“I’m NOT an ARTIST!” my teenage daughter loudly exclaims as she gets out of the car. Puzzled by her comment, I try to move my car around two parents in vans chatting with each other and blocking the exit out. I mutter for the 100th time that it WOULD BE CONVENIENT if my daughter took the school bus to school so why doesn’t she? It’s a rhetorical question. I know the reason she doesn’t. She’s afraid she’ll be picked on. In elementary school, at the tiny age of six, she had the terrible experience of being one of only a few white kids at her school. She became the target of bullies on the bus pushing, hitting her, and calling her FOREIGNER and WHITE TRASH. Now in high school, the private tuition had become a huge financial burden. So last semester, when we discussed switching back from private to public school, we had made a deal, she agreed “to give it a try… if I drove her.”
One of the most irksome and rewarding aspects of being a parent is the expectation your children, society, and many institutions have that, as a parent, you are always available to chauffer your child from one activity to another. This unpaid driving job comes with additional duties the “picker upper”,” the provider of snacks”, “the savior” who replies to frantic phone calls requesting money or special delivery services. As a single parent, the late announcements or sometimes non-notice of special events and schedule changes have been hard to manage. On a typical day, I rush madly to drop off my kids and then get to work on time. I often mutter curses at some of the other unpaid chauffeurs who appear to be without pressing work obligations. At every school, there a gaggle of parents who seem to have nothing better to do than flock around the drop off and pickup points moving, incredibly, slow. I wait as these unhurried parents, dressed up to socialize, linger around exchanging niceties. CLEARLY they are not facing traffic or a 10 minute deadline to get to work. Okay I’ve digressed into a rant, forgetting to explain the “rewarding” part of driving children places. For me it is the talks we have on the way there and back each day. I get to hear my kids expectations, and concerns in the morning and all about the high and low moments at the end of the day.
FINALLY! The two, shiny, new, vans pull apart and I inch ahead waiting behind other cars attempting to merge into the unyielding traffic, on the main road. I hear her words again,“ I’m not an ARTIST!” I’m still puzzled by her response to a compliment, passed on; from someone who liked a painting she had given me. The painting hangs above my desk and is made up of huge swirls of purple, lilac, white and dark green. At times it looks like flower petals that have been zoomed 300 percent on a screen. The thick lines painted with a watery sheen reminds me of the way flowers look through rain spotted windows as you zoom past them on the Shinkansen, (新幹線), a high speed Japanese railway train. Mostly her color usage reminds me of the Aurora Borealis or the Northern lights or at least the impression I have from pictures, as I’ve never seen them first hand.
I don’t spend a lot of time in my office but when I do, I love to look at the painting she made me. It seems to change like a kaleidoscope and its colors and shapes always relax me. The artist, my daughter thoughtfully painted beautiful words all around the edges of the painting; her favorite quotes, lyrics and original prose that would be hidden if it were framed, which it is not. She IS an Artist Damn it! Why does she feel she isn’t?
I’m almost at work. But this unsettling feeling won’t leave. Because I know she means what she said. She doesn’t think she is an artist even though she has always painted and has thought up such original, creative ways to express things. If others compliment her she believes they are “just being nice” and when I do “It’s because you’re my Mum”. When I try to explain that her paintings, poetry and writing are all REALLY GOOD she smiles and tell me she loves me. She seems to think that as her mother I’m obligated to like everything she does and compliment her whether she deserves it or not.
I continue driving up the steep hill to work, reflecting back on when I first noticed her artistic skills. My daughter must have been only 2 or 3 years old when she began painting vivid pictures. The backgrounds were usually in bold, striking colors and the foregrounds were filled with landscapes and figures. Her people were the most interesting she preferred black ink or paint and often drew stick people like the ones you find in African art or see in caves. Even then she had a unique style. The bodies and heads were drawn with a few simple lines but the facial expressions were done in detail. She preferred rectangular and cone shapes and all the animals and people had her signature-belly buttons. Family and friends wanted copies and kept her art up not just because it was drawn by a little person they loved but because it looked cool.
For the last five years, perhaps more, my daughter has been embroiled in Fandoms. She gushes about books she’s just read or wants to read. She constantly writes on her laptop or taking notes on her Kindle. Disturbingly, despite the time and effort she spends on these activities or the good grades she gets, she also appears to lack confidence in her writing skills. Shyly, once in awhile, she will offer up a story or poem she has written for review but seems resolutely stuck behind the idea that she “isn’t really good or talented like others”. She isn’t being modest. She truly believes she is ‘average’ or “maybe slightly above average that’s all” and views pursuing and refining these skills as reaching for some sort of unattainable dream. I don’t get it. How can a sixteen year old already view any dreams as unattainable? Why does she think that way? Did someone say something to discourage her? Was it a teacher or another student? How could I have missed it? I know the power of a teacher’s words.
I had until recently thought I was particularly weak at math. I know why I feel this way: I had the misfortune of having a misogynist as a math instructor for 5 years in a row! He made me feel brainless and inadequate. It was only after accidently bumping into old classmates, two decades later, that I realized he had done the same to all his female students. Soon after, that realization I also overheard my own father say to one of my children, “Your mom was always good at math so I pushed her.” I was completely Gob smacked! My father, who I remember urging me “to pay attention, work harder” at math. He’d actually thought I was good? No, way! I hadn’t even felt average I truly thought I sucked. In fact, I still feel nervous when math topics come up. But now I amend my thoughts a little and say or think…well I’m not all that bad I’m quicker and more accurate than some.
Is that what happened to my daughter? Did some idiot tell her she wasn’t any good? Did I not compliment her when I should have? Or compliment her too much? I know I’ve always supported her with materials and supplies. As a child, she would proudly show off her latest creations. So when did she form these negative opinions? Can I go back to that wrinkle in time and iron it smooth? Guilt is what I feel, over being too busy and missing out on when my child was forming ideas about herself and her abilities. I glance at the rearview window, looking at the seat where she sits every day, clueless over how this happened or how I can change things.
I’ve arrived with a two minutes to spare. I park the car, grab my iced coffee, book bag and trudge through the mud to class. For a moment I pause and think about how parenting seems to be infused with guilt. Guilt is the feeling that hangs around, like a permanent counterweight causing doubt over every parenting decision ever made. Maybe I can express my thoughts to her in a different way. I decide to write them down and wonder if she will read the truth. Opening the door I see faces and smile and greet the class. Writing the words “YOU ARE a creator,” in large letters in my attendance book, I start calling out names…
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 