Piyush Jindal was just elected Governor of Louisiana. Educated at Brown University, he is a Rhodes Scholar and the winner of many prestigious awards. When he was elected to Congress he was in his early thirties and may have been one of the youngest people ever elected to Congress.

Do you know who Piyush is? You may know him better as Bobby Jindal.

Ok, strike one..

When Piyush was a youngster-pre-school age-his classmates renamed him Bobby-and the nickname stuck. While we can be grateful on his behalf that the nickname wasn’t derogatory in and of itself, it may reveal the desire that he may have had to be more “American” and his contemporaries desire to-at best, make their lives easier by giving him a common name, or-at worst, consciously or subconsciously showing their biases and bigotry for people of color.

You might think that this arbitrary re-naming is something that has gone the way of the horse and buggy-but you’d be wrong. Just recently a Yahoo group that I peruse spent time and energy discussing a situation where a teacher had requested that a child “Americanize” his name because it was just “too difficult to pronounce.” Yikes!

Even thinking of that makes my blood boil. Who can’t take a few minutes to learn the correct pronunciation of someones name.

Unfortunately, in most of the coverage I have heard or read about Bobby Jindal, the lead is always that he has ‘broken the color barrier’, or that he is a first generation Indian-American who’s parents came to the US from the Punjab region of India.

Strike two!

Bobby Jindal is truly a remarkable man-educated at Brown University, he is a Rhodes Scholar and has won several prestigious awards. When he was elected in Louisiana, he was already quite accomplished. He helped the University of Louisiana expand the number of endowed chairs and his policies were key in increasing the University’s retention and graduation rates. And that is just the beginning.

While his politics are a little (ok, a lot) more conservative than my own, I can’t help but be impressed by his accomplishments-none of which have anything to do with the color of his skin, his heritage, or where his parents were born.

Now, Bobby aka Piyush, may not be upset or offended by his renaming and the focus on his race and background, it would be nice if we could evolve to a place where the focus was on the man and his accomplishments. All of our accomplishments-Bobby Jindal’s included-represent our ‘whole person’ and surely race, ethnicity, heritage form a part of who we are. But it isn’t all that we are.

Like Dumbledore who was a kind, intelligent etc, etc who happened to be gay, shouldn’t we talk about Bobby Jindal in the same way-a young, up-and-coming, newly elected Governor of Louisiana who is of Indian descent?

Wouldn’t you want that for your kids?

So let’s be careful with our own ‘leads’-especially around our kids. By leading with a person physical, racial or ethnic background we send the subtle (or not too subtle) message that these things are the most important factors about a person.

I don’t know about you, but I want my kids judged by her abilities and her soul FIRST. Her heritage is a wonderful part of that, but it isn’t the only part. If we want our kids to be able to live and work with people of all shapes, colors, sizes etc, then we need to model that behavior-every day.

I almost forgot-congratulations Piyush Jindal!

With respect,
Deb

That harmless phrase was the beginning of one of those common school-yard clapping songs-the 21st century version of “Miss Mary Mack”-that my Asian-born daughter came home singing the other day. I didn’t think too much about it until I realized that the song came complete with gestures-one of which involved pulling the sides of the eyes into a long slit (aka Chinese eyes).

I hemmed and hawed about what to do. I felt that this gesture was disrespectful and could lead to other stereotyping and teasing, but since I sometimes go off half-baked I decided to cool my jets for a bit.

The results of yesterday’s poll swayed me. All of the voters indicated that they would take some action-evenly split between intervening immediately if their child was bullied or helping the child deal with the situation and then intervening if the child needed further assistance.

I opted for contacting the school and the teacher. Thankfully, their take on the incident was similar to mine-not appropriate, disrespectful and must end-and the teacher took immediate action in the classroom and the school principal readily acknowledged that the problem was not likely isolated to the third-grade and they would be taking action school-wide.

Later in the day, I got an email from the teacher. She had spoken to some of the kids involved-none of them had really listened to the words or understood the implications of the gestures. Her comment-when do we learn what the words mean?

The answer, I think, is “when we teach them what it means”. My daughter was furious that I went to her teacher-she said she wasn’t upset by the song or the gesture. I had to explain to her that both were disrespectful and inappropriate and that I was standing up for what I felt was right-and the school was supportive.

My daughter learned two valuable lessons-1) The importance of standing up for what you believe-even if it doesn’t effect you directly and 2)why that particular song and gesture were inappropriate. With luck she will begin to evaluate other things with a more critical eye-asking herself and her peers to be more considerate of others and figuring out that is never ok to make fun of the way anyone looks-ever.

These are lessons that need to be taught. They don’t happen automatically. So, if you are parenting on autopilot-as we all do-take a minute and listen to what your kids are singing, what they are saying to their friends and others-and make sure that you like what you hear-or do something about it.

With respect,
Deb

Jenny Bowen got the most amount of votes in the race to carry the Olympic torch in Beijing in 2008.

Of course, the final decision will be made by a committee in China but it is pretty amazing that Jenny and her organization, Half the Sky, have made such an impression. If, in fact, that Jenny and eight kids from the orphanages that Half the Sky supports gets to run, the impact for the kids in orphanages in China will be enormous.

While many people in and around adoption from China continue to fret over the length of the wait for their children and the implications of the new requirements for parents, the Half the Sky Foundation is focused on the children who remain in China’s orphanages. They supply much needed support to the children and the facilities who are waiting for their ‘forever families’ including ‘Granny’s’ to love and hold them, schools, and playgrounds.

Jenny Bowen and her team have done a remarkable job at working with the government in China to take care of the kids in China.

Maybe if Jenny and the kids do run, it will not only raise awareness for the children in China, but for kids in need all over the world.

Whatever happens, my hat’s off to Jenny and the people that have made this happen. I am proud to be a part of it.

With Respect,
Deb

On Monday, people in 33 of our 50 United States celebrated Columbus Day. Of course, this immediately begs the question “what happened to the other 17 states?” Do they know something we don’t? Or is it purely a bureaucratic oversight?

Not knowing the real answer, I started to look into Christopher Columbus’s story. I had grown up singing “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two, thinking that Columbus had, in fact, discovered American.

As it turns out, Columbus ‘discovered’ land that was inhabited by hundreds of thousands of native people that had arrived in what is now the Americas, around 800 BCE via the Bering Strait. Not only that, but Columbus made four trips to the New World,was arrested in his own colony and sent back to Spain in disgrace.

His fourth and final trip brought him within 9 miles of his goal of reaching the Pacific Ocean to get to China and India, but his stubbornness and arrogance caused him to turn around. He didn’t believe the native people knew an overland route to the Pacific.

Columbus was greedy and an incredibly bad leader-his own men and the indigenous people couldn’t stand him. He died broke and forgotten in 1506.

Wow! Who knew? I had always held Columbus in the highest esteem-a hero even. But faced with additional information, I had to revise my position. Columbus, far from being a hero was a failure and by all accounts a miserable guy to be around. Not only did he not find a trade route to the “Indies”, and fail to find the amount of gold he promised Ferdinand and Isabella, he was imprisoned in his own colony and was an all around jerk!

Of course, he was a brilliant sailor and navigator and his contribution to our world is enormous, but at the very least Columbus was a complex dichotomy. Maybe even a bit of an enigma.

With this new information, my bias about Columbus and his endeavors-which up until now were positive-have shifted. I can not just accept the information I was taught as a kid. I must face the fact that there is more to Columbus than meets the eye.

Hmmmm, this sounds familiar doesn’t it. We develop biases based on data that may or may not be accurate and we own them. Ok, we are human. The question is what do we do when faced with additional and/or conflicting information. Do we rigidly hold onto your old beliefs or do you modify based on the new information?

I am suggesting that we teach our children to evaluate their biases and beliefs as new information comes their way. When it comes to the biases that can lead to bullying, rigidity is not something we want to promote.

So, if an when my daughter comes home humming a tune about Columbus, I will tell her the entire story-the good and the bad-and let her make her own judgement about Columbus.

With Respect,
Deb

PS: Max got out within hours of my triumphant announcement that I had fooled him. Back to the drawing board.

Sometimes lessons can come from the most unusual places!

I can sometimes feel a bit like trying to change the course of a river. I look around me and wonder, “am I really making progress”, or “can we really make our future bully-free?”

Yes, there are times that I want to give up and let it be someone elses problem.

But then, something happens.

What happened this time was Max.

Max is our 2 year-old beagle-poodle mix-we call him our designer dog gone bad as Max was in a puppy mill waiting with his head on the chopping block. Max is one determined dog. He likes to roam. I have spent more days and more money trying to keep Max safe and in the yard. Yet Max always finds a way out.

Oh, I can keep him in for a while but eventually he finds another escape hatch and I have to find out where it is and then how to patch it up so that he can’t escape.

You have to hand it to the dog, he just doesn’t give up. There are times when I think he is smarter than I am-or maybe he is just focused on one objective-exploring the neighborhood.

Today, I found his latest path to freedom and spent some time putting up yet another piece of fencing. So far, he appears to be flummoxed, but I know that someday soon he will be visiting his friends on the other side. He just will keep looking and sniffing until he is successful.

This lesson from Max couldn’t have come at a better time for me. It can get tiring and frustrating to carry the bully-free future flag.

But like Max, I am going to keep looking and sniffing-focusing on one child, one school and one community at a time. I know that we can successfully eliminate bias and bullying.

Won’t you join me?

Where do your lessons come from?

With Respect,
Deb

I was watching Larry King interview Suzy Orman. They covered a wide range of topics from the mortgage meltdown, to consumer credit card debt and how to accumulate wealth. Larry King asked Suzy how much money did one have to have to be truly wealthy-able to live their lifestyle without touching the money.

Her answer-$100 million dollars. Yes, that is right. $100 million.

I remember talking with my friend Bob Grossman in the 80’s about his plan to accumulate $1 million and live off of the $80k in interest. Bob did accumulate his million-but doesn’t feel that 80k is enough to meet his needs.

So, where does this leave those of us who haven’t accumulated 1 million let alone $100 million. We used to be called the ‘middle class’-the people squeezed in between the rich and the poor. We used to represent the bulk of the US population. Yet we are an endangered species. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that the next generation of Americans will be the first generation that can’t expect to live better than their parents!

As the middle class is declining in the United States, we are seeing the creation of yet another divide between people. And we can see the consequences of this schism in other countries right now. And it ain’t pretty.

We live in a non-middle class area. For me, I could care less. But my daughter has been asking me lately if we are rich? I say, of course, we have are rich in love and laughter and family-we have food, are healthy and have a roof over our heads. What she really wants to know where we stack up in the wealth area compared to her friends-they kids are talking about money and the lack thereof in the third grade. Her friends have moms that don’t work, that take vacations to Florida at the drop of a hat. Her friends take tennis lesson, horseback riding lessons, piano, violin, and what ever other lessons their parents believe will make them ‘better people. To my daughter these kids have everything.

But, when her friends do come here they have fun and alway wish that their parents spent time with them doing things-raking and jumping in leaves, catching butterflys, baking and other ‘middle class’ activities. Apple picking in the fall, picking berries in the summer, planting a garden, walking our own dogs, shoveling our own walks, putting money in the piggy bank, donating to local charities and helping wherever and how ever we can. We are just like millions of people all over the country. But, if Suzy Orman and the Wall Street Journal are to be believed, then we are an endangered species-our kids will either be rich or poor.

Given those dire predictions,how do we instill the values that made our country great in our children-a respect for money, the value of earning a dollar, saving vs. spending, and respect for people who don’t have as much money as they might.

Money hasn’t always been considered an “ism” like racism, sexism ageism etc, but we are getting to the point where we are going to have to face the reality that our kids are going to have another ‘ism’ to deal with.

Like all other ‘isms’ the time to start helping your kids understand that money-having some or having none doesn’t define the value a person can bring to their lives is right now.

With Respect
Deb

At the Mouth of the Luckiest River is an oldie but a goodie. The book was first published over three decades ago, but is remarkably free of negative Native American stereotypes. The book tells the story of an Athabascan Indian boy and his determination to keep the peace between his tribe and the Eskimos. The young man must confront his tribe’s medicine man-one of the most powerful members of the tribe-to stand up for what he believes is right.

This book may be a bit hard to find, but like many classics is worth the effort.

Have a good weekend.

With respect,
Deb

Please take a minute and vote for Jenny Bowan to carry the Olympic Torch in Beijing. Jenny is the founder of the Half the Sky Foundation which is dedicated to the children in China that are still in orphanages. The program has done some incredible things-increased the number of foster parents, improved orphanage conditions dramatically, provided education and medical care. In short, this organization is performing miracles. We would love to see Jenny represent the orphans of China-usually girls. They are a group that is often forgotten. Please vote for Jenny today-and pass this onto anyone you think might be interested.

Vote here:http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch/members.shtml?mid=212

Good Monday morning and welcome to October. October is a busy month-the Supreme Court begins its sessions today, harvest festivals begin popping up all over the country,kids gear up for Halloween-second only to Christmas in terms of retail sales.
Beijing is choosing their Olympic torch bearer and people all over the world put their own unique spin on the transition from summer to autumn.

We celebrated Asian Mid-Autumn festival last night-albeit a few days late-we ate moon cakes (we liked the winter melon the best), the kids made dumplings and we ate delicious, homemade and authentic Chinese food. Seated at our table were three Shanghai natives, one girl who’s mom is Chinese and her father white, one woman born in Uruguay, a couple of plain old Americans of European ancestry and a girl who joined her family via adoption from China.

It was quite exciting-people speaking in Chinese and Spanish, the kids trying to communicate with the the non-English speaking group, the English-speaking rolling Chinese words around on their tongues, and the non-English speakers doing the same with English. Of course, there was plenty of Spanish thrown in to the mix.

As I was shooed out of my kitchen when the Shanghaiense women took over, I was able to sit back and watch the show. Not once did I hear the kids-or adults-become frustrated by the difficulty in communication. Not once did I hear anything about the ‘unusual food’. The kids-and adults-listened in awe as they were told the story of the Mid-Autumn festival communicated in Chinese, Spanish, English, and pantomime.

Of course, there were some goofs-we forgot to treat the older women with the respect they deserved. We should have seated them at the head of the table-but everyone sat down willy-nilly. But in general, we managed the evening without international incidents.

We were lucky to truly bring authentic experiences to our children. It broadened their horizons and gave them insight into a distinctly different cultural experience.

With more of these kinds of experiences the kids (and their adults) will truly be able to understand and respect culture, choices and ‘abilities’. We are five kids closer to a bully-free future!

I came across this book as I was looking for ways to show my daughter that there were other kids-maybe not exactly like her-dealing with issues that were difficult for them. While I do believe that we are lucky-we are healthy, have a roof over our heads and lots of love-I also believe that we have the right to ruminate on our problems-even if there are others in the world in more dire straigths. I believe that we have the right to think our problems are as important, albeit only to us, as anyone else’s problems.

That’s why I liked this book. The short stories and poems collected in this are arranged in sections that focus on particular problems and crises children may face that isolate them from “normal” peers. Themes include sickness, disability, hospitalization, loss, conflict, developmental change, and loneliness.

The stories are simple, most 2-3 pages followed by a few questions to talk about. Characters featured in the stories represent a range of ethnicities and socio-economic situations.

If you want to help your children either cope with some of these issues-or help them walk in another child’s shoes for a moment, then this is the book for you.

It isn’t rocket science and won’t ‘fix’ problems that kids face, but it is a beginning and you and your child can explore the issues together in ’safety’ because the problems aren’t happening to your child.

So, enjoy this week’s selection.

With respect,
Deb

Did our notion of free speech go out the window when Columbia University President, Lee Bollinger introduced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “a petty and cruel dictator.” Granted, Ahmadinejad did say some flamboyant and controversial things-like questioning the Holocaust’s impact on Palestine and claiming that there are no homosexuals in Iran-which reminds me of an equally ridicules statement by Bill Clinton claiming there were no gays in the military-but that is another story!

At any rate, I am not supporting Ahmadinejad or Iran in any shape or form, but I am questioning the wisdom of Lee Bollinger’s introduction-which if it doesn’t undermine our sense of free speech, it certainly seems like it can be selective use of free speech to me.

And while I don’t condone the Iranian president, I also don’t appreciate Lee Bollinger playing fast and loose with one of the most important tenets of the Bill of Rights.

Here’s why: it is clear that most American don’t like the things that the Iranian President said and don’t like the schemes that they suspect the Iranian people are concocting even as we speak-and that is OK. I am totally concerned with what is going on in the Middle East-and in Asia-and any other place where nuclear weapons are a real threat.

Can we separate what the Iranian government and people are “doing” from who the Iranian people “are”.

We need to be able to separate deeds from the people who are doing them or talking about doing them…..just like we do with our kids. You probably always like your kids-although this might be tested at times, but you probably don’t like the things that theydo. You might not like what George Bush is doing
in his role as President, but unless you know him, you can’t determine if you “like” him.

To put it another way, don’t say “I don’t like George Bush”. Say instead, “I don’t like anything that George Bush is doing in the Middle East.” You have the right to say what you want(remember Freedom of Speech) but you need to be mindful of the consequences especially when it comes to our kids forming points of view on people.

You may be tempted to shrug this off as just semantics-but words can be weapons, too.

Yesterday, we defined bias, prejudice and discrimination. Today, we need to think about the consequences of our biases and prejudices about Iran and its people and the actions that it might lead us to take. More importantly, we need to be mindful of how our children will interpret our thoughts and actions.

Will they assume that all Iranian people are “bad”. Do you want them to make decisions about people based on the actions of one person. How do you square biases and prejudices driven by the Iranian president with the family from Iran that just moved in to the neighborhood.

Equally as important is if you want your children to be judged by the prejudices spewed from the Iranian president. Do you want you new Iranian neighbors to make the assumption that your family-like all Americans-are fatally flawed?

Bias, prejudice and discrimination is a two way street, but we do have the opportunity to evaluate people on a ‘one-off’ basis by they kind of people they are, by the things that they do-and not just by what they say. And I would venture to guess that we want our children judged by their own merit, not by some stereotypical measures that other ascribe to all Americans.

Person by person and community by community, we need to look beyond the rhetoric-we don’t have to agree with, like or respect the rhetoric, but we do need to respect a person’s right to their own views…..and decide if we want them in our circles by how they act on their views.

With respect,
Deb