Traveling with Kids

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Washington DC with my two kids (oh, my husband was there, too), and I have to say, it was quite an adventure. Traveling anywhere with my kids is an adventure by definition, but going to a place that is so full of historic, significant, important places is especially adventurous.

Even if you are not a parent, you probably have memories of going places with your family as a child. Perhaps your family was a bunch of exotic jet-setters who regularly traveled overseas; perhaps a "big adventure" in your family was a trip to Grandma's house on the other side of the state. But whoever you are, wherever and however you grew up, I'm certain that at some point you spent some time visiting a place other than your own home. When you're a kid, that's an adventure, no matter how far from or how near to home.

My kids are somewhere in the middle. At ages 7 and 9, they have already been on several cruises and they have multiple airplane trips under their belts. With various family members who live half the country away or on another coast (and, actually, in another country, although we haven't visited there yet), our family has good reason to travel regularly.

I love that my kids have already had so many opportunities to visit different places. We live in a typical east coast suburb, so I love visiting my Iowa family where there's a tree swing and a creek (pronounced "crick") in the backyard and they keep bees and have a pet bearded dragon. I also love visiting NYC where jaywalking means taking your life into your own hands and you learn to avoid the pushy characters in Times Square and the guys on the corner selling knockoff designer goods. I want my kids to understand that not everyone lives the same way that we do, and that's okay. I want them to see that some things are very different in other places and yet there are some things that are always the same. I love watching them find beauty everywhere we go, and also watching them learn how to be safe everywhere they go. For me, broadening my kids' horizons means letting them see the good and the bad of everywhere we go.

Washington DC is a particularly terrific place to take young kids, because there is such a ridiculously wide variety of things to experience. The most obvious are the museums and government buildings, but there is also the lineup of food trucks with every type of ethnic food you can imagine. There are Secret Service guys and FBI agents and motorcycle cops but there are also homeless people and beggars and visibly wounded veterans. There are cherry trees in full bloom and there are overflowing trash cans (although surprisingly few of the latter). There are festivals celebrating every ethnic holiday you can imagine, festivals celebrating every cause you can imagine, There is theatre and concerts and dance. There are protests. There are commemorations. You can watch the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery or march in the LGBTQ parade. You can see a performance of Shakespeare, watch a hockey game, take a wine tasting class, attend candlelight yoga or tai chi or a bar crawl. Whatever you're into - or curious about - they've got it here.

My kids had no idea what they were getting into when they headed to DC with me and my husband. My husband is - let's be blunt - a history and government nerd, so everything turned into a civics lesson. We chatted about FDR and World War II, we talked about how Amelia Earhart and Rosie the Riveter changed the role of women, we learned about the USSR vs USA space race and the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. We enjoyed the beauty of the architecture in every building we saw - how each one was unique, yet they all had commonalities that tied them together and unified them. We discussed how that was symbolic of the USA itself, where each state had its own sense of uniqueness, yet each was still part of a unified whole. we thought about what unites us as a country, and what tears us apart.

We talked about life. We talked about big stuff. We talked about how people like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Wilbur and Orville Wright and Susan B. Anthony changed the world. We talked about how the world still needs to be changed. We talked about what their role  could be in making that change.

We had fun, but we also thought. Because, as we learned, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

The Family That Plays Together

Every other year or so, the theatre group that I perform with puts on a show called “Remembering the 40’s.” The show is a revue made up of songs, dances, and sketches from the 1940s, starting just before the U.S. entered World War II, and ending with a celebration of New Year’s Eve, 1949. There are scenes of the soldiers at the front receiving letters from home, the women back home working in the factories and selling war bonds, several scenes from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics South Pacific and Oklahoma, dance performances by a group of alumnae of the Radio City Rockettes and others, and a full-scale radio show. There are actors portraying such celebrities as Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Rita Hayworth, Abbott and Costello, Jimmy Durante, and Mel Blanc.

This show has always been very special to me (see this blog entry). I often comment that it is my favorite show to perform with this group. Seeing the people I portray on stage in the audience watching my performance is both humbling and exciting. But this year’s performance was extra-special to me because not only did I get to perform with my husband, but with both my children as well.

One of my favorite scenes in the show is the song, “Be a Good Soldier.” The song is sung by a father who is in the army and going off to war. He is reminding his young son to take care of his mother, to obey her, and to remember and pray for his daddy while he is away overseas. The scene is sung to the side of the stage while it is acted out in a spotlight in the center of the stage. This year, my son played the part of the young boy. He is a rather intense and sometimes serious young man, and he took his part very seriously. The man portraying the soldier was absolutely wonderful with him. He whispered to him quietly to coach him about what was going on, “Give me a big hug,” “Let’s look out to the audience,” “Now give me a salute.” Any changes or corrections he was given (look back at your dad when you leave, turn towards the audience instead of away, nod when Daddy gives you the baseball glove), he remembered every time. I was so proud of him. And I was so pleased that he genuinely enjoyed being up there on stage.

The opening of the second act of the show was another opportunity for my son to be on stage, along with my daughter. The second act is a radio show, so at the opening, a family is sitting around an old-fashioned radio, listening to snippets of “The Lone Ranger,” “Abbott and Costello,” “Amos and Andy,” “Jimmy Durante,” and “Henry Aldrich.” I dug through our toy box and came up with an old wooden fire truck and a jointed teddy bear that both looked like they came from the 1940s, and our wonderful costumer came up with a flannel nightgown and some striped pajamas for the kids to wear. The kids behaved exactly as kids would have at that time: My son played with his toy and reacted to what was playing on the radio; my daughter was somewhat oblivious and just wanted to curl up on my lap and snuggle. It worked.

But as much as being on the stage with my kids was wonderful, being backstage with them was even more wonderful. My son camped out in the men’s dressing room with Dad; my daughter camped out in the women’s dressing room with me. And when I say “camped out,” I really mean “camped out.”

She had a little nest in a corner behind a door, and between shows she took a little nap there. But when she was awake, she flitted around the room, admiring people’s hair and jewelry and dresses, and chattering away to anyone who would listen to her. I was a bit worried that she would get in people’s way and make a nuisance of herself, but instead, she became the darling of the entire female cast.

And I hear that my son was just as much of a hit in the men’s dressing room, laughing uproariously at the cheesy jokes the men were telling and chatting a bit himself.

But perhaps the most exciting thing about doing this show with my kids was discovering the interest they both took not only in the process of performing, but in the history of what we were doing. Obviously, at age 4, my daughter doesn’t really understand the historical context. But she does understand that when I put on my plaid flannel shirt and bandana, I am playing a woman who went to work in a factory, and that when Daddy marches across the stage wearing a helmet and a green uniform, he is playing a soldier. She understands that people didn’t always have television but that they used to listen to stories on the radio and use their imagination, like we do when we read a book. It may not be history, exactly, but it is the foundation that will help her understand the past better later on. My son, on the other hand, at age almost 6 (going on 37), understands a lot more than I expected. He asks questions about the songs he learned just from sitting in on a few rehearsals, and we’ve had some incredible discussions about what it’s like when there’s a war going on, and what kinds of things cause countries to go to war. We compared war to a fight at school when two kids want the same toy, and we talked about how it’s better to figure out a way to share or take turns or work together to find another of the same toy, instead of hitting each other and both pulling at the toy and often breaking it so no-one gets to play with it.

Throughout my discussions with both of my children, I was continually reminded of the quote, “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” By beginning to learn history so young, I hope that my children can incorporate their knowledge of human history throughout their lives, carefully choosing what parts of history are worthy of trying to repeat, and which parts they want to work to avoid repeating at all costs. If they can learn that and use it in their lives, then I’ve done my job as a parent.

Who knew that would be the result of having my kids sitting on a stage in their jammies pretending to listen to a radio?

When They Love What You Love

Some people try lots of avocations and hobbies before they find their passion, but not me. I learned to sing before I could talk, and I was bitten by the theatre bug very early in life. Throughout my entire adult life, and even during the vast majority of my childhood, my passion has been singing and musical theatre. So it makes me ridiculously happy that both my children love to sing, and that they are comfortable being on stage.

Last night, my son had his first rehearsal for a small, non-speaking role in a production that my husband and I are performing in. This is a show that the Reagle Players of Greater Boston have performed roughly every other year since…well, I’m not sure when, but it’s probably been 30 years, if not more. The show is called “Remembering the 40s,” and it includes songs, dances, and skits from the 1940s – it’s a musical revue that starts off with a bunch of kids dancing to the jukebox at the local soda shop and hearing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “a date which will live in infamy” speech, then walks all the way through World War II from the perspective of both the American soldiers overseas and the women waiting back at the home front, then continues on through the postwar years of the marvelous radio shows of Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and groups like the fictitious “Cavalcade Singers.” The music includes such familiar hits as “In the Mood,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” "The White Cliffs of Dover," and a plethora of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway hits, including “Oklahoma,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Honeybun,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame,” and “Bali Hai.”

But one of the most moving moments of the show (for me, anyway – even before my son played the role) is the song “Be a Good Soldier.” The women are holding an auction to raise money for the troops, and in the middle of it, there is a freeze, and we see a father, in his soldier’s uniform, talking to his young son about taking good care of his mother while Daddy is away at war. The beautiful lyrics go like this:

Come, little man, put your toys away; you and I must have a talk today.
But first, let me have a great big kiss. Now, what I want to say is this:
Be a good soldier while your daddy’s away, take orders from your mom and learn to obey.
Come, little soldier, I am saying goodbye. Smile for me, buddy, there’s no reason to cry.
Now I’m on my way, you stay and hold down the fort.
I’ll tell the captain our worries are over, we have your support.
So pray for me, soldier, and promise each day you’ll be a good soldier while your daddy’s away.

Tell me any mother who could listen to those lyrics while watching her son and not sob uncontrollably. Certainly not me. I was a puddle.

I blogged recently about how history never came alive to me until I read stories about the ordinary people who lived through it rather than the famous names who created it, and this show is absolutely the story of the ordinary people. It’s the men who never planned to be soldiers but who were drafted and fought bravely; it’s the women who were terrified by what their menfolk were going through but who worked in the factories to keep everything going anyway; it’s the children who didn’t understand what was happening but who tried to be brave. It’s the ordinary people who did their best to keep living through all the challenges swirling around them. It’s everyone who tried to keep some kind of “normal” happening.

And when I see my son imagining what it would be like, what it would feel like, to know that your daddy was going far away for a long time, braving unknown dangers, fighting unknown battles, not knowing when (or if) you would ever see him again…when I see his eyes widen in understanding, and in sympathy, I know that he understands history – and theatre – the same way that I do.

We live it, we love it.

And there’s nothing quite as wonderful as sharing that kind of passion and excitement with your kids.

Nothing.

History, Schmistory

I was always a pretty good student in school, but there was one subject that I always stunk at: history. I just couldn’t make sense of dates and wars and armies and governments. It was too disconnected from my reality. I couldn’t identify with having to fight in a war, with being concerned that my rights were being violated by my government, with being willing to die for something. But there were a few bits of historical knowledge that I did find interesting: the lives of ordinary people. I loved to read biographies of people in historical times – not necessarily people like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Napoleon Bonaparte, who were making history, but people like Laura Ingalls Wilder or Elinore Pruitt Stewart (author of Letters from a Woman Homesteader), who were living through it.

When I was in 3^rd or 4^th grade, I discovered a magical bookshelf in my school library that was filled with small, orange-bound volumes that were all biographies of fascinating people. Many were quite famous, like Washington and Jefferson and Napoleon; others were recognizable but a bit less famous, like Florence Nightingale and Johnny Appleseed and Susan B. Anthony; but there were many others whose lives had a much more quiet impact on those around them. One of those less well-known subjects was a woman called “Molly Pitcher.”

Molly’s story, as I remember it, was that she followed a family member (I was hazy on the relationship – perhaps it was a brother, perhaps her father?) to the battlefield during the Revolutionary War, and that she brought water to the soldiers as they fought, sometimes even nursing the wounded. I remember a very specific detail that she was so deep in the middle of the fighting at one point that a musket ball flew through her skirt, leaving a hole but not touching her. I don’t remember there being many illustrations in the book, but there was plenty of description, and I remember being able to picture quite vividly a young woman wearing a mobcap, with her skirt tucked into her apron, perhaps some smudges of dirt and sweat on her face, carrying a pewter pitcher, and the dirty, ragtag American soldiers in their motley clothing and carrying their motley weapons, facing off against the perfectly uniformed British soldiers with their matching shiny brass buttons and their perfectly aligned row of bayonets. And I imagined what could have been happening in that young woman’s world to make her willing to step onto a battlefield with musket balls flying all around her, or to make those men willing to leave their farms and their families to fight with little to no training against one of the finest armies in the world.

Molly’s story made history real to me for a moment – not because she was someone who created that history, but because she was an ordinary person who had to live her life while that “history” was swirling all around it.

So when I found a biography of Molly Pitcher at my local library, one that was geared for younger children, I had to bring it home and read it to my son. 

He was not quite as interested as I had been, but he listened to the whole book and asked a few questions. This book had a number of illustrations, so we looked at those together and discussed some of the details. He noticed quickly that the American soldiers had different kinds of weapons: some had flintlocks, some had rifles with bayonets, some had swords, and some didn’t have weapons of their own but fired off the cannons. In this retelling of the story, Molly took over firing a cannon after her husband, who had been firing it, was wounded, and there was no-one else to do it. She had watched the men doing it often enough that she was able to fire it off on her own. My son thought that was pretty impressive. (He was even more impressed when I told him that I knew how to fire a cannon, thanks to an old boyfriend whose National Guard unit manned the cannons for the Boston Pops’ annual 4^th of July rendition of “The 1812 Overture.”) He was also impressed to learn that Molly Pitcher was made a sergeant by General George Washington himself, because of her bravery on the battlefield.

I was a bit disappointed, however, to discover that although Mary Hays McCauley, aka “Molly Pitcher,” was a real person, and she really was at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, the story of Molly Pitcher is really a composite story based on the experiences of a number of women who helped out during the Revolutionary War. The name “Molly Pitcher” was apparently commonly used to refer to women who carried water to soldiers on the battlefield during the Revolution. And a woman named Margaret Corbin had taken over firing a cannon when her husband was killed during a battle at Fort Washington, New York, in 1777 – was it mere coincidence that Molly Pitcher was credited with a similar act, or was Margaret’s story given to Molly to make it more interesting?

Whatever the truth of Molly’s story, it made history come alive for me. And after mixing up and frying the kind of corncakes that Molly might have packed for her husband to bring to the battlefield, I think history is starting to come alive for my son, too. 

I guess the way to a (young) man’s mind, as well as his heart, is through his stomach. But if that’s what it takes to get him interested in history, let’s get cooking!

Corn Cakes (from Molly Pitcher, retold by Larry Dane Brimner)

1-3/4 c flour
¼ c yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 c milk
¼ c melted butter
1 cup whole kernel corn (fresh, frozen, or canned)

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Make a well in the dry ingredients. In another bowl, beat the eggs and milk together. [Since Molly wouldn’t have had an electric mixer, we opted to do this step by hand with a whisk. Phew, we both developed much appreciation for the cooks of that era!] Add the egg-milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir in the melted butter. Add the corn and stir lightly.

For each pancake, use about ¼ c of batter. Pour onto a hot griddle or nonstick pan that has been lighted coated with vegetable oil spray. Brown the pancakes on both sides, turning when bubbles appear and the edges are set. Serve with butter and syrup [we discussed that honey or molasses would also be authentic choices].

Mmm, history tastes delicious!