Done. Done. Done.

Yesterday was Silas' first day of kindergarten.  He was nervous, so I put on my chipper, upbeat, "you're going to have an amazing day!" face and we were all fine.  He was fine.  I was fine.  Michael was fine.  Everyone was fine.  No guilt.  Perfect.  Awesome.  Wonderful.

My mom text me around noon and asked if I had stopped crying yet.  "Oh, I didn't cry.  I was fine."

At 2;15, I received an email from his teacher telling me that she already loves having him in her class and that he listened and followed directions well and had a great first day.  That is when I burst into tears.  I do not understand it, but that is the way it happened.

When I got home, he told me how much he loved it.

So, overall, everyone was still fine.

This morning, it was time for him to walk into big boy school all by himself.  I have walked him to every classroom he has ever had....sometimes with both arms full of babies.  He was thoroughly upset with me when I informed him that he would have to walk to the gym and sit and wait for his teacher to come get him.  I had specifically asked at meet the teacher whether I could walk him in every day and had been told, "yeah, please only do that the first day."

Needless to say, he was not fine when I left him this morning.  I was not fine.  We were not fine.

But, off to work I went.

At 9:53 a.m., I text the babysitter to check on my other two minions.

"How are you?"
"Not good."
"Call me if you can."

Goody!

So, of course I call.  "blah, blah, blah....long story" finishing with "and so Vivian fell from the fourth step onto her head."

Yes, of course she did, and I suppose I need to call and break the news to her father?  Yes, of course I do.

(She's fine.  She has two bumps on her noggin, a paranoid babysitter putting frozen peas on her face, and a lunatic father acting like she is the first child in history to hurt herself.  I told everyone about how Silas fell from the fourth step of my last place and smashed his face straight into concrete when he was Viv's age and then straight up vomited all over me while I bawled into the phone to my mother asking her, WHAT DO I DO?!  HE'S DYING!...just to calm them the hell down.)

Back to work.

Oh good!  An email from a crazy client about why we did what she told us to do.

"Why would you not pay that hospital bill?!  I'm getting collections letters!"

"Because you told us not to pay the damn bill, maybe...and then you signed a piece of paper saying you were taking full responsibility for the damn bill...  Here. Here is a copy of the piece of paper you signed....LAST WEEK WHEN WE TALKED IN A CONFERENCE ROOM FOR TWENTY MINUTES ABOUT ALL THE SHIT WE WERE PAYING FOR YOU AND THAT BILL WAS NOT BEING PAID."

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeext.

Phone call from drunk client wherein I have to repeat what I told him the last time he called drunk because, "You guys never call me."

We never call any of our clients.  Nor do we send them letters informing them of important dates for things at which they absolutely must be present.  And we always make promises to them that we could never possibly keep.  Our favorite thing to do is make promises to them about when an insurance company (over which we have no control) is going to cut their check.  We do that all the time.

I look forward to our next conversation, drunk client.  I know it will be a small dose of sunshine piled on top of the rainbows and unicorns left at my door by my other clients.  Try not to stumble near any stairs.  You may smash your face into concrete and require a bag of frozen peas.

Neeeeeeeeeeeeext.

My secretary enters my office to rant about a client who just showed up unannounced without an appointment with his girlfriend in tow.  The girlfriend (who is not our client) started making demands and pissed off my secretary.  So, my secretary is venting about the woman, "THIS FAT HEIFER...." and then she looks at my belly and stops mid-sentence, "I'm sorry.  You're not fat.  I love your weight."

Excuse me, what?  So, you say, "this fat heifer" about someone who is not me and then feel the need to stop mid-sentence while looking at my stomach and apologize for using the word "fat" because it must clearly be something about which I am sensitive?

Bitch, I know I'm not skinny.  I like cake.  You don't have to apologize to me for saying the word "fat" in my presence.

And so now, I'm done.

Application of Brown v. Board of Education

This is a discussion post I just wrote for my Constitutional Law class.  I found it topically relevant to the goings on of the day and thought I'd share it.

The question: "Both the majority and the dissent in Parents Involved v Seattle claim the mantle of Brown v Board. Which side has the better argument?" 

My post:

              A state of emergency was declared in Ferguson, Missouri yesterday after violence ensued during Sunday night’s protest marking a year since police killed an unarmed black teenager.  At the same time, demonstrators gathered in Arlington, Texas in remembrance of an unarmed black teenager who was shot on Friday night.  At the demonstrations, people could be heard chanting “black lives matter” and holding signs stating the same.

              Yesterday is the most recent example I can give of racial tension and unrest in America.  To pretend we live in a society that is no longer concerned about discrimination based on race would be foolish.  It is with that in mind that I approach this discussion question. 

The unanimous Court in Brown v. Board of Education handed down an opinion that made it clear that de jure segregation (segregation as a matter of law) was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause and therefore unconstitutional.

              The case of Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 127 S. Ct 2738 (2007) involved two school districts who were being accused of violating that same Equal Protection Clause through the use of their student assignment plans.  Each district considered student race as a deciding factor in student assignment to schools in certain situations.  The goal of each district was to keep the schools in the district racially integrated.   

              The opinion of the Court in Parents Involved found the assignment plans unconstitutional, and the dissenters sharply disagreed with the logic of that decision.  Each side referenced Brown v. Board of Education although clearly disagreed on the implication of the decision in Brown on the case at hand.

              In his dissent, Justice Breyer made some compelling arguments.  To Justice Breyer, context was key in matters argued under the Equal Protection Clause.  He stated in his dissent:

This context is not a context that involves the use of race to decide who will receive goods or services that are normally distributed on the basis of merit and which are in short supply. It is not one in which race-conscious limits stigmatize or exclude; the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions. They do not impose burdens unfairly upon members of one race alone but instead seek benefits for members of all races alike. The context here is one of racial limits that seek, not to keep the races apart, but to bring them together. (Parents Involved 2818)

              Justice Breyer continued with his argument that the Equal Protection Clause was to be viewed in light of context when he said, “The Equal Protection Clause […] has always distinguished in practice between state action that excludes and thereby subordinates racial minorities and state action that seeks to bring together people of all races.” (Parents Involved 2834-35)

              The dissent made it clear that the outcome in Brown should steer the Court toward allowing assignment plans that aimed to prevent re-segregation of the schools.  The school districts argued that the assignment plans at issue in Parents Involved were designed with the idea that racial integration was the desired outcome.

Justice Breyer believed that the reason behind the plans (or the context) achieved the outcome desired in Brown.  He pointed out that Brown v. Board of Education issued a “promise of true racial equality—not as a matter of fine words on paper, but as a matter of everyday life in the Nation's cities and schools.” (Parents Involved 2836) 

              The dissent did not believe that the intention of Brown was to just make it a legal principle that schools were not to be segregated but to make absolute certain that schools were, in fact, not segregated.  The argument for the dissent was that any plan that sought to achieve schools that were actually racially balanced was allowable and was in the spirit of what was intended in Brown.

              Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Opinion of the Court in Parents Involved.  The point the Chief Justice made which I found most salient was when he said, “As the Court explained in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U. S. 495, 517 (2000), ‘[o]ne of the principal reasons race is treated as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.’” (Parents Involved 2777)  To that I would add “and individual needs.”

              According to the decision in Parents Involved, the decision in Brown did not have anything to do with the “context” of classifications made by race.  The argument put forth by Chief Justice Roberts was that it was the mere separation of children on the basis of race that generated a violation of the constitution.  It did not matter what the intention was behind the racial classification.  It did not matter if the goal was to keep schools balanced.  The only thing that mattered was that there was any sort of classification based on race.  “What do racial classifications at issue here do, if not accord differential treatment on the basis of race?” (Parents Involved 2778)

              The assignment plans at issue did not look at students as individuals.  Instead, the plans classified students by race and used that as the sole “tie-breaker” on a student’s choice of schools in one district and as the deciding factor on a request to transfer in the other district. 

              One of the students who was affected in Seattle wanted a placement in a biotechnology program to which he had been accepted.  He was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia and was having success with hands-on learning, and it had been decided (by his mother and middle school teachers) that the biotechnology program was best for his continued success.  Despite his acceptance to the desired program, his placement at the school hosting the program was denied based on his race.

              In such an instance, the assignment plan did not factor in what was best for the individual student at issue.  There was just a blind placement made on the basis of race without regard for his individual needs for success.  It makes no sense that the Court in Brown would seek to maintain racial balance at the expense of what is best for the success of each individual child.  The Court in Brown was interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause as insuring that people are treated as individuals without consideration of the color of their skin.   “As counsel who appeared before this Court for the plaintiffs in Brown put it: ‘We have one fundamental contention which we will seek to develop in the course of this argument, and that contention is that no State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.’ Tr. of Oral Arg. in Brown I, p. 7 (Robert L. Carter, Dec. 9, 1952).” (Parents Involved 2778)

              The Opinion of the Court puts forth a better argument than the dissent in Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 with regards to the application of Brown v. Board of Education.  I disagree with Justice Breyer’s assertion that “the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions.”  Any classification of people based on race has the potential to pit races against one another and exacerbate racial tension.  Reducing individuals to nothing but their race for any reason (and certainly to make a potentially life-altering decision for them) has the potential to create tension amongst people.

The goal we should seek in education is to treat students as individuals and do what is best for each student regardless of race.  The public school system should seek to train students to be individuals who are able to obtain the education necessary to succeed.  Diversity is absolutely important to the success of students at any level.  We cannot learn and grow to our full potential if we are not exposed to people of different backgrounds, races, cultures, sexual orientations, religions, etc.  That does not mean that children should ever be reduced to nothing but the race they marked on a form and placed in a classroom strictly to achieve a certain number of students of each race in each school.  That was not the purpose of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and that should not be the way we determine where we will educate children.

WORKS CITED

Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 127 S. Ct. 2738, 2818 (2007)

...she is fierce

Michael is basically getting the boys every weekend this month.  I assume because he is supposed to get them for an entire month in the summer, but you know, work.  They don't go to daycare/preschool anymore, and we live an hour apart, and it isn't exactly convenient to go out of your way every morning to drop kids off at their mom's house when you have to be at work at, like, 5 a.m.

The why on the removal from preschool:  Gavin is an asshole too frequently for a structured setting, and we cannot afford to pay both the daycare and a nanny, so no one gets to go to preschool anymore.  Yes, I'm a terrible mother for being realistic about my 2 year old's atrocious attitude and calling him an asshole.  But really, there is no other way to describe it.  I have lived terrible twos, and this is far beyond that.  We got called to come pick him up one day because he was on such a rampage he tried to break a TV.

We turned our lives upside down earlier this year and got new jobs, and we have no vacation time, no sick time, no your-child-is-throwing-another-tantrum-and-has-to-be-picked-up time.  We don't work; we don't get paid.  And the audacity of those loan holders and electric companies, they still want their money every month.  So, now I pay someone an outrageous sum of money to come to my house and color and watch movies with my kids every day (I realized the other day that she literally gets paid to do what I do on my days off...).

Anyway, back to my original point before I sauntered off down the rabbit hole that is Gavin's crappy attitude.

Vivian has been having quite a lot of time as an "only child" lately.  It has given me time to really observe her and watch her personality flourish and pay attention to the little nuances of who she is and how she interacts with the world.

We are all smitten with her.  She and Gavin fight just like brothers and sisters are prone to do, but oh how they adore one another.  Silas takes care of her and intervenes when she and Gavin get into it to mediate and bring peace.  I knew Jimmy was going to just be right in the palm of her tiny hand, and he is.  What I did not know was that I would be too.

I had always heard that moms were more drawn to their sons and fathers to their daughters.  I suppose I expected to not be really tight with Vivian until she got older and started wanting to shop and wear make up and what not.  Sort of like how a lot of dads don't really start getting close with their sons until the sons get old enough to do cool stuff.  I could not have been more wrong.  She has just as tight a grip on me as my sons.

There is one noticeable difference though.  I feel more confident in where she is headed as a person.  By that I mean, I worry incessantly about my boys heading off down a wrong path.  I'm afraid they will become teenagers and just lose their minds and I'll be at my wits end and have to send them off to do a scared straight tour and pray that it sticks.

I don't so much worry about that with Vivian.  I think that is because I lived the recipe for what it takes to head down a path to the need for scared straight as a female.  I would be horrified if Vivian was anything like who I was as a teenager.

Last night, I was thinking back to who I was and what I did, and I just wanted to take my 33 year old self back to my 14 year old self and intervene and put me on a better path.  I turned out okay despite my best efforts to be a total train wreck of a human being.  But, that was through the sheer grace of God.  I could very easily have been a high school drop out, teenage mother, strung out on drugs, and wound up murdered by my brutally violent live in boyfriend or raped and overdosed and left in a ditch.  Perhaps you think I'm being dramatic, but I am not.  I put myself in some awful situations growing up.  Just as an example of how it could have been me: my closest friend from the age of 13 was murdered and left in the woods when she was 16 and I was 17.  I was friends with and introduced her to the man who murdered her.

When I should have been spending time with friends and learning about who I was and enjoying my life, I was caught up in chasing boy after boy after boy desperately wanting to be loved.  It was all wrong, and it stemmed from childhood abuse and abandonment and having a father who was too sick to really be a father.  My mom was dust in the wind, and my dad and step mother had absolutely no relationship with any of the people in my life or their parents or me.  My dad did not really care what I did, and my step mother was only interested in controlling stupid things and not really in making sure I was genuinely okay.

Obviously, I do not know what will happen between now and when Vivian reaches that point in her life.  However, I feel pretty confident that (as long as we are still alive), she will have two parents.  Not just that there are two names on her birth certificate and two people contributed to her DNA.  She will have two parents who would never dream of letting her become who I was.  Two people who would intervene and do whatever it took to get her off a path like I was on.  Two people who will pay attention to what is happening in her life.

I think I worry less about her than the boys because she is a girl, and I made every mistake that she could make and know at least the very basics of what she needs to thrive as a person and what to watch for as she develops.  She needs love.  She needs a strong father and a mother who shows up and mothers her when she needs it.  People who are involved and pay attention to her and make sure she is genuinely okay.  I know she has that.  I know that no matter what happens, if we are alive, she will have those things.  Plus she will totally have two older brothers who I imagine will do their part to keep her in line.  And if she ever gets into a relationship with a Jason of her own, I doubt he'll survive long enough to leave bruises on her or slam her into very many lockers.  Gavin would probably have the guy eating through a straw before Jimmy even got wind of it.

I want normal and happy and NORMAL for all of my kids.  I know they all have parents in their lives who love them and care about what happens to them.  (Michael interrogates me about every choice I make for the boys...in the most obnoxiously loving and concerned way he can).  He is consistently concerned for their safety and their education and all the things parents are supposed to be concerned about. And I'm obviously a nut bag who overthinks everything.

So, maybe I won't have to send the boys to scared straight.  I just, you know, have never been a boy.  Despite all the tomboyish things I do.  I don't know what causes boys to wind up on Intervention and First 48 and Dateline and stuff.  I pray the right recipe for success is present in their lives and they grow up into accomplished and happy men.

I just feel a little more at ease with what I see in Vivian.  Her sass and confidence and larger than life personality combined with the love she is surrounded by make me feel like she is going to be okay.