Teaching Cultural Diversity to Our Children

It’s not our kids’ fault that they are culturally anemic.  Of all the nurturing, growth-enhancing, robustness-encouraging assets Montana boasts, wide reaching cultural diversity isn’t one of them.  I am not discounting the important presence of native tribes like the Crow, Sioux, Kootenai and Blackfeet and others, by the way…I’m part Seminal Indian, after all.  But when it comes to widespread, international culture, Montana falls flat.

That is one of the main reasons Andrew and I took advantage of the opportunity to come to the San Francisco Bay area:  so our kids could come to understand a little more about the great big world out there.

In the past five weeks, I have eves-dropped in on conversations spoken in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, Punjabi, and Flemish (does it really count as eves-dropping if you can’t understand what they’re saying?)  We have walked the open markets in Chinatown and ogled at decapitated fish heads, fresh-caught eels, duck, chicken and pig carcasses where our kids’ impending “yuck” declarations were preempted with explanations from dear old mom and dad about how different people around the world eat different foods than us.

This past Friday, our daughter’s elementary school (where she is easily apart of the minority race) held a Multicultural Potluck Dinner.  First through fifth graders and their families were welcomed to come in traditional regalia, and bring a traditional food item to represent their culture.  (We brought ground bison meatballs, assuming folks down here wouldn’t get too excited about sampling Rocky Mountain Oysters.)

At the conclusion of the meal during which we sampled Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Peruvian and Spanish fare there was a talent show–started off by an amazing belly dancing performance by an elementary teacher from a neighboring school.  A group of Korean children performed several traditional songs, children of Polynesian background shared a couple of hula dance routines and a fashion show was held to  highlight the beautiful costumes worn by so many.  (I had suggested we dress our three kids up like a bull, a horse and a cowgirl, respectively, and act out a rodeo roping event…but we opted to just wear our cowboy boots and call it good.)

Yesterday, while leaving church, our eldest noticed a sign outside the building which was written in Spanish.

“What does that say, Mom?”
“Oh, it’s written in Spanish, honey.  It explains where the Spanish language church service is and that there is also care for children during the service.”
“You mean, people who speak Spanish come to this church?”
“Yes, there’s a whole service for those who speak Spanish as their primary language.”
“Well, shouldn’t they be living in Spain, if they speak Spanish?”

A long conversation ensued about how people can live almost anywhere they want around the world, no matter what language they speak…and that the San Francisco area is a perfect example of that.

Andrew and I were beginning to wonder when our kids would notice the cultural diversity around them…perhaps now it will start to sink in.

Lonely is a Four Letter Word

Tomorrow, it will be five weeks since we landed here on the San Francisco Bay peninsula.  We’ve gotten comfortable in our rental house with pictures on the walls and the catch-all, junk mail depository spot on the kitchen counter already established.  All three kids are now enrolled in school, we’ve determined where to do our grocery shopping and get the oil changed in our cars.  We’ve found a church we like, a favorite park to go to and Andrew is discovering favorite cycling routes.  We’ve been to the beach twice, visited the zoo, science museums and various downtown San Francisco attractions.  We’ve discovered we can walk to a coffee shop, a playground and a public library in twelve minutes, flat, from our house.  The weather here, even in early February, is generally good enough to do so on any given day of the week.  By all intents and purposes, we are settled in.

And, for me, the loneliness is just starting to emerge.

When Bozeman friends read this post they are likely to respond with some sort of “no duh.”  I miss Montana.

What I don’t miss is seven months of winter, endless snow shoveling and getting the kids in and out of snow suits.  I don’t miss pining for spring (summer) when flowers re-bloom and we can, once again, see the grass in the yard.  Not that looking out onto a lawn covered in crystalline snow pack isn’t beautiful.

But I miss our church.  I miss my friends.  I miss my childbirth education program and what it provided the community.  I miss my professional network of doulas and other childbirth educators who all shared a common goal of guiding women and their partners into and through the best birthing experiences possible.  I miss lunch at Janet’s house and dinner at the Tadvicks.  I miss the friendly secretaries at Emily Dickinson Elementary School and running into people I know on Main Street.  I miss Sola Cafe and The Cat Eye, too.

Even as I attempt to keep my game face on when around the kids, I echo their solemnity when thinking about that which we’ve left behind.  Transition is hard, whether you’re seven or thirty-seven.  But, I’m sure it will get better.

Star Struck: San Francisco Ballet Company’s Swan Lake

Nearly seven years later (we celebrate our oldest child’s seventh birthday this Wednesday), I continue to be surprised at how differently the world looks to me through mother eyes.  Remember the first time you experienced Christmas (or insert equally important holiday) with a child, rather than being a child?  It totally changed the holiday for you, right?

Being a complete Christmas fanatic, perhaps it’s no surprise then that I keep having Christmas with Children experiences all over the place.  (Right now, I’m leaving out the derogatory ones…Grocery Shopping with Children, Clothes Shopping with Children, Dining with Children…)

This past weekend, as a special San Francisco surprise to our eldest in anticipation of her special day, the five of us headed into the city to watch the San Francisco Ballet Company perform the famed Swan Lake.  While I’d like to claim all five of us made it through the whole thing, that would be a lie.  Andrew spent all but the first fifteen minutes of the ballet outside the War Memorial Opera House auditorium, climbing stairs, running laps and otherwise burning off energy with our antsy three-year-old son.  (I know, I know:  what were we thinking, bringing a three-year-old to the ballet?  Well, we tried, right?)
This, however, was not the Star Struck, Watching Professional Ballet with Children moment I aim to impart.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself totally transported, utterly transfixed and covered in goose bumps on multiple occasions.

As a mom, I am so focused on the day-to-day process of maintaining a household, rearing kids, and eeking out some semblance of professional pursuits, that it seems moments of utter transportation to another realm, as promised in reading books, watching movies, ballets, plays and the like, are rare for me.  In short, the Mommy Brain is always hard at work, even in times of relaxation.

So in those brief moments when, flanked on either side by my seven- and five-year-old kids, I was utterly consumed by the music and poetic performance of dancers on stage, the swelling orchestral accompaniment, the tragic romance of the storyline and the magnificent movement of the dancers’ bodies.  And, as conscious brain once again took over I realized:  I haven’t felt like that in years.

And now, for a taste of the magic:

Starting Anew: Life in San Francisco

Three weeks after arriving here in the San Francisco Bay area, I am struggling to re-emerge and return to some semblance of a writing life.  Boxes unpacked and an odd approximation of a daily schedule materializing, I have high hopes for whatever opportunities this area may provide me in relation to my various loves (writing, childbirth education, supporting mothers, writing about the challenges of motherhood, friendships, family life in a new place).

But with two of our three kids back home with me full time, and the absence of the network of friends and childbirth ed/doula colleagues that fueled so much of my desire-driven work in the past, I find myself asking the self-pitying questions:  did I ever actually have a writing life?  How did I combine stay-at-home parenting with increasingly satisfying career pursuits?

Friends from conferences I attended of late, (and friends in general) write occasionally to ask how I’m coming on my (new) manuscript, how my agent queries are going and whether or not I’m working on anything new.  This is the kind of support, I’m coming to understand, that writers need to keep each other going.  It’s called:  accountability.

That’s what, among other things, I’ve used this blog for.

Last night I watched Julia and Julie, the book-based movie about Julie Powell, an  inner-New York-city woman who blogs her way through a year of cooking Julia Child’s recipes in the famed Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Protagonist Julie starts out using the blog as a witty documentation of her lofty goal but, ultimately, witnesses her own emotional and career-momentum-transformation through her on-line writing, and the public act of posting her way through this transformation.

Now lacking babysitters, preschool for our boys, familiar coffee shops in which to write (although the Starbucks I’m currently sitting in seems to be doing the job) and seratonin-sustaining get-togethers with girlfriends, I find myself wondering, can I really recreate what I had only recently established for myself at home?  Can I arrange an (affordable) schedule that will allow me to: 1) continue caring for my children in the way my priorities dictate and 2) glean enough “me time” during the week to further my career pursuits and therefore enable me to be the better mom I think I had only recently become?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lacking for things to do here.  In the past three weeks since landing here we have:

-visited the San Francisco Zoo

-visited the Pacific Ocean beach

-visited The infamous downtown SF Pier 39 (and ate Nutella-stuffed crepes…yum!) (and visited the public restrooms fifteen times because our three kids can’t seem to coordinate the timing of their excretory needs)

-visited the California Academy of the Sciences

-(twice) visited Coyote Point Park and museum (we love watching the river otters, and two of the three kids have become brave enough to pet the boa constrictor)

-visited the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum

-found a church to attend

- I have found and joined the California Writer’s Club-Sf/peninsula

-walked around famed downtown shopping areas of Palo Alto and Burlingame

-found, visited and purchased from the local IKEA (believe me, having lived in Montana for the past seven years, this is a notable event)

-signed the kids up for art and gymnastics classes

-had a tea party for our daughter and two new classmates

-had two playdates with the neighbor boys…

And yet, here I am, living in a city ripe with possibilities and suddenly, feeling awfully alone.

California’s Writer’s Club – Peninsula Chapter

At my first ever CWC-Peninsula meeting, surrounded by 40 other writers, listening to a discussion with Teresa LeYung Ryan talk about the importance of blogging, websites, etc. for authors and how to improve traffic flow to our sites via meta tags.  Curious to see which members of this group will happen upon this post after learning about these topics!

(more later for regular readers…yes, I’m in San Francisco now…settled in w/ family in the new digs…establishing a new lifestyle)