I'm no parenting expert, but I know you have to feed them, and I feel intuitively that it's probably good to have conversations with them, too. Thus at our house such supper-hour repartee as:
"How was school?"
"Fine."
"Have you been advised by an attorney to keep your answers brief?"
"You always say that. It's not funny."
Sometimes she—the middle-schooler—does better. Minneapolis public schools were closed this past Wednesday.
"Why no school on Wednesday?" she asked.
"It's Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday." (I have all the answers.)
"I love the Jews," she says.
I then launch into an explanation of why Sandy Koufax did not pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series, Dodgers versus Twins.
"Dad, dad, I don't care!"
I talk to her older sister, too.
"How's school?"
"Fine. But I don't know what to write an essay about."
"What class?"
"Social Studies. It's called 'Race and Identity.'"
"Well, do you have to choose among options, or is it completely your choice?"
"My choice. Problem is, I'm a Basic White Girl with she/her pronouns." She gestures toward the heavens and whines, "I got nothin'!"
She ended up getting a 98 for an essay about her 50% Norwegian heritage. I read it before she turned it in. Fairly solid effort, though the part about making lefse with her aunt was a fabrication. She's been invited to help make lefse. Only thing she's ever done is eat it. Delivery system for butter and sugar. I suggested a paragraph concerning how, back when "our people" came to America, immigrants were so despised that the federal government gave them 160 acres of rich farmland. She said her paper was already long enough (2 pages, double spaced).
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