12
Street roots
April 13, 2012
Cautionary tales can have happy, and fearless endings
BY M ELISSA FA VA R A
It helps to look right at what you’re afraid
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
of. We don’t want to open the phone bill
hen I was 7 ,1 listened up when my
because we’re afraid to see the amount due,
mom told me about Adam Walsh, the
but open it we must. So, I agreed to go with
little boy who was abducted and
Ro’s best friend Jascha and his mom Jill to a
murdered in Florida, and I never strayed scene
from from my nightmares: the bouldering
her at the grocery store. I believed my fifth
gym, where adults and kids climb man-made
grade teacher when he told our class that Len rock walls, clinging to tiny handholds without
Bias tried cocaine one time and his heart
a net or a rope.
exploded; I never dabbled in the white
Jascha is six months older than Ramona, so
powder drugs. When my mom told me at 12
his mom Jill, a fellow only-child-haver, has
that if I had sex I would get pregnant and
gotten to the Next Big Challenge in Parenting
drop out of high school, I believed that for a
before me every time. I have largely parented
very long time; when I finally stopped
for years via calling Jill to ask, “What did you
believing it, I believed my high school teacher
do when your kid wouldn’t stop peeing his
who told us we would get AIDS if we ever had
pants/bit another child at daycare/ate dirt?”
sex without using condoms once, and I used
Etcetera. Jill always has answers. I’ve never
condoms. Religiously.
come right out and said, “I’m afraid I’ll ruin
I grew up in the 1980s and absorbed every
my kid by being too nervous,” but like the
fear that the schools, the government, and my best of mothers, Jill is psychic and offered me
parents imparted during that time of Just
a part of the solution before I had to ask.
Saying No. I never got pregnant by accident,
The rock climbing gym. Past the
got hooked on cocaine, or had an STD. But,
frightening adult walls that arch at 45-degree
man, ask my husband what it’s like to have
angles from the spongy floor is the kid room,
me as a passenger in a car (fingernail marks
where 10-foot-tall walls covered in brightly
on the dashboard and a wife who pips and
colored handholds beckon children to
squeals every time you turn left). And when
scramble up and then speed back down on a
my daughter Ramona plays with a puppy, I’m
metal slide that dumps them off where they
chasing after to make sure she doesn’t fall on
started. Ten feet. Up. With... no... net.
it and injure them both. Monkey bars are
Jascha, an old hand at climbing, seized Ro’s
problematic. I am afraid. Those healthy fears
hand and pulled her to the easiest section of
I absorbed? They kept me safe, maybe. They
the wall where the places to get a grip with
also made me an anxious person.
small hands and feet were closely crowded
I hate that because now I’m in charge of
together while I focused on my Mason jar of
keeping my daughter Ramona (aka Rose aka
tea and on not having an internal
Ro), age five, safe — and the temptation is
hemorrhage. Jill took my hand and reminded
there to scare her. Why shouldn’t she cross
me that the floor was soft and Ramona was
the street by herself? She might get hit by a
good at using her body. Ro clung to the wall
car! Why shouldn’t she climb that tree?
like a champ, making it to the top where she
Because she might fall and break her neck!
rolled over the wall’s edge and high-fived
Why shouldn’t she take her shoes off at Grant Jascha. No broken neck for her. No heart
Park? She might step on broken glass!
attack for me.
It’s bad. And while it actually is a big deal
I started thinking about why my elders
to le a rn "to" c ro ss h ie s tr e e l by oneself, I ’ve
decided to scare me. I know that the
begun to think that, though we live in
intentions were good — keep kids off hard
frightening times (the war on women, bad
drugs. Keep kids safe from diseases,
economy, nuts in governments both here and
unintended pregnancy. And I can understand
abroad), I’m not doing Ramona a favor if my
that why those things are to be avoided might
tools of persuasion on taking care of herself
seem difficult to articulate well to kids. It’s
make her less brave than she is. Climbing
more expedient to create bogeymen than it is
trees is good for you, right?
to discuss tough concepts. But I think that if
W
Melissa Favara
teaches English in
Vancouver and lives
and writes in North
Portland, where she
parents Ramona, age
5. She hosts a
bi-monthly reading
series, and counts her
husband and her city
as the two great loves
o f her life.
my mother had said, “You’ll want boys to like
you. And boys get highly sexed before girls
do, so they’ll really want to get down, but
because they’re young, they might not be
aware of how important it is to be safe. And it
will mean something different to them than it
means to you when you’re 14 or 15. You
should wait until college when you have a
clearer sense of who you are and what you
want,” I would have heard that. I’d have had
questions. But we could have had a dialogue
that gave me a realistic sense of what I was
facing. I think Ramona and I could have
conversations like that. I think when the time
comes, I’ll be ready. For now, we can practice
street-crossing skills, and her dad can teach
her the finer points of tree-climbing so she
can move in the world without my panic
limiting her.
At the rock climbing gym, emboldened by
the success of her first climb, Ro went for the
hardest end of the kiddie wall with Jascha,
where the grips were much farther apart and
the wall angled out enough to make hanging
on really challenging. I resisted the impulse
to run to her as she bit her lip, reached above
for a place to pull, and missed. She fell about
five feet and landed on her bottom. A brief
thought of crying flickered across her face.
Then she stood up, went to the middle-
difficult section of the wall, and climbed. A
couple of minutes later, she was cresting the
wall, hurtling down the slide, high-fiving every
kid around. She has to fall sometimes to learn
her own limits and expand them. I have to let
her.
As we left the gym, Jill high-fived me.
“Good job, Mommy,” she said. Part of
growing up, and continuing to grow up,
involves taking risks. When we’re lucky, we
have people who care about us there to
encourage us to try new things, brush us off
when we tumble, and talk about it after. Post
climbing, Ro said, “I was NERVOUS to try,
Mama. But I’m proud I can CLIMB!” Thanks
for that, fearless kid. Let’s keep talking about
it.
Mary Pacios
A Retrospective
3 - June 1
Reception for the Artist
First Thursday, May 3, 2012
5:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Music by:
ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI
CATHOLIC CHURCH
1 1 3 1 SE OAK ST PORTLAND
Gypsy Jazz West
Kim Swennes on Celtic Harp
REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED
EVENT WILL BE IN THE DINING HALL
FEATURING VOICES FROM THE
NEWLY RELEASED ORAL HISTORY
INCLUDING SEATTLE ACT1VIST/NARRAT0RS
ARNETTE ADAMS ANITRA FREEMAN,
MONA JOYNER, DEBRA MARTINSON
JESSIE PEDRO, ANNA TAILFEATHERS
0 DELORES WINSTON.
Portrait of Jim, charcoal, 44”x30” 2011
ARTREACH GALLERY
SW Park & SW Madison
First Congregational Church
(Across from the Portland Art Museum)
Portland, Oregon 97205
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