loose in full force. Yet I did not say anything. I knew that if I did, just about every parent in the room would turn around and give me "the look." I know that my moment of spouting my progressive opinions would do no good. There would be no smug self-righteous glory for me. In fact, I kept thinking of my daughters' unfortunate spin of the roulette wheel in the PTA mother category. Silence or no attendance just might be golden. Call it a cop out. Call it keeping my blood pressure down/avoiding a stroke. Call it protecting my children from their mother's "eccentricities," as exhibited in a public forum. Call it what you want. I came a bit closer to looking in the parenting mirror and seeing my mother stare back at me.
In the end, the woman got angrier and angrier as she realized that her "knowing better than the director and the center's programs" was not being heard. Is it important to all of this to add that her child was the only one that was in attendance at the meeting? All the other children were in the center with the caregivers. Is it important to add that during the art show, her husband went from parent to parent in their son's classroom, asking if the child had been a "victim" and who had done it? Is it important to note that Roxanne, child of the boho and oldest mother, is one of the most popular children in the center?
Outgoing, friendly, sunny, bright.
Predator? Maybe? Sphere: Related Content
