In Response to @WSJ: #YASaves

In reaction to this article by a clueless person:

I work in a middle school. We had, for a brief time, a Gay-Straight Alliance. A parent–not a bad guy, just clueless–asked me “Are there gay kids in middle school?”

Well, yeah. Before they go to high school, they go to middle school.

If you’re a parent, I’m not necessarily talking about you, but it might be time for a reality check. Because I have to say: clueless parents are by far the majority. I deal with parents every single day who have no idea what is going on with their kids. The stunned parent who just can’t believe her thirteen-year-old daughter met a boy in the boys’ bathroom for the purpose of having sex. The angry parent who can’t believe that his son stole a bicycle despite four witnesses to him stealing a key to its lock and the bike in the kid’s possession. The frustrated parent who just can’t understand why their A student suddenly has F’s and black hair. The parent after parent after parent that I never see or hear from at all while their kid slips silently away no matter how hard we try to reach them.

It’s not middle school changing your kid, it’s adolescence and baby, if you think this is bad, wait another year!

Our kids are fifteen at the oldest. We have on-probation kids, we have taken-from-their-home kids, we have neglected and abused kids. Bullied kids, gay kids, suicidal kids. Cutting kids and trans kids and arsonist kids–they’re there. And you know what? We’re a uniform school (many middle schools are now, do people even know that?) In uniforms, the scarred kids all look pretty much the same as the cared-for kids because adolescence sucks for everyone.

My twelve-year-old daughter had a friend for a sleepover Friday night. Before the girl came over, mom made sure to warn me that her daughter is a cutter, and if I saw the scars please don’t flip out. She’s in therapy, she’s doing better, but if I can’t handle it, come up with an excuse to cancel.

How many parents never see the scars? LOTS. And that’s why we effing need librarians.

Librarians are superheroes without capes.

Librarians saved my life though I never talked to them. I never talked to anyone. Everything was fine, though I wore one pair of sweat pants to school for a year because I had nothing else, and I alternated high heels and winter boots that made my feet stink for yards around because that’s what I had. I skipped a day of school a week because I thought any more and they’d send the police. I never told anyone anything but I read books. I ditched class to go to the library and the librarians never reported me but books found me–books I needed, friends I needed, magically appeared in the pile of books I’d picked out and those books took me away to dangerous places and dangerous thoughts and people who persevered and won the day and dear God how I needed that.

At the school where I work, our librarian has two jobs and rarely gets to spend time on the books. But her assistant–that woman is a godsend. She does her utter best to get books in the library that will speak to every kid she can, because budget cuts keep happening and God knows one counselor for seven hundred kids is not going to be able to reach everyone and the rest of us are running around like yon headless chickens too.

Someone last night on #YAsaves said that “librarians are superheroes without the cape” and she was so right. But even librarians can’t do much if the books don’t exist.

Are all kids ready for this stuff? Hell no.

That’s where parents need to be involved. That lady in the article looking for a good book for her thirteen-year-old? Why hasn’t she been buying the girl books before that? Because if she’d been there before, she’d know where to go to find Warriors or Percy Jackson or Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Gail Carson Levine or Guardians of Ga’Hoole or Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist or Maureen Johnson. (Please note: I’ve not read these books. They are simply the ones I’ve seen my 12yo with that do not look anything like the “all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation.” So I’m doing exactly what the woman did–I’m judging books by their covers.)

I’m a parent. I get it. You want to protect your baby from every harm. Do you think I wouldn’t die for my little girl? I would. In a heartbeat. We’re parents. It’s the job. We can’t protect them from the world forever, though–if nothing else, because we probably won’t live long enough. At some point the world is going to get in. Don’t you think they should be prepared?

Here’s my idea: Instead of hiding the world from your kids, guide them through it.

Sad to say, but there’s not much in that WSJ article that my kid hasn’t heard of before. From homophobia to cutting to child abuse, she’s got friends going through it. Reading about it in a book isn’t going to do her any harm–unless it’s glorified. The only books I’ve banned for her areTwilight and all its relations, and I did it because Edward Cullen is an abuser presented as a hero, not because he’s a vampire.

I say, watch what your kid reads. At least look the books up online and read a couple reviews. Talk about the books he/she is reading. If it’s all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation this is a warning sign. These books are selling for a reason, and it’s not because kids want “depravity.”

As for me and mine, we’re a year into middle school, a year give or take into her adolescence. If we keep the lines of communication open (talking about books she’s reading helps with this!) we might just make it.

 

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This article touches on something I meant to and missed: building empathy.

Here’s a response from someone at the WSJ that is much more reasonable, I think.

And there’s this, which I think is my life. Some think that picture argues what the original article writer did, that books should be full of good things, but I think it’s about lifting us high enough we can see the good things.