Author: Sheila Quirke

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Erie, Illinois: Not Up to Parr

Award winning children’s author Todd Parr had a book banned by the school district in the small town of Erie, Illinois this spring.

Parr Books

Yeah, that Todd Parr.  He is such a badass.  Always writing about love and acceptance and puppies and things like that.  Total thug.

Parr’s offending book, The Family Book, was banned because of a single page with the text, “Some families have two moms or two dads,” accompanied by his signature stylized drawings of two moms and two dads.  A perfectly factual statement that drew the ire and fear of small town America.  This begs the question, How does this even happen?

Based on local news accounts, it appears that The Family Book was used as part of a larger curriculum approved by the Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to teach about diversity and tolerance in elementary schools.  Seems that some Erie parents took offense to the single page in the book about a family structure sometimes involving two moms or two dads.  These parents brought their concerns to the local school board that, like every fine tuned bureaucracy under the sun, created a panel to review the materials being presented to the elementary aged kids (grades K-4 in Erie).

Offending Page

Interestingly, the panel voted in favor of the book and the curriculum as is.  They found the book appropriate for elementary age children and embraced the mission of educating children about tolerance and diversity.   Well, the parents of Erie would have none of that.  At least a loud and vocal portion of the parents of Erie would have none of that.  When the panel’s recommendations were presented to the school board, to appease the homophobic masses (75-100 in attendance at the meeting) of Erie, the board did the cowardly thing of not only banning the book, but also of limiting the use of the GLSEN curriculum to grades 5-12.

What this means is that as of school year 2012-2013, integrated lessons about bullying, diversity, and tolerance will only be provided to older students.  Those youngsters in K-4 can fend for themselves, yo.  Or, you know, receive that type of important life lesson at home.  From a parent who clearly fears diversity and tolerance.  Ugh.  Brad Cox (Oh the irony — I would make a joke, but that would be mean), Erie School District Superintendant, on interviews on CNN and local news stations simply reiterated the company line — the content about diverse families was not appropriate for elementary age children.  This despite HIS OWN APPOINTED PANEL stating the opposite.

On the one hand, this story is heartbreaking.  Hate is a learned concept and clearly the adults in authority of Erie, Illinois are, if not promoting hate, certainly promoting fear and disdain.  If something or someone is “different,” the message sent by this action is that difference is unacceptable.  It is to be shunned, rejected, avoided, put back into the proverbial closet.  A resident of Erie, a young woman in her 20s, was interviewed by KWQC out of the Quad Cities on a piece that aired last week.  “By the time we got to middle school and high school, it was too late.  People were already being made fun of because they were “different.”  Different, of course, is code for gay.  This makes me angry.

On the other hand, what good does anger do?  Might more progress be made if this backwards, regressive, prejudicial thinking could be better understood?  Brought out into the light and honest conversation be had about how and why these parents and this school board believe their children would be better served by marginalizing gay and lesbian families?  What do we know about Erie, anyway?  Well, let’s see:

Per the town’s official webiste, here is Erie, Illinois (italic snark is mine):

  • Erie is looking for commercial and industrial growth.  Good luck with that.
  • Winner of the Governor’s Home Town Award in 1999.  No great honor, considering Governor Ryan went on to be a felon.
  • “We have many fine churches of varied denominations.”  My guess is this means Methodist and Baptist.
  • “We take pride in our most important resource, our citizens. Volunteers from all walks of life strive to make Erie the best it can be.”  But not two moms or two dads.  Or probably Jews or Muslims.  Let’s not even get into two Jewish moms or two Muslim dads and a Jewish mom and Muslin dad creates friction all around this great big globe of ours, so we can’t pin that on Erie. 
  • As of the census of 2000, there were 1,589 people, 630 households, and 466 families residing in the village
  • The racial makeup of the village was 98.80% White, 0.25% African American, 0.13% Native American, 0.38% from other races, and 0.44% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.88% of the population.
  • There were 630 households out of which 33.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.4% were married couples living together, 8.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.0% were non-families.  If anyone can tell me what a “non-family” is, you will be the happy winner, winner of a chicken dinner, and it is not singles, because they have that stat accounted for (23.7%).
  • The median income for a household in the village was $41,806, and the median income for a family was $46,435. Males had a median income of $35,000 versus $21,447 for females. The per capita income for the village was $18,775. About 4.7% of families and 5.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.3% of those under age 18 and 3.8% of those age 65 or over.

Maphoto

It would be easy to make this into a ‘small towns suck’ litany, but I happen to be a fan of small towns.  My Mom and Dad, lifelong Chicagoans, born and raised, retired to a minute town, Apple River, Illinois, population 366 (2010 census).  The reality is that small towns do not have the diversity that large towns or cities have.  They are lacking culture and art and exposure to different ways of life.   But that doesn’t make them bad places.  They have, often, lovely networks of neighbors and community initiatives that put cities to shame.  Random gun violence is at a minimum in most small towns.  Traffic is non existant.  Fresh air and hospitality are often in equal abundance.  Small towns are fine and dandy — it is small minds that suck.

But no place, large or small, population 300 or 300,000 or 3,000,000 is immune from stupidity or ignorance or problems.  I can practically guarantee you right now that there is a child in Erie, Illinois who is gay or lesbian, and afraid.  And that 26% of “non-families” listed on the Erie, Illinois website?  Yeah, you can be pretty certain that within that non-family statistic are at least one or two of the families that Todd Parr was speaking of, with two moms or two dads.

The Erie, Illinois school district can ban all the books they wish to, they can rely on families to teach their little ones about the mysterious and different ways of the world, but in the end, the truth is the truth — some families have two moms or two dads.  Just like Todd Parr said.

Full Disclosure Time:  I happen to be a big fan of Todd Parr.  In 2007 I wrote to him to ask for his help decorating Donna’s stem cell transplant room, e.g., a poster or something, as I REFUSED to look at Dora or some other licensed character staring at me from the walls for a month as Donna recovered.  Todd sent along the nicest note, a few signed books, and a DVD that both Donna and Mary Tyler Son have enjoyed.  We met him in summer 2009 and Donna blushed.  Yeah, total badass thug, that Todd Parr. 

Signed Books

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RIP Children’s Memorial Hospital, 1882-2012

On Saturday, June 9, 2012, Children’s Memorial Hospital will cease to exist.  The end.  No more.

In its place will be the bright and shiny, state-of-the-art Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.  This is not a bad thing, and in fact, is a great thing that will benefit the children of Chicago and Illinois in countless ways.  And yet, I can’t deny the sadness this brings me.  With ‘Donna’s hospital’ closing, we lose yet another link to our girl.  Indulge me as I say goodbye before I say hello.

Diagnosed at 20 months old and in treatment for the remaining 31 months of her life, Children’s Memorial became a second home to Donna.  Within those walls we heard the catastrophic words, “there is a mass in your daughter’s head.”  Within those walls we cheered as our girl learned to walk a second and third time.  Within those walls we learned how to choose hope, in desperate and dire times.  Within those walls Donna laughed and played and cried and vomited and awoke from sedation more times than I can count, always asking for pancakes and milk.  She slept and woke, ate and drank, struggled and thrived.  She would shyly smile at her doctors and nurses, she would slowly charm her art and music therapists, she would walk lap after lap around 4 West/Oncology, pushing her shopping cart, Mary Tyler Dad and I pushing her IV pole, trying to keep up.

Blessedly, Donna almost always enjoyed her time at Children’s Memorial.  It could be three in the morning, a neutrapenic fever raging inside her, and we would pull under the canopy off of Fullerton Avenue, and Donna would greet the helping hand logo with her own helping hand, stretched high in salute.  What a dear she was.

She made the rounds, you see, spending time on the neurosurgery floor after each of four tumor resections (3W fishbowl, anyone?), inpatient chemo rounds and stem cell transplant on 4,  clinic and Day Hospital for outpatient chemo, ER visits (blessedly always expedited for cancer kids) on 1, procedure suite and recovery and MRI scans on 2, the first alarmingly terrifying days in the PICU after diagnosis, and day after day at the aphaeresis unit, trying to extract the elusive healthy stem cells untouched by her chemo.  Yes, we all made the rounds.

In trying to understand why change — positive change — would make me so sad, I think it is this:  Donna was very alive at Children’s Memorial.  The closing of this structure is another loss, another connection to Donna gone, poof, gone.  Ultimately, of course, the structure is bricks and mortar, I know this, I understand this, but these particular bricks and this particular mortar hold a lifetime of memories for me.  My daughter’s lifetime, to be specific.

And Donna, unfortunately, is not unique.  She is one of not hundreds, but thousands of children that have lived and died within the walls of Children’s Memorial Hospital.  The current building was built in 1960.  It is decidedly past its prime, but at some point, it, too, was state-of-the-art.  And almost certainly, there was a grieving mom somewhere mourning the loss of the buildings that had to be razed for pediatric progress to occur in the late 1950s.  That is life and that is change and that is progress.  Oh, but all that sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?

For me, the land at the crossroads of Fullerton and Lincoln Avenues is sacred ground.  Countless children over one hundred years have died in that space.  Just as sacred are the thousands upon thousands of children whose lives were saved in that space, which is legally nothing more than an address.  The children who died there are not buried there.  There are no laws or regulations limiting the development that will follow, such as would surely be the case for a cemetery.  Calling me a bleeding heart would be accurate.  My heart hurts when I think about that ground, the lives lost and saved, the tears spilled, both of joy and of sorrow.

In the midst of all the celebration, justified as it is, I want to take a moment and think of those children that were treated at Children’s Memorial Hospital over the past century.  I want to remember the parents that stood helplessly by as their child was passed to the hands of the doctors and nurses that could or could not save them.  I want to honor the lives that were lost and the lives that were saved within those walls and on that ground.  For just a moment, I want progress and change to stop, so that we can pay homage to what came before.

So, yes, bricks and mortar, and memories that do not exist within the walls, but within the hearts and minds of doctors and nurses and janitors and moms and dads and security guards and surgeons and clerks and brothers and sisters and patients, so many patients, and all those who walked the hard tiled floors, breathing, hoping, bargaining, praying, pleading, wailing, cheering, despairing.

Before we celebrate the inevitable progress and successes and losses that will come to Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, let us remember and honor what was.  Bricks and mortar, but so much more.  So very much more to so many.  Sacred ground, at the intersection of Lincoln and Fullerton, amidst the bars and the condos and the college kids.

Sacred ground.

CMH Lobby

CMH Front Hall

CMH 4W

CMH Clinic

CMH Exam Room

CMH Vitals Room

CMH Purple Elevators

All photos courtesy of Lisa Watters.

You can hang with me on Facebook, or you can learn about my charity, Donna’s Good Things, or get a daily dose of Good News.  Mary Tyler Mom is one stop shopping.

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Slogging Through the Sludge of Life

Saturday I did my annual planting.  We live in a condo with a postage stamp sized front yard and lots of hosta.  No fuss, no muss.  Hosta fulfills my housewife mantra:  minimum imput, maximum output.  Hosta shows that you care, but you don’t want to spend a lot of time caring, except it looks like you care a lot.  Perfect.

So while I don’t really have to worry about the yard, I do have to actually think about my planters.  I have sixteen feet of containers to fill along my deck. The deck is right outside our dining room, so it features prominently in our home.  There is nothing more depressing than empty planters in July.  That’s not true.  Empty planters with last year’s dead plants would be worse.

So every year I plant.

Here’s the breakdown:  I like to shop for plants.  I like to design where they will go, and yes, what the theme of the planting season will be:  botanical, traditional, grassy.  Yes, I have planting themes.  Shut up.  I like to water them right after planting.  Job well done, and all.  I don’t like to do the actual planting.  It’s a little like torture.  More accurately, it’s like work.  Ugh.  I work enough, right?  Do I really want to make more work for myself?  NO.  Work defies that already stated housewife mantra:  minimum imput, maximum output.

This year was no exception.  The family went together to the nursery.  Mary Tyler Son behaved beautifully, fascinated by the sensitive plant.  Little Scientist in the making, that one.  We were back home by ten and unloaded the plants and soil.  Mary Tyler Dad took the little one to the park to give me some time to plant.  Hooray!  Yeah, not so much.

All those plants and soil and empty planters overwhelmed me.  I puttered a little, but within minutes I was sitting inside watching The Real World San Diego.  Ugh.  Insufferable, self-righteous, ignorant youth were somehow more palatable than planting.

I gave it another shot after one episode.  I brought music with me this time. It annoyed the neighbors two floors up, which thrilled me, as those neighbors are really annoying.  This time I had more fun dancing than planting.  I mean, how can you not have the moves like Jagger when you’re holding a trowel? And all apologies to the new next door neighbors whose dining room looks onto our deck.  My only hope is that when you look upon the lovely plants you aren’t scarred by the memory of me getting my groove on in a really unfortunate way.

I retreated back inside for more Real World, as my real world was too much for me in that instant.  It struck me that planting reminds me of the changing of the seasons, the passing of time.  This is three plantings since Donna died.  Seasons are how I often mark how long it has been since Donna left us.

Something about planting those plants was making me want to hide under the blankets, drowning my sorrow in Coke and chocolate.  A task that should have taken two hours ended up taking nine.  Nine hours to plant six containers.  Pathetic.

This is life in grief.  Not every day, but on some days, every single thing I do is work.  Showering = work.  Dressing = work.  Deciding what to eat for lunch = work.  Going to the bathroom = work.  Changing into pajamas = work.  It is so much easier to watch others struggle with their lives rather than struggle with my own.  The Real World and Real Housewives franchises were made for grieving mothers.

But what kind of life is that?

Not a good one.  Not a pleasant one.  Not a joyful one.

So I got my a$$ in line and planted those plants.  Mary Tyler Dad is patient with me.  He gives me the time and space I need.  The cost benefit ratio is an easy one.  Nine hours of slogging misery against four full months of light and life.  I look out my bedroom window and see life and growth.  I walk through the dining room and see color and hope.  Ugh.  I wish it weren’t so damn hard to get there, but it is.

Part of why I do what I do, plant those plants, and make those efforts is because of Mary Tyler Son.  He deserves no less than Donna.  He is no less worthy of a mom who does whatever she can to bring wonder and joy into his life.  He is a powerful motivator, my little one.  I refuse to let him grow up with an absent, depressed mother.  Some days I need more time to get it together, but I do get it together.

Grief sucks.  Just like cancer.  But just as cancer did not prevent me from mothering, grief is not going to get the best of me either.  I will plant those plants, and cook those meals, and fold that laundry.  I will fly that kite, and splash in that pool, and bake those cookies.

I am Grieving Mother, hear me roar.