The Hottest Commodity
One day last week, I had a whole lot of work to do and no childcare for Amelia. She came looking for my attention more than once, and each time, I had to return her to her own devices pretty quickly. She was mostly patient and cooperative, but by lunchtime, when I took a break and summoned her to her peanut butter & jelly, she had something on her mind. I joined her at the table, and, plaintive, she asked, “could we just, like…..go somewhere we haven’t been in a long time? Or go see a friend we haven’t seen in a long time? Or do a special project or make a special craft that I haven’t done before?”
I told her I knew exactly how she felt, and I meant it. After a year, the craving for novelty that she was trying to express follows the whole family around. We heralded the debut of Raya and the Last Dragon on Disney+ like we’d been invited to Cannes. A new takeout place opened, and I’d rate the quality as fine-nothing-special, but we’ve ordered it three times. Ken got a weekend vaccine appointment out of town, and we all accompanied him on the forty-five minute drive, took a twenty-minute walk on an asphalt loop in the cold while he went into the clinic, and then piled back into the car and drove home, because at least it was something to do, right? I realized en route that it was the first time I’d left the perimeter of our town since Thanksgiving.
After the bummer of a morning we had, Amelia made an agenda for how she’d like to spend the next day, when she got to enjoy her grandfather’s undivided attention. It included: buy, playground, and someplace new. (For item one, she envisioned shopping the Disney Princess aisle at Target; they compromised by choosing some seed packets at Tractor Supply.)
Ken is fully vaccinated now and I am halfway there. The potential to do something actually new—not just “order meatball subs and a large plain from a different pizza shop than usual”—feels more tangible and realistic than it has for twelve months. We’ve so far remained pretty cautious, haven’t made any significant plans (the reentry anxiety is real!). But I tell you what: I cannot wait to take Amelia to a hotel.
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
I’ve answered two letters in the column since my last newsletter, both focused on the age group I’m least experienced with (mid-elementary). I consulted with my mom, a retired first and second grade teacher, on each!
Second grade math perfectionism:
As I’ve observed her behavior to try to understand what is wrong, I’ve noticed that it isn’t so much that she can’t do the problems, it’s that she feels overwhelmed when she sees a page of blank problems, and she feels anxiety about making mistakes. Her teacher does reach out to her to figure out what’s going on, but my daughter just pretends she can’t do the problems, rather than talk to her teacher about her fears.
And how much to worry over second-grade virtual performance and handwriting issues:
I’m not too worried about her not pushing herself, since she reads constantly and her teachers say she’s on track. But there are areas where I think she is behind. Her work is all done online, so she rarely writes anything by hand. Her handwriting is awful and slow (she makes each part of a letter shape by shape and hasn’t progressed to more fluid writing). Occasionally she still makes some letters backward, and her writing is a mix of upper- and lowercase. I would love to work with her on these things, but by the end of the day she’s burned out and extremely resistant. I’ve encouraged her to write letters to friends, and she does occasionally, but it takes a lot of nagging.
Recommendations
Because I now work with high schoolers on college prep and access, I’ve been especially interested in learning more about the (TREMENDOUS) inequities in the admissions process. Caitlin Flanagan’s “Private Schools Are Indefensible” is super comprehensive; I have like eight more tabs open after reading it. (Also, a great chaser to watching Operation Varsity Blues on Netflix.)
I miss Carvell Wallace’s work on Slate a whole lot, and this piece of his in The Nation touched on one of his most consistent points in Care & Feeding and Mom & Dad Are Fighting, one that I appreciate and agree with and feel like doesn’t get said often enough:
One parenting concept says that we impose our will on our children, raise them up to be as we want them to be. But what if you simply lack the will, the force, to make your child do what you want? What if your child is not a robot that you can program but a sentient, headstrong being who will ultimately do what he feels like doing? It occurs to me that when you make all your plans about what kind of parent you’re going to be, the one thing you forget to take into account is the actual child. How do you lead your child to freedom when your child doesn’t want to follow?
Maybe that’s not the right question. The longer I do this parenting thing, the more I realize that the area over which I have some control is, in fact, very narrow.
“what demoralization does to teachers” was really, really hard to read. I let it sit in my inbox unopened for two days because I knew it would be a gut punch, and it was. The themes of this issue of Culture Study have been echoed by all the people in my life still in the classroom. I just feel for them so much—how awful this experience has been, and how badly it’s been compounded by some of the conversations swirling about teachers and unions right now.
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