Just before church began Sunday, I checked the morning’s headlines on my phone.
News flash: Sen. Kamala Harris was endorsing Joe Biden for president.
My husband looked at me disapprovingly.
“You’re really addicted,” he whispered tersely.
Dutifully chagrined, I made a promise that I would try to disengage more, but you must admit this week’s headlines have been like catnip between Biden’s surge, a stock market in free-fall and the new coronavirus declared a pandemic.
Even so, at midweek I found myself singing “Jingle Bells” while ambling down my neighborhood street.
The occasion was my 3-year-old grandson, Lucas, who was pretending to be a farmer, which necessitated looking for animals while we were out exploring.
We set out along South Buckeye discussing the appropriate animals while having even more fun crossing off the inappropriate ones such as dinosaurs, wolves, giraffes, and the like.
The longer we walked, it seemed the less distance we covered as calculated by our fpm (feet per minute.) That’s because we found multiple sticks and mud puddles; we did the hokey-pokey; we watched a “big boy” play basketball behind the Methodist Church, we dissected worms, and we just sat on the sidewalk, basking in the warm sun while talking about whatever came into his fertile mind.
In all, it took us 90 minutes to walk a dozen blocks — by far the most productive time of my week. I had left my phone behind on purpose, knowing the temptation during those “slow” times would have been to glance at it. Instead, I fell into the depths of Lucas’s dark brown eyes. I mentally traced his little body as he leaned precariously over the edge of the sidewalk as he fished leaves out of the gutter, and I reveled in his pure joy of singing “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer’’ at the top of his lungs. I can’t remember the last time I belted out a song.
One of the coolest things about Lucas is that Spanish is his native language and he can revert between that and English at a moment’s notice. Because his understanding of Spanish has already exceeded mine, Lucas is now my teacher, and I frequently ask him the translation of things in my effort to better learn the language. My only advantage — so far — is that I can read him stories in Spanish and so I still have a useful role in his life.
COLUMNIST David Brooks writes in this month’s Atlantic that the nuclear family as a stand-alone unit is far from ideal. And unrealistic.
Most families today need two incomes. Besides, women (note that supposition) like to work outside of the home.
But without a built-in network that comes with extended families or a communal society of some sort, a sudden illness or job loss takes a big toll. Even physically, we’ve positioned ourselves farther apart with spacious suburbs and over-built houses that serve more as barriers than welcoming abodes.
At the other extreme, poverty takes an even greater toll on the nuclear family model, leaving children, especially, without a strong support system.
