Practicing

Children have a way of asking the big questions in a small way.  Off the cuff, in a casual setting, a cute little third grader will drop a bombshell, leaving her mom scrambling.  It all started at piano this morning when we were talking to our teacher.  She said that when her son asked why he had to practice, she told him this:  "Because when you looked down at our family from heaven, you saw that we play musical instruments, and you chose us anyway!  So it was your choice!"

We were joking in the car, then, on the way home, Freestone saying that when I had a miscarriage after Ruby, that was Freestone.  He said he changed his mind that first time and went back because of the practicing.  We were all laughing when I said, "Yeah, and Xanthe said to herself, 'That family practices too much!  I'm going to China!'"  She giggled boisterously.  Then she said cheerfully, "Yeah.  'Cause I already had a family in China.  But they didn't WANT me!"

Oh.  Wow.  I couldn't let that just float into the atmosphere.  Suddenly, instead of talking about practicing, we were talking about how Xanthe's family in China loved her a lot, but couldn't keep her.  Then she said, "Have you heard the story of how boys stay in China and girls don't?  Why do they do that?"

Oh.  Wow again.  I was wishing we were still laughing about Freestone going back to heaven when he found out he was going to have to play the violin in our family.  But instead we were talking about tradition and farming and sons and daughters.  I was wishing that wherever she heard these little snippets, she hadn't heard them.  Nobody is an expert on China, so the less said in front of such young, impressionable children, the better, unless you are their parents and feel like you know what to say.  For me, I don't know what to say.

But at least I have the right.

Raising a Chinese daughter is more complicated than raising a child who looks just like me, for sure.  Sometimes I'm sad when people say something like, "Golda looks just like you!"  or, "Tziporah looks just like the rest of the kids."  But look, that's the reality.  We're certainly not going to pretend Xanthe isn't Asian.  We love that she is!  She is absolutely beautiful!   I look at her slender fingers and her muscled calves and her shiny, dark hair and wonder:  where did those traits come from?  Xanthe is so many layers of gorgeous.

Being an Asian kid in a white community has its humorous moments, too.  The other day, Ruby told me that Xanthe was pulling back the corners of her eyes, slanting them up, then down, chanting, "Chinese!  Japanese!  Chinese!  Japanese!"  Later, when I talked to her about it, it struck me as funny.  I told her that it's rude to say that, and that when kids say things like that, they're not being respectful.  I said, "You might hurt someone's feelings, like...um...Jade or...yourself...."  It was a funny moment.

And speaking of Jade, I just shake my head whenever Xanthe tells me that another person got her mixed up with Jade, the other Chinese-American girl in her class.  They don't look alike!  They are not similar!  They are not the same girl!  It is NOT OK to intimate, through your sheer laziness, that all Asians look alike.  Look into their sweet, caramel faces, into their innocent eyes, and notice.  These are two very different girls.  Yes, they love their Asian-ness.  No, they don't want it pointed out in a negative way.  Yes, they feel it as a deep wound when you casually say, "Oh, I thought you were that other Chinese girl."

Race is such a complicated issue.  To address, and even to not address it, is to blunder, because everyone's feelings are different, deep and intense.  So we take it all in stride and love who we are.  At the same time, we love who other people are, too, and we learn to not fault them for their reactions.  After all, we all chose to come here and experience all this.

Even in spite of the practicing.