What We Owe Our Children

Kelly Corrigan’s column, GRAIN OF SALT, appears with permission from The Hills Newspapers and was first published on May 19, 2006.

BRAVERY WAS required of me from an early age. As a girl, I was a magnet for brutes and demons of all types. Sasquatch, Nessie (of Loch Ness), the shark from “Jaws,” they all had my address. They came at night, as is their wont, and when they did, I was forced to travel a hairy route to safety. Between me and my dad (a man they wouldn’t dream of attacking) was an unguarded stairway to darkness and probable death. I mean, whoever had come to get me in the night surely entered on the ground floor, and was likely to be in the shadows around the bottom of the staircase, licking their monstrous lips deciding where to torture me … carry me away to the forest or just devour me, limb by limb, on the kitchen floor. I had to cross in front of that staircase many nights per week for a good year or two and it never got easier. I can call up the anxiety just sitting here typing. I believe there was sweat involved.

But once across, my parent’s plush, fire-retardant, wall-to-wall carpet under my feet, I was only five steps away from a safe haven, which my dad would make for me without opening his eyes or saying a word. Same position every time — an egg in a spoon.

That’s what parents do, right? It’s animal instinct. We protect our babies, from the fantastic, invented dangers that spring to life after midnight and from all the real hazards that swirl all around them everyday. We teach them how to hold scissors, swim in the deep end, and look both ways. We owe them that; it’s a job requirement. So after my daughter cried out the other night and I went to her without an ounce of anger, I got to wondering about what other things we owe our children.

My friend, Deb, said we owe kids a relationship with their grandparents. Or at least, we have to make the relationship possible. We have to put them all in the same room enough times for something to happen — some magical, memorable wink or a whiff of perfume or a jingle of change. Something to hold on to when they are long gone. I guess we all agree since most everyone I know schleps across country for holidays or welcomes nettlesome in-laws. Anything that requires that much work must be important.

Then, there are the little things we owe them: chocolate milk, sunscreen, a library card. And rites of passage that we honor: a family road trip, a homemade Halloween costume, a lemonade stand. We go to their baseball games, take them to see fireworks, listen to their knock-knock jokes, and showcase their ceramic “sculptures.”

“What about a trip to Disneyland?” asked my friend, Pam, when I brought this up to some friends over coffee last Tuesday. The crowd was mixed — some said, “Absolutely!” while others said, “Poppycock.” (No one actually said “Poppycock.” I cleaned it up for the family paper and while I was at it, I gave it an Anglo touch because that’s what they pay me for — my poetic flair.) We came to agree that no parent owes her kid a trip to Disneyland, but you do get a lotta bang for that one since every one of us had a story about Space Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean or that creepy Small World “ride.”

“What about a pet?” I asked.

“A fish or hamster, for sure. Dogs are extra credit.”

We nodded in solemn agreement about a college education, as daunting as that is, and concurred that denying your kids cookie batter in the name of salmonella (from the raw eggs) is statistically less defensible than letting them ski, skateboard or even swim. Sue, a mother of new teenagers, said we owe our children privacy, and trust, which sounded so hard to the rest of us, for whom the teen years seem as dicey and loaded as an Afghani mine field.

After coffee, I called my friend, Chad, and he said two things that hadn’t come up. He said you owe it to your kids to loosen up a little on the rules and regulations stuff and enjoy them. Turn up the music, swing them higher, play HORSE. And you owe it to them to show them what a loving relationship looks like, so they’ll recognize love when they’re in it. Of course. I know to do this like I know to soothe a kid in the night. And I learned it the same way, from my dad, a man who loved me so insistently that years later, on a long date with a good guy, a familiar feeling washed over me and I knew I was home, again.

Learning to Riff

Kelly Corrigan’s column, GRAIN OF SALT, appears with permission from The Hills Newspapers and was first published on May 5, 2006.

One of my nearest and dearest friends adopted a baby girl late last year. Her name is Eliza and by all measures, she is perfect. My friend is in heaven watching Eliza unfold. “I don’t know who this girl is, but so far, all I can tell you is that she knows how to get what she wants,” my friend said, referring to the unmistakable communication Eliza has come up with to indicate that her binky has fallen out. (Eliza uses a certain screech that I believe many of us know.) But there was something about the way she said, “I don’t know who this girl is” that struck me as downright respectful, like she wouldn’t dream of rushing to judgment on this girl, like a mother’s job was to sit back and watch her child reveal her nature, lest a mother deconstruct and define her child prematurely (and inaccurately).

I think this wait, watch and listen thing may be a real advantage for adopted kids.

My daughter wasn’t finished her first day before we started ascribing her features and behaviors to various family members. In the maternity ward, the declarations about her having her mother’s eyes and her father’s long toes were a predictable and innocent part of the euphoria, even if they drew the conversation away from the eight-pound mystery before us. We were laying claim to this person we made. We were owning her. She was ours, and every bit of her was a possible reference to someone in our tribe, as if letting her remain a mystery for one more minute was to endure a state of intolerable suspense.

But when my friend held Eliza in her arms, she said something like, “Hi there. It’s an honor to meet you. I’m going to take care of you now.” Unlike women who become mothers over the course of nine months, my friend had not rubbed her belly a thousand times, imagining, anticipating and foreseeing her child. Instead, my friend got a call one Sunday afternoon and 90 minutes later she was alone in the maternity ward, dripping tears onto a day-old baby girl, shaking her head in disbelief and wonder and the very same gratitude any mother feels when she holds her baby against her chest for the first time.

On the long ride home from Eliza’s house, I was thinking about Eliza’s good fortune and listening to an interview on NPR with Bela Fleck, of Bela Fleck and The Flecktones. Bela Fleck, if you aren’t an indie music kinda person, is an inventive musician who is currently experimenting with the electric banjo. Bela Fleck is one of those people that defies definition. The interviewer struggled to label him—jazz? pop? bluegrass? Then it got to the part of the interview where callers join the conversation. The first call was from an upbeat guy named Joe, a big fan of the Flecktones, a jazz musician himself, and a new dad. Joe had a 13 month-old named Miles who was “already banging away at the piano!” Miles’ apparent interest in his father’s vocation was “a dream come true” for his dad, who was actually calling to ask how best to encourage his son’s interest. I got the feeling, from Bela’s response, that he thought Joe might be over interpreting his son’s banging.

My own reaction was empathetic recognition. I know how easy and comforting it is to see yourself--your interests, your talents, your hang ups--in your child. It makes things so tidy. It makes the family match. Diversity might have worked for the Village People and the Spice Girls, but when it comes to families, well, you’ve seen golfers at the driving range with their five year-olds and you can bet I am saving every little story my girls pen as proof that writing “runs in the family.”

Beyond just habits and hobbies, there is the giant matter of heredity. Genetic destiny is a persuasive idea that has made headlines and bestseller lists for years. It is the thing that makes women put off mammograms, because breast cancer is not in their families. It is the thing that undermines dieters who quietly assume that if their parents are chronically overweight, their body-fate is sealed. It is the thing that subverts ambition in kids of blue collar workers and keeps cycles of all types in tact. But lately, I’ve noticed that some researchers think that the idea of genetic destiny is about as reliable as a horoscope, which is liberating news for all of us.

The NPR interview ended with a long discussion of Bela Fleck’s tendency towards improvisational jams. He said rather than sticking to a planned structure, he much prefers to rif off his band mates, just kind of spontaneously respond to who they are at that moment, and what they're doing with their instruments that day. He said he thought playing a carefully rehearsed and pre-defined set of songs they laid out long ago would be a lot less fun.

Play on, Eliza.