WordSisters

Tag: children

  • Broken Dreams

    Aniya Allen’s funeral was June 2, 2021.  Six years old, the newspapers said she wore a sparkling tiara in her small pink coffin. The second to die of three young children caught in gun violence in Minneapolis this May. One is still in hospital. On a local television news show, young Minneapolis school children talked about being afraid to play outside or go to the park or to see friends. They asked, begged, demanded that older kids and adults put down guns and give peace a chance and kids a chance to grow and dream. 

    Unfortunately these two families are not the only ones who have lost their very young children to the senseless and unexpected gun fighting of young men with disagreements that should have been resolved with discussions, even strong words, maybe fists. Not guns shot in an alley. Not a shootout on a street corner where parents drove home from grocery stores or taking a child to McDonalds. These babies cannot be replaced, these families’ broken dreams cannot be rebuilt.

    According to Brady every year 7,957 children and teens are shot in the United States. More than 1,600 will die from gun violence. Gun sales in the United States grew over 65% increase in 2019 and continue strong in 2020. Like icebergs, there is no true tally of general U.S. gun possession that accounts for arms purchased illegally or stolen. 

    A child’s funeral is about the saddest gathering on earth. Eulogies for a child describe their smiles, their bright eyes, their wonderful laugh, their love of sports or dancing or swimming, their helpfulness, of pride in being a big sister or brother. All the ways a young child’s life should be talked about when families gather for birthdays or holidays, but not in a solemn church or temple service while mourning the one resting in a small pink coffin.

    We have all lost Aniya Allen and Trinity Ottoson-Smith and the other 1,600 children and teens dead because of gun violence.  So many broken dreams.

  • Middle School Dances Are Not Just For Kids

    IMG_5199They are for adults, too.

    It’s my reward for living with two squalling 10 month olds who I swore would always be 10 months old. I could not see the day that I would be standing with the two of them at their first middle school dance.

    Middle school dances are also for the adults who volunteered in kindergarten and all through elementary. These same kids that we chaperoned on the apple orchard field trip and to Wood Lake Nature Center are now looking at each other with different eyes. And, if we are lucky enough, we’ll be able to discern who is looking at who.

    Antonio showing his id and getting his bracelet.
    Antonio showing his ID and getting his bracelet.

    Middle school dances are also for adults who volunteered in the community as Cub Scout and Brownie leaders, supervised playdates to Edinborough Park, Children’s museum, and the Children’s theatre. All these places that our children are too old to go to now (almost).

    It’s our due to see their faces clean, to watch them carefully choose their clothes even if it’s their favorite black hoodie.

    Middle School dances are also for adults who never went to a dance in middle school or high school. You can pretend that you’re supervising the dance floor when really, all you are doing, is checking it out.

    Don't let her face kid you. Crystel is excited that I'm at her first middle school dance.
    Yah, she’s kidding. Crystel loves me at her dance.

    If you are a Police Reserve Officer you can roam the halls with the middle-schoolers, duck into the karaoke room, the Wii dance room, the gymnasium with the four different inflatables, or stop and watch the donut eating contest.

    Then go back to the dance floor.

    Middle school dances aren’t for standing in one place.

    They’re for watching, observing, and hanging out.

    And, if you’re fortunate like I was, those same Cub Scouts and those same kids you chaperoned will smile and say, “Hi.” And, though you are much older, you’ll remember their name. And, let them use your cell phone to call their grandma to pick them up.

    Antonio with friends
    Antonio with friends

    And, you’ll be asking your own kids about the kids who didn’t come.

    Cause it was so much fun.

     

  • Why We Read The Books We Do

    Why We Read The Books We Do

    f306a4206f3db95e9d87a8b4aaf37eb6[1]“Guess what I’m reading,” 12-year old Crystel says.

    First, I try the vanilla genres, “Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, science fiction, fantasy?”

    She shakes her head no every time.

    What else is there?

    “Dark Romance,” she says. Her eyes light up.

    Oh, my, I think. “Books let you read anything you want,” I say, thinking of Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James and wondering what she IS reading.

    I have a 1 ½ hour round trip drive to work thus my book reading has become books on tapes. Jody noticed Fifty Shades in the car. She raised her eyebrows.

    “Don’t push Play when the kids are in the car,” I said.

    Fifty Shades ended up too spicy. I returned the trilogy to the library. How much flavoring can one take? Jody’s happy if I hold her hand.

    12-year old Antonio reads Pokémon from back cover to front. “I like reading different stories about Red the Trainer,” he said.

    Recently, he’s been downloading the series onto his IPod to read.

    I’ve not read a single page of Pokémon. I don’t enjoy graphic novels. It reminds me of the funnies. In my family of 14, the funnies were prime reading material on Sunday mornings. I avoided any tussling by turning my back on the colorful newspaper that would be shredded by noon.

    I don’t read fantasy or science fiction either. Give me the real stuff. Memoir, non-fiction, and fiction based on truth.

    One evening, Antonio held up a thick book. “Look what I’m reading,” he said.

    The heftiness of the book surprised me. What could hold his interest that long?

    He laughed. “It has lots of pictures in it.” He had found Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick in his school library. Not that he went to the libary on his own volition. He needed a book for reading prep.

    “Ta dah!” I’m sure he exclaimed after perusing the pages.

    I asked if the illustrations reminded him of his own pencil drawings. “Nope,” he said. There goes that elevated thought.

    After finishing Wonderstruck he found The Invention of Hugo Cabret by the same author.

    Antonio doesn’t know (or care) that the book won the 2008 Caledcott Medal, the first novel to do so.

    With 284 pictures within the book’s 526 pages, the book depends as much on its pictures as it does on the words.

    Selznick himself has described the book as “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

    “Guess what page I’m on?” Crystel says in the car, on the couch, in her bedroom, as she makes her way through her dark romance.

    “How did you find this book?” I asked her.

    “When I was on Utube I clicked a thing on Ellen and Twilight.”

    “I learned enough about the characters that when I went to our school library and saw the series, I picked it up. They didn’t have the first book, Twilight but they had New Moon. I read a little from the middle and there were no words that I didn’t know. And this cat is so cute. I’m reading Eclipse now.”

    The four Twilight books have consecutively set records as the biggest selling novels for children.

    Even so, I’m not interested in reading the series. It’s not my genre.

    Is the lesson here that parents can model reading but not the genre?