Last week Ada’s teacher wrote the parents in the class with an “identity project” assignment. The kids were going to make a collage and were asked to bring in various materials that could be cut and glued to paper. This could be photos, print-outs, mementos, cut-outs from magazines, or anything that seemed like it serviced your seven-year-old’s identity.
In preparation, they did an exercise at school where they brainstormed branches of their identity. Ada’s had herself at the center of the paper, with branches that reached out and said things like “PALM TREES,” “POOLS,” “MY BABYSITTER,” and “BUNNIES.” Her view of identity was at once endearing and a little “didn’t-quite-get-the-memo,” but it was what it was, as they say.
I saw my role as enabling her to be able to do the assignment of gathering materials to bring in. We own zero magazines, being a household that doesn’t subscribe to anything in print anymore, so I sent an email to the listserv of our building asking for magazine donations. I left a bin downstairs next to the elevator to collect said magazines. I also asked my parents if they could bring some old catalogs, as they were coming to visit the next day.
Once we had a stash, I tried to gently encourage Ada to look through for images and words that jumped out to her. She shrugged and went back to reading her book, or making bracelets on the Rainbow Loom, or making a stuffed rabbit habitat out of cardboard scraps, as one does. I then left the magazines out in more and more obvious and unavoidable locations, which she continued to ignore.
Eventually, I asked her to get some scissors and we went through the magazines together. I started liberally ripping out pages that had anything that seemed remotely of interest. A cute bunny. A beach. A bike. A pile of books.I also printed some family photos out from my phone to pick up at Walgreens, which meant I then had to go retrieve said photos the next day while Ada flipped through the Amazon Kids holiday toy catalog ripping out all the toys she wanted, a diabolical creation designed to make kids overflow with desire.
By Sunday night after much teeth-pulling, she had a bag full of magazine cut-outs ready to bring in. She looked at the selection of printed photos and deemed half good and half terrible. She packed up her ziplock with the cutouts and the photos and headed off to school to make the 8x11 collage that I may never ever see.
While doing all these enabling things I simultaneously felt guilty and like I was indulging her by partially doing her homework for her, as over-involved millennial parents are want to do. I also remembered the time I had to do a unit on the Shakers in third grade and my mom sewed an entire size-appropriate Shaker outfit for a Ken and Barbie doll complete with petticoats and bonnets and tiny pointy shoes late into the night. I’d gotten plenty of feel-good validation for what i’d turned in.
Yesterday Ada brought home the remnants of this assignment, the remaining cut-outs and photos that didn’t make it onto the collage in a mashed up ziplock bag covered with pretzel crumbs in her backpack. I asked her if she was done with the project and she looked up flippantly from her drawing and nodded yes. I doubt she’ll remember that I helped her, or what’s on the collage, or even making the collage, but I know that what I’m trying to prevent from imprinting is a memory of being the kid who is left out by not having the cut-outs at all. The desire is for it to remain truly inconsequential, for her sake, but also for mine.
Recs for the kids:
Bubble Bath: We’ve reinstated the bubble bath lifestyle and Alaffia’s Coconut Strawberry Bubble Bath smells good and leads to very high volume bubble production!
To visit: We went to the Liberty Science Center last week and it was a big hit for both kids. There’s an impressive suspended indoor climbing structure, giant planetarium, and many floors of interactive exhibits including a sock-skating rink, climbing wall, and water play.
To read: Ada’s reading Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet with Jacob and there’s no book that throws me back to a point in elementary school as intensely as this does. Julian is obsessed with Anno’s Math Games and Anno’s Math Games II by Mitsumasa Anno, which offer beautifully illustrated logic, counting, comparison, sequencing, and measuring activities in the guise of a book.
Recs for the grown-ups:
To Read: The Summer Camp Feeding Frenzy Has Already Begun by Elliot Haspel (The Atlantic). Sums up the chaos, inequity, insanity, etc of planning summer camp for kids in January. So much to say. Feel free to vent about this topic in the comments.
To eat: Went to pastry hot spot La Cabra last week to treat myself after a doctor’s appointment. The croissants are truly top notch, but honestly what I loved the most was just an order of their incredible bread and butter.
To read: Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet was a really good, quick read that felt like a short film. It’s about a man, who, after a bad breakup, walks from New York to Arizona, and buys a house next door to a family, whose house is made of glass. He becomes a voyeur and a friend, trying to figure out who he is in light of his inherited wealth and various traumas. (Liked it much better than The Children’s Bible). Currently reading Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea and Janet Malcom’s posthumously published memoir, Still Pictures.
To watch: Recommending Aftersun again b/c I <3 Paul Mescal and am rooting for him to win the Best Actor Oscar for this performance. We also watched Banshees of Inisherin this week and I thought it was really well-made and the landscape is so beautiful but also didn’t enjoy it that much.
Mid-winter citrus: My brother and SIL got us a box of Friend’s Ranches citrus which came with a mix of six or so varieties of oranges, tangerines, meyer lemons, and avocados. Delicious and uplifting.
See you next week!
I just started Dinosaurs last night! So far, so good. I read Lucy by the Sea last month -- the first Covid-era story that has held my attention. I loved it.
I am a teacher and I rarely assign these types of projects because it just seems like so much work for families. I always wonder if my families bemoan the loss of this type of work - things that require last minute trips to Target, supplies not onhand, etc. because the product can be so satisfying for some.
Thank you always for sharing!