Category: parenting

Motherhood, Work: “On Her Bike”

word by Cora-Lee Conway
colour by Michael Ward
michealward2

I watched the late afternoon sun cast shadows on the structures in my eye’s view. Dark, distorted silhouettes danced on the wall in front of me and I let myself be drawn into the hypnotizing sway and I closed my eyes. You know when you close your eyes and turn your face towards the sun, all the colors you see in the darkness? I closed my eyes for just a second.
  motherhood
I was so tired, physically and then some.  It was hard raising Maggie on my own, it was a constant struggle. Looking for free everywhere: food, clothes, programming… I worked so hard and it never seemed to be enough. I was determined that she would have everything she needed, I was just determined, period. She had just turned six and all she wanted was a bike.
  motherhood
After seven years of working in the increasingly defunct catalog department of Sears I saw children come in with their grandparents to order gifts of all sorts at all costs. Some of the kids were sweet, some were brats and some engaged in full body melt-down tactics of manipulation and subterfuge. So when my pudgy-fingered baby girl asked me for a pink bike for her birthday I was not inclined to refuse. I just didn’t know how I would make it happen.
  motherhood
I managed to get her into some religious charter school on a scholarship and that was no small feat, but then the uniform costs and the regulations about school lunches and books and extra-curricular activities all came fast and furious. I have a high-school education, but a PhD in working the system; I appealed on compassionate grounds for reprieve, looked for more funding and sometimes I just had to say no. Maggie never ever complained, she never made me feel bad; so when this issue of the bike came up I felt compelled, as a mother. I rarely succumbed to the pangs of consumerism but I was completely vulnerable here.
 motherhood
I worked a six am start shift in inventory and then nine to three on cash in order to pick Maggie up from school every day. One of the school’s resource teachers picked her up in the mornings and took her to school. It really takes a village. So after school, like every other day, I was inordinately tired. At the supposed to be tender age of 27 I had developed permanent bags under my eyes, and I hadn’t purchased a pair of shoes for myself in five years. Maggie wanted to ride her new bike after school. I picked her up from school and she had taken off her little short-sleeved button-up and a huge mustard stain graced her brand new tights. She was happy to see me and happier still to see the bike I picked up from home. I was late and all the other kids had long since gone. She peddled up and down, her gap toothed smile and loud giggle echoing in the street. I closed my eyes, heavy with exhaustion and lost myself for a just a second. 

Parents Against Parents

ccekios

Children were quite a test of who you were: They walked around repeating things you said, echoing things said in kitchens, like mobile parrots. You couldn’t blame a seven year old kid for having an opinion on Obamacare, or graffiti, or the government funding one branch of religious schools, because, well, they were seven. Born in ’07. You had to give a seven year old credit: They were seven. Seven. No seven year old actually thought I believe graffiti is immoral like tattoos, or I think to backing one religion while saying you’re mul-ti-culti-raw is so embarrassing! No. Or maybe they did. Maybe they were those seven year olds from Guinness, the Youngest University Student, Youngest and Most Bored Person In This Seminar, I Just Want Some Juice.

Parents were these labels used by adults for anything, really, like those scenes in Hollywood movies where the victim got away by saying I’m a parent- I have a daughter at home, and a dog who doesn’t listen to me unless I growl, or the capital P Parent, plastered on resumes, Member of the Parent Action Committee, Volunteer Organizer at Parents Against Obamacare, Director of Parents Against Parrots, Parents Against Alternative Medicine, Parents Against Medicine, Parents Against Parents, Parent Bar Meeting About Nothing.

I’ll have a pint of Guinness

Coors Light for me

I’ll follow the man with the gray hair and have a Guinness

Coming right up

I think you’re just jealous of my gray foxiness

That’s it

Miss Henderson seems to be quite the fan.

Whatever guys back to the issue: All I’m saying is that, sure, I appreciate that some people can be supported by the Government, but it’s been a hundred years: They’re not exactly some fading group

This coming from a man who drinks Coors Light.

Yeah, you forgot your skirt at home or what?

I’ll have you know that it is delicious and crispy. The point I was trying to make is that how can our government benefit with immigration and everything by saying oh, look at how tolerant we are, but we really prefer the Catholics.

You mean accepting.

You know what, I’ll agree with you, just for the sake of moving on.

You guys know what I’m saying

I think you’re forgetting the French thing: They kind of need it to keep their thing going, don’t you think?

The French: I think it’d save us a hell of a lot of tax payer dollars if we just let everyone do what they want

I guess that’s a good point, but why couldn’t they do it in a public system? How can you say we’re not going to think non-catholic means not-normal when there’s a fucking cross on the front lawn? Is that tolerance?

You mean acceptance. And I think that religion is part of culture, and so taking the Catholic away from French would be like, uh, taking you away from your water.

HA

Let’s say this whole culture idea is good, that trying to create this one idea of what a normal person is in our province is like a necessary thing in order to sell the province to companies, it still assumes that the other traditions are foreign, because they’re not Catholic, or from here, although they are now from here

Someone get me a pistol and a bag of chips

Today, in class, we’ll be talking about languages: Does anyone remember about languages? Yes, Kathy?

English is a language.

Yes, it is. Does anybody know the names of some different languages?

French

Thank you, Brian, but please put up your hand next time.

They’re stupid

ahahhahahaha

oh man

ha

you‘re stupid!

Brian: That was not a nice thing to say, please apologize to the class.

I’m so sorry

Nobody is stupid: We’re all the same, it doesn’t matter what language you speak. Does anybody know the names of any other languages?

the French are so stupid cause they took my mom’s job

whatever bry your dad drinks coolers light!

to be continued this Friday

colour by ccekios

words by L. L. 

read more info on the current school debate in Ontario