I wandered into JoAnn Fabrics a few days ago. Moments later, something Happened.
First of all, I love Halloween, and this “dark and stormy night at a glamorous bordello” vibe is extremely my shit, AND it was 70% off.
But also, as the pandemic rages on, the government continues to maliciously neglect us all, and the election and winter both loom around the corner, I am feeling compelled—a little desperate—to create pockets of joy for my kids. The other night, I was reading to Amelia, and a character in the story described going to see a movie: the darkness, the popcorn smell, the audience’s laughter. Her eyes lit up, and she marveled, “oh, wow! I remember the movies!” like I was unearthing some long-buried folktale she’d forgotten. It was cute, and also sad.
We are an activity-oriented family, but usually not a very crafty or complex-project-executing family. As so many of our favorite things to do together remain closed or riskier than we’re willing to tolerate, though, I have been finding myself asking around about snowshoes. Scheming about rigging up a movie projection system in our garage for indoor-outdoor socializing. Buying out entire aisles of holiday decor. Anything that might shove some festivity into what feels like the onset of a very fraught and very grim phase of time.
How are you celebrating Halloween? And fending off the winter/dystopia blues?
If you like reading Extra Credit, would you consider sharing it somewhere, or with someone? Parenting can be hard and isolating even in non-pandemic times, and lately…..well, you know. It helps to connect!
Ask A Teacher
From two weeks ago:
Distance learning is ruining my relationship with my daughter. My 9-year-old is in the third grade, and school has started back up in our district on a hybrid schedule, with her at school for in-person learning two days a week and at home for distance learning three days a week. My wife is a teacher, and she is in the classroom all five days a week. My office is in the home, thus leaving me to try and manage the schoolwork for my daughter, as well as my demanding work schedule.
While my daughter loves in-person school, home-based leaning has become a fight every day. Sure, I’m no teacher, but I try to be accessible and willing to answer all questions that come up. She is easily pulled off task, complains constantly, and then calls herself dumb and a failure. This type of language—being dumb, a failure, etc.— has never been used at home, and I don’t know where she is getting it.
And last week:
I need some advice on how to get my almost-12-year-old daughter to listen to us. She just started her first year of middle school. It’s been overwhelming, as in elementary school she had no homework, and her teachers were quite lenient about unfinished work, often not requiring her to finish it. She now has homework every day. She has many missed assignments, though teachers have given her opportunities to finish them. Ultimately, her grades in some this first quarter were “fail” because of the missing assignments. I have been very frustrated by it.
I have tried sitting down with her to give her advice, but she has refused to listen to me. I am now seeing bad behaviors at home as well. Our school is all virtual, which only makes things harder. Do you have any advice?
Virtual learning: still super challenging!
Recommendations
I needed to read this, and to squeal at the utterly delightful pictures, so so badly: “I Miss Restaurants, So I Opened My Own…for a Chipmunk”
It’s never not time to marvel at the opportunity hoarding schemes very wealthy parents cook up for their kids:
The stampede of the affluent into grim-faced, highly competitive sports has been a tragicomedy of perverse incentives and social evolution in unequal times: a Darwinian parable of the mayhem that can ensue following the discovery of even a minor advantage. Like a peacock rendered nearly flightless by gaudy tail feathers, the overserved athlete is the product of a process that has become maladaptive, and is now harming the very blue-chip demographic it was supposed to help.
It’s hard not to feel at least a jot of sympathy for these parents who earnestly believed they were doing right by their children, and especially for the young athletes—who, like Lewis Carroll’s oysters, were brought out so far, and made to trot so quick—and who now must think that the world is conspiring against them. Sports wasn’t the golden ticket after all.
I’ve been reading my way through the short list for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. Of the three I’ve finished, my favorite so far is When Stars Are Scattered, a graphic novel about the co-author’s experience growing up in a refugee camp in Kenya. I don’t often miss being in the classroom, but the thought of how perfectly this would pair with A Long Walk to Water (a text in New York State’s 7th grade English curriculum) had me feverishly writing a unit plan in my head.
I also just finished Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, and it was a perfect October book for those of us who prefer their horror on the eerie, PG-rated side. A curious, smart, and glamorous young woman visits a mysterious family in a spooky mansion! Gothic mystery and thrills ensue!
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Twitter: @carrie_AB_