CHAPTER TWELVE

Don't Bet Your Life on Childcare

 

A casual observer might have expected my mother to step up and offer to change her airline tickets and babysit for that first week of my two-week job, while I was scrambling for care.

But a casual observer would not know my mother. She liked her house her way, and her schedule to stay scheduled. Changing her plane tickets was a non-starter. I didn’t even ask, though Seth suggested it.

We dropped her off at the airport Sunday afternoon. Seth and I took out her much lighter suitcases, and gave her a hug. I even kissed her cheek, thinking that I really should get to know her better. One day.

“Good luck with the job, Molly. I’m sure Penny won’t be as dedicated and observant as you are.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I meant it. Compliments do not come easy from my mother’s lips.

“I hope that woman who will be watching the children after school is up to the task. Homeschooling.” Mom shook her head ominously. “In my day we knew a good thing when we saw it. A proper school is the only way to civilize children.”

“She’s doing a great job with her children, Mom. And I’m sure watching Anna and Ryan for two hours until I get home won’t be a problem for this week. I can find something else by next week.”

Anna piped up. “Mom! Penelope’s mom asked if I wanted to build a volcano in their backyard tomorrow when I come home with her? Can I? Please?”

I sighed. Norma, Penelope’s mother was not just a stay-at-home mom, she was a home-school mom, so it did not surprise me that she would invite my daughter to build a volcano in her backyard. Not at all. No doubt she thought I had neglected my child by not allowing her to do so in ours. But really, I’m not a volcano kind of mom.

My mother raised her eyebrows.

I ignored her and said to Anna, who was dancing around impatiently, “I’ll talk to her and see, when we get home. Okay?”

Anna nodded, but I knew she’d have me over there as soon as the garage door had closed.

 

As predicted, the minute we drove into the garage and the door started rumbling down, Anna said, “Can I help make the volcano? Please?”

“Let me talk to Norma,” I said, walking to the fence, a prancing Anna beside me asking questions without taking a breath in between, “Doyouthinkitwillburn?Howhotislava?Coulditkillthegrass?ShouldIwearmybikehelmet?”

“Hi Norma. I hear you’re planning a big eruption.”

She took a moment from supervising her five children as they took wet balls of papier mache and stuck them onto the growing mound near her barbecue pit. At the moment it looked more like a nest built by steroidal wasps, but I had faith in Norma. After all, I’d seen her turn a rackety garden cart into the Magic Mathmobile for the town’s Fourth of July parade two years ago using only two boxes of colored chalk, origami paper and a tattered edition of “You Can Love Math Too!”

Anna, taking my conversation as approval, vaulted over the fence and began daubing papier mache like a well-trained wasp.

Norma smiled as she glanced at her brood plus Anna. “It was such a great day, and we’d been meaning to do this all week, except for the rain.”

“Do you think it will dry by tomorrow?”

“If we don’t have any surprise rain. There’s not a cloud in the sky today. We’re going to try to get it launched around four tomorrow, to avoid terrifying the neighbors.” She glanced around at the neat suburban houses in our neighborhood. Most folks weren’t out yet, despite the fact it was a great afternoon for getting chores done. Apparently, it was also a great opportunity for hard-working folks to take it easy.

I joked. “We working folks won’t be home to see Mount Waspoovious erupt, then?”

Norma dandled the baby on her hip. “I’m sure someone will be home sick, or on vacation or something. Probably the same someone who called the fire department when we had the experiment on how to start a fire using a magnifying glass.”

Anna had been determined to recreate that experiment in our house—until all the magnifying glasses mysteriously disappeared. Come to think of it, I should probably get them out of the attic if I wanted her to do well on the third-grade leaf project next fall.

“Some people are just jealous that you’re so creative,” I murmured soothingly. “I worship at your feet, and not just because you’ve agreed to watch Anna and Ryan while I’m at work this week.”

Norma gave me that look that mothers sometimes give their children to let them know they are neither amused nor fooled. “I’m not an idiot. Most of those parents think education is something that should be sanitized of all risk, not to mention entertainment value, and spoon fed directly and neatly into their child’s cranium.”

“You have to admit that would be handy.” I laughed. “In theory anyway. I can’t help but think that Ryan’s cranium would spit chunks of information back out at me just like he spit globs of baby food at me when I tried to feed him spinach.”

Norma and I shared the same frustration with the modern educational system. Teaching to the test was not an ideal way to encourage kids to want to learn. It wasn’t even an ideal way to keep excellent teachers in the schools.

Norma coped by taking Elliot out and teaching him herself. Seth and I coped by making sure Ryan had an excellent one-on-one reading tutor. If I got the job, we might even be able to add an extra hour of tutoring in every week. Not that Ryan would appreciate the fact until much, much later in life.

Norma looked at Anna and then toward my house, where Ryan was conspicuously invisible. “Do you think Ryan would like to join us?”

I bit my lip. “Ryan would prefer to play video games and watch cartoons until his brain explodes than have anything to do with something that reeks of homeschooling.”

“Unschooling is about the child,” Norma sighed. “If he would just open his mind…”

“Ryan is not about to open his mind—he’s too afraid he’ll find out he’s dumb as dirt.”

“Nonsense, if you just put your foot down…”

I held up my hand. “I’m letting him choose, Norma. Isn’t that what you advocate? He’d rather have a tutor and go to school with his friends.”

Living with our principles is hard. Which is why we so often don’t. But Norma was someone who really did try not to convert the world to her way of thinking by preaching.

She and I had both hoped that Ryan would want to be homeschooled. We had both thought it would be best for him, with his dyslexia to try a different approach from the traditional ‘sit and do your worksheet’ type education. But he hadn’t. And I, shamefully, thought sometimes Norma knew that I was relieved.

“You’re right. What should I do with him tomorrow, then?”

“Tie him up and gag him?”

Norma smiled. “He’s giving you that much trouble?”

“He thinks he’s old enough to stay home.”

Norma nodded. “He is twelve. I was babysitting at twelve.”

She had a point, but the very idea of leaving him home alone gave me hives. “So was I. But this is not then.”

I could see her mind working behind her placid expression. One great thing about Norma is that she likes to find a solution that works for the most people possible. At last, she said, “How about this: he stays at home, and he can call me if he needs anything?”

It was probably the best idea, but I couldn’t make myself agree. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll look in on him about halfway through.” She held up her hand to stifle my protest. “Not like a jailor, but with some veggie chips and a kale smoothie.”

“Sounds perfect.” I’d stress to Ryan that if he wasn’t polite about the veggie chips and kale smoothie, he wouldn’t be staying home alone again for a very long time.”

“Great. We may even convince him to watch the volcano go off, who knows?”

“Stranger things have happened,” I agreed. “What are you using for lava?”

She ticked the ingredients off on her fingers. “Baking soda, vinegar, beet juice.”

Of course, Norma wouldn’t have a vial of red dye #3 anywhere in her house. Did her kids like to eat beets? With Norma, I could almost believe it. “If you spill any anywhere, my mother the Hands-On Homemaker gave me some great tips for getting stains out of things,” I offered.

“I still can’t believe she’s your mother, Molly.” Norma didn’t mean her disbelief as an insult, I was sure. So why did it feel like one.

“I have the same problem,” I admitted.

Norma laughed. “She’s a driven woman, while you’re so laid-back.”

“Lazy you mean?”

Norma shook her head. “Of course not. You do so much. You work on the PTA, co-lead the Brownie troop, take good care of your family.”

“I just wish I was slightly more organized. Life would be easier.”

Norma’s eyebrows raised. “You think so? I think that’s the Hands-On Homemaker effect. Thinking if you just figure out the right structure, life will be easy.” She looked at Team Volcano. “Easy is beyond me. I’m just content to let life be interesting.”

The Hands-On Homemaker effect? That sounded right. “Interesting? Yes, it is that. I’m going to have to think about that,” I said skeptically, as I left Anna happily daubing, sure that she was as safe as any child can be who’s running full tilt at a play experience that was actually learning-in-disguise.