Thanks. Is it good wow or bad wow? Do you think it's interesting? Too harsh? (On my husband? On the kids? Me?)

and definitely a good wow. I *do* think it's interesting and you also explore the f**ked-up way that gender dynamics play out without coming off as preaching or proselytizing (I think that last word is spelt wrong).

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Do you think it is okay that I acknowledge that? I worry a bit that people will think I am bowing to the patriarchy rather than just recognizing it.

(although it would have been nice if your husband *had* called the kid's dad)

and yes, i think you're acknowledging how patriarchy plays out in daily life. why is it that a 12 y/o boy will listen when the other kid's father talks to *his* father and not when the other kid's mother talks to his mother or father?

but you don't hit us over the head with that question. Instead, you SHOW us how this plays out, which I think is going to reach a much broader audience than just us choir folks.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

I really like this. And I love the reference to the mother in Make Lemonade! (I adore that book, and the sequel). The part about your husband is not too harsh, it's good! And I really like how you talk about those boys, that they won't be nice men. Way to not pussyfoot around!

My suggestion would be to take out that whole explanation about the phones in the first para. It distracts from establishing the setting and the situation. I think you need a bit more context right up front about where you are, beside "in my classroom". And maybe you could condense some of that beginning section with your daughter, or else make it not so dependent on dialog - kind of flesh it out a bit.

But overall, this is a really interesting piece.

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

Thanks. I will work on it. I also have to update it some- an epilogue, perhaps.

I also need to know what to do about italics. I use them a lot for emphasis - their lack hurts me. I may be submitting this "in the body of an e-mail" - anyone know how to deal with this?

Bus Brats

“My bus never came, Mom, “ my daughter said. “I’ve already called Auntie Jazz like 200 times and left messages to see if she can pick me up, but she’s not answering.”

I am in the school secretary’s office at the school where I work, having been called out of my first period World Geography, History and Cultures class to take this call, while a para watches my sixth graders, who are hopefully drawing their maps of Canada. No sister availability, then. Neighbors? “Can you check to see if Dennis and Joyce are home?”

“I already did. They’re not there.”

“I’ll call your school and transportation and see what’s going on. Hang on,” I said.

With talented line-changing maneuvers generously provided by the school secretary, I checked in with my daughter’s middle school to let them know her bus had not picked her up and then called the District’s Office of Transportation.

“Ma’am, we show a substitute driver on that route today and we show that the route has been finished.”

“But he never picked her up,” I hissed.

“We’ll get someone out there for her, ma’am. We’ll send another bus.”

I thanked him curtly and got my daughter back on the line. “They are sending another bus for you. Be sure to tell the office when you get to school. I’m going to go back to my class and I’ll call you when it’s over at ten. If you’re at school, I know your phone will be off, but if you’re still waiting, pick up and I will come to get you. Okay?”

“Okay,” my own twelve-year-old sixth grader said, and I hurried off to try to squeeze a little more social studies into my sixth grade class until the bell rang.

Ten is also the start of my planning period, so I raced to the doorway of the school building, where my cell phone will work, and started making phone calls. I called my daughter’s cell – no answer. Daughter’s school - yes, she had arrived safely. I returned my sister’s worried message that she got all these messages from my daughter, but cannot reach her – all is well. I went back to work.

When, I got home that night, my daughter said she was fine, the bus they had sent had arrived and she had gotten to school by the very, very end of first period. Then, she started to tell the story of how, in second period, she had been so angry with Colin when she found out why the substitute driver had not picked her up.

“We were in tech.-app. and Colin said that the bus driver mentioned that the route said my stop had moved because of the construction and, when he started to head to my new stop, Colin and Grayson and those boys told him ‘oh, she doesn’t ride this bus anymore,’ so he would leave me there! I was so mad. I told him it was raining and I had to wait for over an hour for a new bus and he just laughed.”

“Colin told the driver this?” I asked.

My daughter stopped, looked at me. I read her face: I have made an error that is probably severe. My position is bad. Crap. Crap.

“And all those boys. After I even made a substitute driver wait for them once. Mom. Mom. Promise you won’t do anything. Mom? Please? Mom!”

“You waited in the rain. You missed one of your classes. I missed work. My students missed learning. Your aunt was worried when she got your messages. The district had to spend the money to send out another bus…”

“Mom! Please, Mom! You can’t do anything. Please.”

“I don’t know. I have to think. Don’t pester me about it now. I have to talk to your father. Later.”

“Mom…”

“I understand what your feelings are. I will take them under consideration, but I am making no promises.”

“Mom, please don’t do anything.”

“I said later.”

“My Mom is big, a big Mom,” says the main character in Virginia Euwer Wolff’s excellent Young Adult novel, Make Lemonade. The character is talking about the looming presence of her mother’s expectations in her life, the space taken up by a mother who will not let her veer off course. The character is conflicted about her mother, seeing the value and the security and the love, but chafing under a firmer hand than her friends have to deal with in their families, and high standards that have wormed themselves into her own head. With my daughter and I, it is the same. I am a big Mom. My values and expectations are fairly distinct from those of the families with whom my daughter mostly associates. And I don’t care – I expect my daughter to live up to them. I am a force of nature. I can be a great embarrassment. I am always there.

I get it…but I care only a little. I will do what I think is best, not what I think is socially easy, for her or for me. I believe that love is a verb, not a greeting card. She knows this. She hates this. She loves this. She trusts this. She fears this. I know. I know.

I also know these boys, have known them for years. Most are not going to turn out to be very nice men, though they will probably be very wealthy men. They are beneath my notice, so to speak. This Colin, though…he is only a brat, not truly corrupted. He needs to grow up and realize a few things, but he well might. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with something like this and think of it as funny – that would be the wrong thing for him to learn now. But I knew that I could not see to his getting the lesson that he did need. I knew that my daughter, who was sneaking around the house hiding school directories and telephone books in a last ditch effort to avoid humiliation, was right in thinking that I could not do anything that would not make it worse. She was right.

At their age, for me to call their mommies would not have any effect on these boys. I was not actually considering action in regard to most of the boys…they were what they were…but there was hope for Colin. If he were to get in trouble for his actions because I called, though, it would happen in such a way that would result only in resentment from him, and increased trouble for my daughter at his hands and from his beastly little friends. That, my daughter could do without. No. I wasn’t going to call his mommy. Ditto the school. The way I saw it, there was really only one way to go in this situation: man-to-man.

I wanted my husband to call Colin’s father.

When you are a twelve-year-old boy, a lesson from your father on how a young man behaves with honor can have a huge impact. A boy who is lucky enough to have a decent and involved father knows that he is lucky and is likely to give real consideration to instruction in the manly art of honor. I did not think that Colin would come away from a conversation with his father about his bad behavior ready to disrespect my daughter more, as he would if his mother and I tried to handle it. But to come off that way, it would have to be a matter left entirely up to the men. The ball was in my husband’s court, so to speak.

My husband wasn’t man enough to do it. He wanted to call the school, which I told him was not okay, because it would only cause trouble for our daughter if the boys got in trouble from school and, anyway, the incident didn’t even happen at school. He wanted to go talk to the boys himself at school and I told him that was really not okay, as confronting children other than your own is very much frowned upon at school. Dad-to-dad was the only way that could help, I said, and he started listing the ways the conversation between himself and Colin’s dad could go south.

I told him he was right. He shouldn’t do it. He didn’t have it in him. I meant it. The way he was, the conversation wouldn’t work at all. I went off him for a few days but got over it. You can’t respect everything about someone…you just need there to be enough about them that you do, and there was.

The next morning, I called the Office of Transportation, told them what happened, and sweetly suggested that they make sure that their substitute bus drivers knew to follow the route no matter what kids said. They said they would. And that was that.

I’m definitely unhappy that these little boys got away with causing this kind of trouble, but life is not much like a tidy story in which all subplots can be neatly tied up at the end. Colin would have been better off in the long run if he could have had that conversation with his father, and my daughter and many other kids would have been better off in the short run. The remedies available to my daughter would not truly remedy the situation, though, so the situation will likely remain unresolved. I have no desire to embarrass my daughter and subject her to teasing without solving her problem, so inaction seems best, however frustrating it truly and deeply is. This time.

My daughter is relieved.

Afterwards: I don’t always do what I plan to do, or even what I think is best. A couple of weeks after this incident happened and a couple of days after I thought I had finished this piece, I ran into Colin’s mother at the grocery store. Faced with her presence, I couldn’t neglect to tell her what had happened. My daughter was furious and afraid when I gave her a heads up at home, and I was sorry. The next day, after school, she said he had mumbled an apology, with neither remorse nor malice, saying that his mom had said he would have to miss a movie the next weekend if he didn’t. She says no one has given her any trouble as they do not blame her for the fact that I am insane. No help, but no real harm done by my telling, it would seem. I have to chalk it up to more anthropological evidence of some really different priorities that I have than do the families among whom we live and learn.

Feedback on revision, please? Anyone know how to solve my italics problem? Thanks.

can you insert html into the text? italic word try a test email and see if it comes through

oops- I can't type it in so you can see the code: go here:

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/_I.html

I like it! Except, I would rearrange the beginning, like so, added portions in brackets:

“My bus never came, Mom,“ says my daughter [over the phone].

I have been called out of my first period World Geography, History and Cultures class to take this call [from my xyo], while a para watches my sixth graders, who are hopefully [still] drawing their maps of Canada.

[My daughter continues,]“I’ve already called Auntie Jazz like 200 times and left messages to see if she can pick me up, but she’s not answering.”

[your emotional reaction here]No sister availability, then. Neighbors? “Can you check to see if Dennis and Joyce are home?”

For the italics, I think you can just put [i] on either side of the italicized portions and that would work.

Miranda: a zine about motherhood and other adventures

Made those changes and sent it off! Thanks!

Wish me luck, mamas!

definitely good wow- very good!