Tag: parenting

Merry Month of May

May 31st, 2026

Friday was the May festival at Tamarack Waldorf School. It was a good day for it, sunny and warm. In the past, seeing as we live in Wisconsin, there have been May celebrations at the school when the weather has been rainy, windy, and cold. That sort of thing makes the gatherings less than festive. However, Friday was perfect for getting the kids outside. We all met at Pulaski Park, which is a tiny green space next to Wolski’s Tavern. In Milwaukee, it seems like nearly everything is close to a tavern. It’s a cultural thing, neither good nor bad. It just is.

The Waldorf school makes great efforts to connect class activities with the natural cycle of the seasons. The May festival is the annual observance of spring. The kindergarten students had their assembly in the morning, so that was when Asher was there with his classmates. At the beginning of the festival, everybody, including children, parents, and faculty, gathered in a large circle around a low hill in the park. The children and some of the adults wore colorful headbands, many with flowers. A small maypole stood at the apex of the knoll. One of the kindergarten teachers led everyone in reciting a long verse in praise of spring. The spoken portion of the verse was accompanied by movements to encourage all participants to get their whole bodies involved. The teacher talked about the warmth of the sun, the gentleness of the rain, the beauty of the flowers, and the new life exploding all around us. It was a moving ritual, and it harks back to times when humans were much closer to the earth and its rhythms. There was a vaguely pagan feel to it, but that’s okay. We have forgotten much of what our ancestors knew intuitively, and we have to relearn these things.

After the verse, the kids ran wild. Some went to the playground. Some threw rings around the top of the maypole. Some drew on the ground with chalk. Some blew bubbles. Some ate popcorn. Asher found a jump rope, and for the first time ever, he actually jumped over the rope successfully.

My wife and I mingled with the other caregivers. I have been trying to network with parents from Asher’s class. We want to organize play dates so that Asher and his classmates can keep in contact during the summer break. That is important for Asher, and it also good for us as Asher’s legal guardians and de facto parents. We need a sense of community. The other caregivers are from a generation that is much younger than my wife and me, but we all have the same mission. We are all trying to raise the next cycle of children in a world that is not often friendly or forgiving.

I talked with a father about the future of the little ones in our midst. I told him what I hoped for Asher.

“Asher has a gentle soul. I want him to keep it.”

Just that achieving that much is huge challenge.

My wife and I talked briefly with a young mother. She has three kids in the school. We explained to the woman about Asher and our struggles to care for the boy. Raising Asher is an all-consuming task for us. She listened to us patiently. Then she said,

“He will grow up to be a good human being.”

Asher is only one child in a world with billions of them. There are so many kids on this earth who are suffering. Karin and I can’t save them all. It is all we can do to care of just one of them.

Asher is in the springtime of his life. Now is the time for him to grow and flourish. This is the time for him to become who he is destined to be. If Asher grows up a be a good man in a broken world, that will be enough. Maybe more than enough.

Fat

July 27th, 2025

I try to take my grandson, Asher, to a playground every day. Sometimes the visit is brief. Sometimes we are at the park for an hour or two. The point is that he is a four-year-old boy, and he needs to be outside and active. He needs to be moving.

I read an article about Dr. Oz, the man currently in charge of Medicare and Medicaid. He recently went on a rant about the nation’s obesity epidemic. It is a bit hard for me to take Dr. Oz seriously considering that his boss in the White House is almost as wide as he is tall. However, Oz has a point. Americans are fatter than we were in years past. It’s a fact.

A couple days ago, I took Asher to a local playground near a Salvation Army center. The Salvation Army has ongoing summer youth programs. Asher and I were at the park when a column of kids and their chaperons walked from the center to the playground. There were probably twenty or thirty children coming toward us. They were of various ages, both boys and girls.

In that group I saw that about 25% of kids were overweight, a few of them morbidly obese. That really kind of bothered me. Once the children arrived at the playground, most of them went directly to the swings and the slides and the monkey bars. They started organizing games among themselves. They were loud and rambunctious. They were doing exactly what kids are supposed to do when they are outside. They were in constant motion and generally having a good time.

Most of the heavier kids did not participate in the horseplay. They found a place to sit or lie down. Asher played with a few other children in a big sandbox. They took turns excavating a buried toy. One overweight older boy helped, but he remained prone the entire time. He laid on his belly while digging in the sand with a small shovel. He didn’t even bother to sit up. When he was done playing, it took enormous effort for him to get back up on his feet.

I was a fat kid. In grade school I was chubby, so I know how it is to be an overweight child. My folks took me to the “husky” section for boys’ clothes at the department store. I often felt embarrassed about my weight. I usually was one of the last kids to get picked for a team in gym class. Life sucked. I know how the heavy kids at the playground feel.

Somehow, once I got into middle school and high school, I became more physically active and I “thinned out”. I was actually in good enough shape in my senior year to get accepted into the U.S. Military Academy. Honestly, I don’t know who or what helped me to get in shape, but I did change. Now, I’m old and I could stand to lose five to ten pounds. I probably won’t, but at this point in my life it might not matter so much.

I think obesity does matter for these children. They are going to have serious health problems in the future, if they don’t already. I don’t blame them for their condition. I’ve been there. They need their caregivers to help them get fit. They need adults to help them get moving.

Asher is fit. He’s strong and agile. I am going to help him to stay like that.

Coming Full Circle

May 31st, 2025

We took our grandson, Asher, to the May Festival a couple days ago. The May Festival is an annual event put on by the Tamarack Waldorf School. It celebrates the arrival of spring, which in Wisconsin is well-worth celebrating. We live in a climate where it is not unusual for people to wear hoodies on Memorial Day or even well into June. It has only been within the last week or two that all the trees finally have their leaves. When our world suddenly turns a vibrant green it’s definitely party time.

The festival was held in a tiny park a couple blocks from the school. Tamarack is located on Brady Street on the lower east side of Milwaukee. The school really has no green space of its own, so the park is better place to celebrate the annual resurgence of the natural world. There is a small knoll in the park. That is where everyone gathered in a circle at the beginning of the festival. Karin, Asher, and I got there just as the show was about to start. We found a place in the circle. It was an eclectic group: caregivers, little kids, and a few teachers. The school has a diverse population. It even had that twenty-five years ago when our children attended the school. In a way, it felt like we were back home.

One of the teachers led the entire circle in an a cappella version of a Waldorf song. The tune was accompanied by body movements. The teacher had told all the newbies to watch what the older kindergarteners (“the tall pines”) did and just follow their lead. The song was a hymn of praise to nature and springtime. It might have been a bit overly sentimental, but it struck a chord in each person in the circle.

After the song, the kids dispersed to do other activities. The school had set up a station to give each child a temporary tattoo (the logo for the school). There was also a table to get bags of popcorn. There was a place to blow soap bubbles. Most of the children gravitated to the jungle gym. That’s where Asher went.

I stood on the mound and stared at the other families at the gathering. My mind flipped between the present scene and images from a quarter century ago. There was feeling of disorientation and profound sadness. A lot can happen in a family in twenty-five years, and in our family a lot did happen. A kid went to war. A kid got divorced. A kid did time in prison. Those are just the highlights. My mind flickered between memories of our children when they were innocents and the current group of kids playing and laughing in the park where I was standing. So much was different and so much has been lost. I didn’t know what I was doing when I raised our kids. As I watched the children, I asked myself, “Do I know any better this go around?” I have no idea. Then I caught a glimpse of Asher doing exactly what a four-year-old should be doing. I got my balance back.

Karin and I struck up a conversation with a kindergarten teacher who might become Asher’s guide in the fall. We told her a bit about the old days, when this school was just starting. Karin and I were there at the very beginnings of the organization. We didn’t stay long. I couldn’t deal with the chaos and conflicting interests that accompanied the birth of the school. I was an angry and impatient bastard back then, and I was not at all helpful. We homeschooled for three years and then we came back to school after the dust settled a bit.

The teacher was fascinated by our history lesson. Karin drifted off to talk to other folks that she knew. I told the teacher more stories of the school. She seemed interested and I love an attentive audience. I told her about the time I was a chaperon for our youngest son’s class trip to New Orleans. We went there in 2008, three years after Katrina. That was an adventure, but then I am convinced that any visit to New Orleans qualifies as an adventure. The teacher I spoke with had been to “N’aalins” years ago and she fell in love with the town. So, did I. We agreed that the city has a soul, and it teems with both angels and demons.

Later, I found Karin again. She was talking with a young man who had once been a teacher at the school. I didn’t recognize him at first. His hair was thinner, and his middle was thicker. We talked for a while. He remarked that we were back in the school with Asher, and that we had “come full circle”.

That’s not quite accurate. A person never comes full circle. A person may return to a place or to an organization, but that individual comes back different and returns to something that has also changed and has changed forever. We are coming back to Tamarack, but it isn’t the same school. Oh, the school is still in the same building, and the curriculum is pretty much the same, but in some ways, it is alien to us.

I looked at the new parents at the festival and I saw strangers. They have more tattoos and piercings than my generation ever had. They have different views of what it means to be a family. They have different challenges, and they probably can’t understand our struggles. They are bringing new things to an education model that is already a century old. Their children, like our Asher, are entering a world beyond my comprehension.

At the same time, I can see, or better feel, the similarities between these young people and me. We have the same fears. We have the same hopes. We might all become friends. That is my hope and wish. My wife and I are entering the winter of our lives. The other parents are beginning their summers. All of our little ones are laughing and crying in the early springtime of their generation. We have that in common.