With that kind of responsibility, I needed to make sure the character-building blocks I relied on to help me raise them were available to me at a moment’s notice. So early on I made up my own aspirational acronym, I AM CHHIPPER (yes, there’s an extra H) to fill in as my reminder when I started going in the wrong direction:
I—Intuition: Every parent has to learn to trust that little voice whispering about what needs to happen next. Oftentimes, that little voice springs from the words in your head from years ago. So take heed.
A—Awareness: Most times, to be fully aware simply means listening, first and foremost. And it isn’t just when they are talking to you, but also when they are talking to friends on the phone or to other children or adults in situations like church or at a practice, performance, or games. It also means watching for changing wardrobes, attitudes, and even friends. Heightening your senses to become aware of changes in your kids’ attitudes or habits, no matter how subtle, is critical in keeping up with what was going on in their lives.
M—Motivation: Motivation is essential for meeting changing needs and fulfilling dreams. There is a lot of friction that can make achieving a goal feel impossible. But I lived by and instilled in my own children the words of Roy T. Bennett: “Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more you can imagine.” Teaching your children to focus on big goals and work hard to achieve them is a way of showing them that it is always possible to change their circumstances.
C—Culture: Believe in multiculturalism. With so many distractions in their world, it is important that they familiarize and hinge themselves to traditions and customs bigger than themselves or what they see and hear around them every day. It is important to help build an armor against hate if this nation is, in fact, to become a more perfect union.
H—Humility: Being humble and grateful for what they have is one of the most important values to instill in our children. Learning to appreciate what they have and the people who remembered or helped them in any way is essential to raising well-rounded adults. That’s why writing thank-you notes the day after Christmas or birthdays, for example, was so important in our family. By infusing humility as a family value, my hope was that it would become an ingrained value in their own lives, no matter what their level of achievement.
H—Humor: The ability to laugh at situations you find yourself in as part of a single-parent family is essential to keeping your sanity and your family functioning in tense moments. Multiple jobs in families can sometimes be a source of frustration, but joking about it can sometimes make it easier to understand why they are necessary. Humor can help you get to the heart of what matters. That’s why I shoved an extra H in CHHIPPER—to make sure I never forgot humor’s role in family dynamics.
I—Imagination: Lewis Carroll wrote, “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” In the world of single-parent families, sometimes reality can be very cruel. Reality can be limiting. Reality can separate a single mom from her child for hours at a time—and sometimes during important events in that child’s life. But with imagination we can sometimes bridge that gap through technology. With imagination we can make limited dollars stretch for meals until payday. With imagination and creativity, we can make holiday and birthday gifts as meaningful with only a few dollars as with many. With imagination we can make a way out of no way.
P—Patience: A teaching of Buddha says, “The greatest prayer is patience.” Patience is one of the hardest skills to master because you first have to have patience with yourself and all your shortcomings before you can become patient with your kids. The key is understanding that anything to be accomplished has to happen on their timetable, not necessarily yours. Patience opens the door to the presence that’s needed to be fully there for your kids when they need you the most.
P—Persistence: Putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, is sometimes grueling. But you have to keep moving forward, for yourself—professionally and socially—and for your kids. And it isn’t all about teaching a work ethic, although modeling one is critical. Just as important is demonstrating resilience and goal setting. For me, probably one of the most comical examples was my trying to climb up the Dunns River waterfall in Jamaica during a family reunion. As the waters crashed mercilessly against my body, pushing and pulling me down on the slippery rocks, I wanted to quit midway. But I knew my kids were watching so their eyes provided me the lift and motivation I needed to reach the top. It was inch by inch, but I was victorious.
E—Expectations: Expectations can sometimes be a two-edged sword. Most parents have high expectations for their kids. But your expectations have to be tempered so that the individual expectations of your children can surface as well. All you should ask is that they do the best they can do. Our job is to provide the environment for them to develop to their fullest potential and thrive. I reinforced that notion with a Martin Luther King Jr. poster I hung on the wall outside their rooms: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” Regardless of what I hoped my children would accomplish, I made it clear that I expected them to put their hearts, souls, and goodness toward their goals.
R—Respect: Building respect should be a two-pronged process. For me, insisting that my kids respect their elders, each other, and themselves was obvious. But as important was that the kids knew I respected them—no matter how challenging that was at times—because that signaled to them that I cared, unconditionally. To borrow liberally and make a quote from Theodore Roosevelt my own, “Kids need to know that you care before they care what you think.”
I AM CHHIPPER has become my partner in parenting. Remembering these values helped me achieve clarity and consistency in parenting. I AM CHHIPPER became my North Star, my compass that helped me become the parent I needed to be for my children. Write down your values and create your own acronym. Mine has kept me centered, focused, and present. Creating your own can hopefully do the same for you.
The Lock Box
Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
—George MacDonald
You never know what you’re good at until you try something for the first time. Nothing teaches us this lesson like motherhood. I never knew I was as hilarious as Eddie Murphy until six-month-old Nikki belly-laughed at the sound of my raspberries on her tummy. I also didn’t know I had the diplomacy skills that equaled Eleanor Roosevelt’s until I had to negotiate the use of the television between Wes and Shani. I became a pancake chef after a lifetime spent avoiding the kitchen, a seamstress when a hem fell right before the fall concert, and an insightful therapist à la Dr. Phil when boys became all the rage. There were also plenty of times I just kept my mouth shut, my head low, and maybe let a shoelace go untied, especially when I knew it was time for my children to start relying on their own devices.
As I matured as a single mom and found myself evolving into a jack-of-all-trades for my children, I seemed to find a decent balance between meddling and laying low. I think this came from the belief that above all things, our family must communicate, and part of that communication relied on reading each other’s cues. Some times were times for sharing and others were times for glaring. More often than not communication came in the forms of gripes, whining, and telling each other to butt out. But it was still a line of communication that remained open, even if we didn’t like what the other had to say. Keep talking, even when it’s hard, became an even more critical value after Wes died. I knew I couldn’t be there in all ways for them, and that no amount of talking was going to release my children, especially Nikki, who was nine when he died, from the grief that comes with the sudden loss of a parent. But I was desperate to keep us a unit, despite our five-unit being cut to four.
&nb
sp; This “you can talk to me” mentality is easier said than done. I was no Clair Huxtable. There were so many moments of slammed doors, back talk, threats to pull the car over or to tear up homework, it was hard to believe I could still glue us together. As the kids grew, it became imperative that I figure out ways to foster, nourish, and maintain a relationship with each child—and each child with the others. How could I ensure that my voice in their ear would not be drowned out by the distractions and temptations that would invade their world? Being a single parent, I feared, could make our unit vulnerable. I wouldn’t let that happen, not on my watch.
As the kids grew older their lives became more independent of one another’s, especially during the summer. With Wes returning to Valley Forge early for leadership training, Nikki spending much of the season at Stagedoor Manor, and Shani engaged in gymnastics or summer law camp, it wasn’t enough for me to simply tell the kids to keep me in the loop on what was going on in their lives and in their hearts and heads. I needed them to trust me and to trust I wouldn’t judge them. I needed to show them that I had their backs, and that they could have mine. Would I promise not to get mad? No way in the world! But they would understand that the only way around their feelings is through them, and to be accountable for their mistakes—things I had to learn myself when navigating my own challenges, as a kid and as an adult. I innately felt that if I could keep them talking to me, keeping that core value of communication front and center, we as a family would always be akin to a beautiful braid—individual sections neatly and securely intertwined.
While parenting “experts,” psychologists, educators, and researchers agree that the secret to children’s success is to help them be unafraid to talk to their parents, that communication comes with responsibility. It was my mother who demonstrated this truth to me, and in turn showed me the art of trust and its infinite rewards.
The date was November 9, 1965. I was in tenth grade, and two months into the most liberating experience of my fifteen-year-old life. I had begun my first year at the High School of Music and Art, whose graduates included legendary musicians like Peter Yarrow, artists, dancers, lyricists like Carole Bayer Sager, future producers like Steven Bochco, and actors like Billy Dee Williams, Ben Vereen, and Diahann Carroll. By then we lived in the East Bronx so each morning I would walk three-quarters of a mile to the subway, take the #2 train and ride forty minutes to 135th Street in Manhattan, and walk up the winding stone steps of Morningside Park to the beautiful gothic stone edifice at the top, built in the 1920s, which everyone affectionately called “the Castle on the Hill.” I was feeling very grown-up and very full of myself for actually being accepted into what would in the future be called “the Fame School,” the inspiration for the early-1980s television series Fame.
On the second week of my trek back to the Bronx, I decided to exercise my new freedom without letting my parents know. Rather than heading straight home after school, which would have gotten me home around four thirty, I got off the train one stop early at Allerton Avenue to hang out at the apartment of my best friend, Beverly Henry. She went to high school in the Bronx so when I started going into Manhattan, I missed her very much—until we realized that with both her parents working, she had the run of the place until six thirty or so. I told my parents that we had practice sessions at school and various rehearsals after class so they didn’t question the late arrival time. This gave me the space to hang out with Beverly. Our plan worked out great for a good two months, until the Great Northeast Blackout.
It was a little after 5 PM, and Beverly and I had just finished eating some Jamaican beef patties I had picked up for us on the way to her house. At first the lights flickered and the TV sputtered; then came a pop, then nothing. We tried all the light switches. Nothing. After fifteen minutes passed and dusk was beginning to descend on the projects where she lived, we looked out the living room window and saw people congregating on the street. Beverly found a station on her battery-powered radio through which the disc jockey was frantically describing a massive blackout stretching from Canada all the way to New Jersey.
I immediately thought of my mom and knew she would be frantic. How was I going to get home without exposing my lie, and the way I had been lying for months? The best way, Beverly and I concluded, was to act as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary. I had been getting home by six forty-five since I started my little scheme so I waited until five thirty. I was so confident that Beverly and I had this situation completely under control that I convinced myself that my mother probably wasn’t even worried yet. I realized how absurd that was as soon as I called her and heard her voice.
“Where are you?” she asked in a voice thickened by her fear.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m at a phone booth at Third Avenue.”
This was the major subway stop between Manhattan and the Bronx, the halfway point on my way home. “The train got as far as here so one of my friends called her father and he’s coming to pick us up. Don’t worry. See you soon.”
I quickly hung up before she could ask any more questions.
Keep in mind that this was before Caller ID and cell phones. My mom had no way of knowing where I was calling from or how to get back in touch with me. I hung out at Beverly’s house for forty-five minutes longer and then walked the usual route home. There was a full moon that night and lots of people on the streets so I don’t remember feeling anxious at all. In fact, it seemed like a delightful, though eerie adventure. That is, until I walked in the door and saw my mom alone at the dining room table with candlelight highlighting the redness in her wet eyes.
“Where were you?”
“I told you I was getting a ride home,” I said dismissively with mock confidence. I thought my mother would be so happy to see me that pesky little specifics wouldn’t matter to her.
“After you called I asked our neighbor, Mr. Bonner, to drive me to Third Avenue to find you. You weren’t there,” she said. “Who gave you a ride? Where do they live? Let me have a number so I can thank them.”
I guess if I had been a better liar I would have said I didn’t get a phone number or asked her how she’d expected to find me without knowing exactly what corner I was standing on. Instead I pictured Mr. Bonner and Mom driving up and down the streets, with no stoplights, in and around Third Avenue, with her getting more and more upset, and then back home thinking someone had snatched me into a dark place. I thought about her anxiety trying to explain to my dad, who was out of the country on business, that something had happened to me. I couldn’t have felt worse at that moment.
Obviously I was busted. It all came tumbling out. Through my tears I told her about my afternoon stops at Beverly’s and how sorry I was for worrying her. Instead of yelling at me and giving me my punishment on the spot, she said softly, “I knew where your brothers were and that they were safe, but not you. I had no idea where my daughter was in a dark city of eight million people.”
My brothers. I had forgotten how they would take this until that moment.
“Please don’t tell them, Mom, especially Ralph.”
Being thirteen months my elder, my brother Ralph had a way of lording my indiscretions over me. I felt terrible about the worry I had caused my mom and I didn’t want to go through the humiliation of him telling me how dumb my excuses had been. If she told Ralph, I’d never hear the end of this.
“No, it’s between us.” After that my mom didn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening. The hurt that I saw in her eyes was its own punishment.
A monthlong grounding did eventually come. But the two big lessons I learned were much more enduring. First, if I ever thought I could outsmart my parents, forget it. But second, despite the heartache I had caused that night, I knew that what had happened between us was locked away in a box. I took my punishment without complaint, trusting that my brothers would never know what I’d done. That confidence in her word made me beholden to my mom, who was watching me much more closely after that, as she had every righ
t to. The fact that she never told them what I had done, and never opened me up to their unrelenting ridicule, made me so grateful to her that I did straighten up and never (rarely is closer to the truth) lied to her about my whereabouts again.
As a mom, I decided to remain conscious of opportunities when I could emulate my mother’s grace. I told my children that if they confessed something to me I would keep it in a place where no one, not their brother or sister or anyone else, could enter without their permission. This was the place my children affectionately called the Lock Box.
Most of the secrets I kept were on the scale of school crushes or greatest ambitions, or the clever little thing one wanted to give the other for an upcoming birthday. However small that bit of information might seem to me, it burned bright within that child. Having a place to release what was important to them and knowing it would stay secret meant that, at least within the four walls of our house, trust lived.
And it didn’t hurt that while keeping our communication value alive in the house I simultaneously kept tabs on their friends, their feelings, and their foes. I was in the know!
I don’t think kids need to be shamed into doing the right thing. I’ve never seen any empirical evidence that having to wear a scarlet letter did any good! By turning a secret embarrassing moment into a teaching tool, we can seize opportunities to connect more with our children, become closer, and deepen existing bonds.
My mom didn’t give my siblings the chance to call me a liar and a sneak, or worse, play that against me in favor of my siblings. If I had had to endure years of taunts about that deception, might it have pushed me further into defiance and more poor choices? If I was seen as the bad girl, would I become one, like a self-fulfilling prophecy? My mother had trusted the good in me and focused her energies on that, just as I decided to do with my kids.
The Power of Presence Page 25