Childhood magic vs. reality

BabyGirl's school has themes for each month around which all the lessons revolve. This month's theme is literary genres.

Here's part of an email from her Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire:

During the month of February, the Lower School is
exploring literary genres. Teachers have chosen a
genre to study with their class. I have chosen Folktales.
As a bridge between January [African American history]
and February’s themes, last week we read from More
Tales of Uncle Remus: Father Adventures of Br'er
Rabbit, His Friends, Enemies, and Others as told by
Julius Lester. This week we will be reading from: The
People Could Fly: American Black Folktales retold by
Virginia Hamilton.

Last Friday, we had a preliminary discussion regarding
the difference between fiction and nonfiction. After an
explanation of the categories, I showed the children
books and they told me if they thought they were fiction
or nonfiction. When I showed them a Disney version of
Winnie the Pooh, a debate erupted. Some children
thought it should be fiction and others insisted that it
was nonfiction. The reasoning for it being nonfiction was
that several children had “seen” Winnie the Pooh
“for real.” Cinderella was also nonfiction because several
children had seen the real Cinderella at Disneyland.
Despite convincing arguments from both camps, no one
budged from their original stance. Hopefully, the rest
of my examples will be less controversial.

Any guess who instigated the debate? That would be my BabyGirl.

Despite her familiarity with basic literary genres, she's adamant that Pooh and Cinderella are nonfiction. And I just don't have the heart to disabuse her of that notion. That kind of childhood magic has such a short shelf life, I just don't have the heart to hasten its end.

Gratefully, Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire didn't get all I'm-the-teacher-and-I-know-all-the-answer-y (which would have been totally unlike her). Instead, she simply commented that BabyGirl--and the others in her camp--had a good point, and let it go at that.

Respect for the brevity of childhood magic, respect for different points of view, modeling the behavior I hope BabyGirl continues to develop.

Being BabyGirls's mommy is a waste?

On Friday, I chaperoned BabyGirl's field trip. I drove a minivan full of children plus the school's new Marketing/Admissions person, Mar.

Mar’s young, in her 20s, very well-educated (she’s working on a PhD in Educational Policy, has an MS in social work, an MA in history, and is thinking of picking up a JD in her spare time); first-generation American whose parents came from Jamaica; and passionate about children, education, and social welfare. Since Mar’s new to our area and hasn’t made it to that museum yet, I invited her to come with us, and, well, I was assigned to drive FIVE kids and needed another grown-up to manage the chaos.

I like her. She’s young, idealistic, and working hard to meet the goals she’s set for herself to make the world a better place. She reminds me of me when I was her age: focused and driven on education and career.

In the blizzard-slowed hour-long drive, we talked. Mar mentioned that some of her friends are starting to marry and begin families, and that she’s not interested in any of that yet. I reiterated that her focus on education and career are fine (not that she needed my affirmation), then she said that she wonders if, in 10 or 15 years, she might regret not having started a family yet. I mentioned that there are lots of ways to make a family; that it’s about being a parent, not being pregnant; there are children in need of families; and that medical science can work wonders.

Her response? That my point about being a parent vs. being pregnant is poignant but that:

"It seems like putting all the effort into a child who isn’t your own is a
waste."

This, from someone with a Master’s Degree in Social Work and working at my daughter's school, was disheartening and a little alarming.

I don’t think she knows I’m a mom-by-adoption, and I wasn’t about to get into a big discussion on the validity of parenting-by-adoption because the car was filled with BabyGirl’s school friends. But I still find myself getting torqued up about it.