Christmas present

The days of babies and toddlers seem to be long ago & Christmas has transformed into a different holiday now. Sadly, boxes and ribbons aren't as amazing as they once were. It seems I try desperately all year long to teach my Tribe about compassion and empathy, only to be self-consumed by a ridiculous guilt in not being able to give my kids some of the items other kids are getting.

Why?

Isn't that what I say I'm against? And why am I against wanting to belong in the first place? I'd be much more concerned if my kids could care less about the same issues which bothered me when I was their age. In my years as a teacher and a mom, I have heard many adults talking about wanting their children to stay away from certain kids. I've been one of those parents, too. Yet when horrible tragedies take place, and we always seem to hear the same remarks "he was always alone", "he didn't really fit in", then doesn't some of the blame hang on us? There are a lot of kids in this country whose home life is a nightmare. They don't come home to a warm house or laughing, loving parents. For some kids, school is their safety zone because there they experience some semblance of normalcy and consistency. Trying to eradicate kids picking on one another is trying to change human nature- it won't happen.

 I tell my tribe that they don't have to like everyone, but they do have to be kind. I also try to teach my children that it isn't about the price tag or the monetary value, rather it is the meaning behind something that counts. On our many road trips(two of them to Texas), I frequently burst into a song called "El Paso", by Marty Robbins. I don't remember the whole thing, but my kids know the first part of it very well. My daughter was thrilled to pieces to get the (used) Mary Robbins record I bought her at Amoeba Records in San Francisco. Unfortunately, it had "El Paso City" on it, and not "El Paso", but that is where iTunes saved us.

My son couldn't stop giggling about the $6 electric toothbrush I got him, and he also loved the Zippo lighter with his code name "TigerHawk" engraved on it. We recently watched HBO's "Band of Bothers" and he loved that the soldiers had Zippo lighters, so I gave him one. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve together; laughing, singing (to the Gypsy Kings) and dancing like mad to Run DMC. It was a very nontraditional/traditional Christmas celebration, so I suppose, in my own eccentric way, I'm teaching them how to be different enough to still fit it.