It’s Ada Twist. Please ignore the previous draft where I call her Ava not once but 7 times, which I wrote whilst nursing. Oy!
As I was saying…
I don’t know how it’s the end of October. There are two very exciting conversations happening in our house right now – Halloween and COVID shots for kids. Cyrus wants to be the train conductor from Hotel Transylvania 3 (he’s on screen for about 10 seconds, yelling “Buda-pessst! Buda-pessst!”)
Alma’s current outfit is from Room on the Broom (which she calls Witch and an Itch, but also all of the things that rhyme with itch…) Earlier in our costume brainstorming, Alma was very excited about her two favorite scientist characters: Zoey from Zoey and Sassafras and Ada from Ada Twist, Scientist. Both are smart, spunky little girls who love science – and both are Black characters. It was an interesting moment for me where I had to balance my elation of there being two awesome Black characters for her to emulate (100% of the scientists she can name are Black girls– how cool is that?) with making sure potential Halloween costumes wouldn’t be culturally appropriative. I did some thinking, and some digging, reading different perspectives on the issue of cultural appropriation and Halloween.
I’ll admit I have some trouble figuring out in conversations with my kids how to explain the line between cultural appropriation, respect, and emulating. For example, one day Cyrus and Alma were playing quietly together, so I expected trouble. I came into the living room to find that they had set the coffee table very nicely – placemats, silverware, the works – and Cyrus was making up what he called an Indian prayer ritual. We’d been deeply immersed in the Aru Shah books, he was really into Hindu mythology, and had decided to try it at home. I explained to them that we didn’t do things that imitated people’s religions, because those are sacred spaces for them, and would be seen as disrespectful because we weren’t part of that culture.
My kids haven’t seen the movie Pocahontas, but that also strikes me as different from the Ada and Zoey examples because there’s been such a pushback from Indigenous communities about the depictions of that story in popular culture. Ada and Zoey, on the other hand, are created by Black artists. I’d followed the conversation a few years ago about whether white kids should dress up as Black Panther with a lot of interest. I do think that having strong, powerful Black characters that your kids want to emulate is a cool thing. I had decided that she could dress as Ada or Zoey, but then she decided to be a witch, and all of my wrestling was for naught.
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The other big conversation in our house lately has been about COVID, and how to set boundaries around that. There was a group we were part of for occasional outdoor excursions, and then there was a pretty public fight because some of the parents became vocal anti-maskers. I was frustrated, and uncomfortable, and just didn’t know what to do. So, we talked to Cyrus about it. He decided he didn’t want to be part of that group anymore because he didn’t want to be friends with people who didn’t believe in science. So, I sent a letter to the organizer explaining how we were going to bow out until the kids were vaccinated and we felt safer.
We also asked him what he thought about getting the vaccine next week when it (please lord) becomes available. He asked such great questions about side effects and how many doses he would need, and he decided he wanted to get it. He’s nervous because I got really sick after my second Pfizer dose, but I’ve promised him ice cream and tv if he feels any side effects. When we saw our friend Bryan later that week, Cyrus ran up to him and announced “I’m going to be vaccinated!” it’s like Christmas in November around here.
Both of those conversations, I felt really good about…I’m not sure what I would have done if he had disagreed. We probably would have stayed in the group, but been more vigilant about masking outdoors and social distancing. I cannot wait for my kids to be vaccinated, so that would have required more conversations, but I’ve been wrestling with ideas of kids and medical consent lately, so the fact he’s excited about it makes my life easy.
And that’s it! Halloween, Covid vaccines, chill in the air – it’s my favorite time of the year!
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What we’re reading:
We’re reading Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes to Cyrus right now. It’s a magical book about a little girl on the bayou in Louisiana, and it’s just so beautiful.
I just finished reading Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop, and it was super fluffy but very fun to read. Not only is it set in my beloved New York City (mostly on the subway, no less), but I realized it was the first book I’ve ever read without a single cis-het main character, and where the main characters don’t experience any trauma or discrimination for being LGBTQ+. It is a lovely, fluffy love story, and made me feel like we arrived somewhere as a culture. Good job, Casey McQuiston!
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Want to write with me? November is known in some circles as NatNoWriMo, and others as AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month). I have a big writing project I’m committing to write for 20 days/30,000 words in the month of November, and if you have any writing projects you’ve been meaning to get around to, I’d love to write with you too! I’m thinking a daily check in with word counts, a day or two for optional Zoom writing times, and a few emails for encouragement. If you’re interested, sign up here!
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