“Still Lessons to Learn”
“Wait a minute!” I told my eighth-grade Gifted English class. The decibels had risen so high in my English class where I couldn’t hear the person that I had called upon. Apparently, everyone was adamant about sharing their opinion with their fellow students about the type of communication which existed in their family. We were relating a poem to their personal lives. “Stop! I can’t hear all of you at the same time. Raise your hand. Please.” My eighth graders finally quieted down, so I called on Becky.
“My parents NEVER listen to me,” Becky complained.
“That’s unfair. You’re using a global word. That means that your parents NEVER EVER listen to you.” I replied.
“Okay, okay, they rarely listen to me,” Becky corrected herself.
I was curious to know how she knew her parents weren’t listening. I didn’t have children yet, so I was hoping to learn something useful. “How do you know your parents aren’t listening to you?”
“Hey, Becky, I bet you have the uh, huh parents,” one vocal student blurted out. Half the class chimed in as if well-rehearsed, “Uh, huh.”
After the laughter died down, I said, “Uh, huh, means they’re listening.”
“Not when they only say uh, huh, don’t ask questions, or don’t even change the tone of their voice.” The crescendo of Becky’s voice rose to emphasize her frustration.
A voice yelled from the back, “Or don’t even look at you!”
I was stunned and not quite sure what to say at first. “Your parents are busy. They have work, and then they have to take care of the house, take care of your little brothers or sisters and then cook. Their minds are on other things.”
“Ms. B., then they need to tell us that and then set up a time so we can talk to them later.
Isn’t that communication?” shared another smart student.
“I think they just get overwhelmed with life so they forget,” was the only reason that I could come up with.
I decided to turn this problem into a teaching moment. I explained, “Sometimes it’s best to get feelings on paper. Write your complaint out, wait a few days then reread it. Remember, you’re not trying to make them mad, you're trying to communicate your feelings on a couple of important subjects that matter to you. This letter can’t be a letter complaining about everything your parents or guardians did wrong as it will be too overwhelming. If you want some response back and you want some changes, pick no more than two things to discuss.”
I couldn’t believe the buzzing in the room. The students were so excited. The whole class agreed to write their letter, and if they needed more time, they'd let me know. I realized I that now I had some
homework to do before the students gave their final drafts. I wrote a letter to the parents/guardians
discussing our unit on communication and explained that their homework would be to respond in writing to their teen’s letter.
A week later I collected most of my students’ letters, this time not permitting their fellow classmates to edit them because I knew there would be some very personal experiences that these students trusted me with. Some students I had to call up to my desk and discuss other ways to say what they were trying to communicate as either it wasn’t clear or there was so much anger that I felt the parents might shut down or become irate. I spoke to the students who didn’t do the assignment yet, and they either confided that they needed more time or a couple of them shared that they had nothing wrong in their family, so I spoke to them individually.
Celeste sat in the chair next to my desk. “So your parents are perfect? I wish I had your parents growing up.” She laughed with me. “You mean to tell me that they don’t get after you for anything?”
She whisked a curly patch of hair behind her ear. “Well, they talk to me about chores I don’t get done, but I deserve their anger.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say, and then a question just popped out of my mouth. “So your parents trust you to go out with friends?”
She shyly looked up from her hands. “No, but that’s okay. I have to watch my brothers and sisters because my parents work.”
“So your parents work 24/7?”
“Yea, just about. I have to cook and clean house because I’m the oldest.”
I waited a few minutes and took a deep breath. “So, how do you feel about that?”
Celeste looked down at her hands. She started to fidget. “Sometimes I get angry because my friends ask me to go out with them, but I can never go with them because I’m expected to take care of everything. I have a brother a year younger than me who hardly does anything.”
“Okay, I think you just found a problem. Write about how you feel and what you’d like changed.”
She got up from the chair and thanked me with a big smile on her face.
I had set a date for parents to get their letters in but didn't mark the student down when a few arrived late. The parent letters were moving, apologetic and brimming with love. A few of them brought tears to my eyes.
While driving home, I wallowed in my glory. Then right then and there I promised myself that I would not be one of the uh huh parents my students had complained about. But alas, two years later I fell into the trap. Actually, I know that I’ve been stuck in the sticky mire quite a few times. However, these are the first two guilty incidents which are forever glued into my memory.
“Ow,” I groaned as my back and legs screamed out in pain while I crouched perusing the musical scores on the bottom shelf at the Mar Vista library. As a new mother, I was unsure of my one-in-a half-year-old son’s attention span as he sat talking to the picture books he was thumbing through. After another pang of pains crawled up my legs, I plopped on the hard rough carpet and continued looking for theatre competition scenes.
I’m not quite sure how long I was engaged in my activity when Kyle started whining. “Lez go.”
“Give me a few more minutes, okay?” I glanced at him sitting on the floor a few feet from me looking through some picture books. I continued my search for who knows how long. And then I got this funny feeling, so I looked up from a yellowed music score of Annie Get Your Gun, to see a little fat white pinchable bottom shining brightly, almost in my face. I gasped and whispered gruffly, “Kyle!” He stood up from his bent position, turned his head and gave me an impish grin. I guess he I was trying to tell me he was bored. I turned to beat red and quickly pulled up his shorts to cover his cute bottom.
My eyes shot around the room to see if any others had partaken in my son’s attempt to make his
feelings known. “Drat!” I thought. I noted a librarian standing in full view of this embarrassing scene. I sucked some air in wondering what she was expecting me to do. Spank him? Yell at him?
The librarian pushed up her glasses with her scrawny index finger and raised one eyebrow as she dryly informed me, “I think he’s trying to tell you something.” I watched in surprise, from her slate-like face came an impossible smile.
I returned the book with shaky hands and stood up while saying, “I think you’re right. I guess my son is trying to tell me it’s time to go home.”
“You’re lucky, he’s learning how to communicate early,” and sauntered off.
I promised myself to not be so caught up in my work that I wasn’t aware of what was going on around me. You see, I was paranoid about being one of those huh huh parents. However, a few years later, my next memorable guilty scene occurred.
I was preparing dinner and thinking about all the homework I still had to correct that evening. My daughter, Nicole, loved to talk continuously and that day was no exception. She seemed to rarely take a breath while chattering and spoke so fast that sometimes I couldn’t follow what she was saying. She would always be so excited about sharing her day, and I loved to listen to her cute high voice. Sometimes I had the energy to ask her to slow down, however, that night was not one of those times. My four year old whined, “Mama, you not listening to me.”
I reassured her, “Yes, I am.”
She quipped back, “No, you not.” I continued to chop the carrots without looking at her. “How do you know “I’m not listening?” I questioned.
Nicole answered with amazing insight, “Because you keep saying “Uh, huh all de time.”
My heart skipped a beat as I realized what I had become. Oh my God, I had become an uh, huh parent. I bent down to my daughter’s level, teary-eyed, I hugged her. I looked into her angelic face and saw her concerned look. “You’re right! I’m so so sorry. I made a mistake. Please always remind me when I do that. Promise me.”
Her dimples outshone her smile. Semi-curly hair bounced up and down as she nodded her head, “I pwamise.” (I loved listening to her mispronounce her Rs.)
“Sometimes mommy’s head gets so busy with school business and family things that it’s hard to be a good listener. Tell me again what you were trying to say because now I’m listening.”
It’s so easy to get too busy with work and life that we aren’t listening to our loved ones. Slow down and always be open to what they need to share. You might not like what they have to say, but remember it’s their perception and their feelings that you have to honor.
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