Channeling the Power

Jessie has had, and continues to have, a variety of goals for her future. While there is an underlying current that relates to the arts and performance, the flavours of the month day rival, in range and creativity, those on offer by the Baskin Robbins ice cream chain.

Generally her identified passion and career choice derives from whatever movie/TV show she has just watched. From Spy Kids (a spy, of course) to Harry Potter (a wizard) to Little Women (a writer, complete with oil lamp), to Bring it On (a cheerleader), to the Jonas Brothers (a lyricist), to Glee (this one is a little more convoluted and involves travelling to LA with Dan /Dad where he gets a job as a scriptwriter on Glee and writes her into the script so that there are TWO actors with Down syndrome and she is the new love interest for Finn).

As she has matured (sic) and moved into a life phase where she is expected to be a little bit more reality-based in her choices, she often states that her desire is to act, advocate, and/or dance. All things she has had some experience and success with; all things that she has figured out that we have a more positive response to (i.e., it does not precipitate parental eye-rolling or large exasperated sighs).

Of course she continues to throw us loops—such as a consistent urge to follow her passion: her music career. (Hmmmm, where is that chromosome related to singing on key? Certainly not on the 21st you say?) Or a more recent desire to give up dancing professionally (which she does, dance professionally that is, with Propeller Dance) so she can spend more time with Drummer Boy, her boyfriend, and they can work on their combined music careers (he is also considering a career playing with the National Hockey League, so they are not 100% sure about the music thing. )

This week however, I’m glad to see that all our discussions about talent, passion, reality, and the 10,000 hour rule are really paying off! She and some friends went to see X-Men on Monday and I got this text:

I wonder if our college savings will cover it?

Nick Jonas Will You Work With Me?

It’s a hot Saturday (the temperature is climbing up past 29° Celsius) and we are on our way to the “hottest” location in town—the Bluesfest. Jessie saved her money and bought 2 tickets to see Nick Jonas (so, I guess she isn’t completely over the Jonas Brothers). Nobody else would go with her, not even Drummer Boy! So guess who’s going.

Dan, because of his tinnitus (so he says, but I’m thinking of making him get a note from the doctor to that effect) gets to stay at home and watch the Mets and the Phillies.

She’s dressed appropriately for a big festival on a hot day in a big field by the Ottawa River, don’t you think? I’ll be slumming behind her carting the requisite blanket (don’t bother with chairs, they don’t work in a moshpit), water, and snacks. I drew the line at carrying the sign she constructed, which read, “Nick Jonas, will you work with me?” (One of Jessie’s aspirations being writing lyrics for the Jonas Brothers.)

I was a little nervous that I might be arrested for cougaring.

DB Usurps Coveted JB (Jonas Brothers) Spot on Bedroom Wall

It has been a whirlwind of weddings (blog to come), flash mob rehearsals (next blog), graduation preparations (blog to come), and summer program registrations (not blog-worthy, except the bus training part, so . . . blog to come) all culminating in Tuesday’s final high school graduation and celebratory dance at Drummer Boy’s house outside the city. All the Storefront students (12 of them) were invited, with the graduates themselves being chauffeured along Ottawa’s renowned canal and out to DB’s house in a white stretch limousine.

The evening, by all accounts, was a wild success. (DB’s mother deserves a commendation and award for making it a very special occasion—something all the students, and parents, will talk about for a long time to come!) When I arrived to pick up Jessie, I found her seated on a chair like a princess, enraptured by the show DB was giving—a hip-hop song and choreography composed for and dedicated to her. His intense performance was matched by her intense response—an electric current that ran almost visibly between them.

When we arrived home around midnight, I sent Jessie up to get ready for bed while I finished loading the dishwasher. Then, I heard a bizarre tearing/whooshing/scrunching noise echoing down the stairwell. Having admonished her to be quiet because Dan was already sleeping, I went upstairs to see what midnight madness was occurring.

Jessie was trying to shove a large amount of paper into her small room-size garbage can.

“Jess! What are you doing?”

“Getting rid of Joe Jonas,” she replied as she waved her arm across the room, calling my attention to the now bare (previously plastered with Joe Jonas posters) wall beside her bed. The noise I had heard was the sound of posters being torn off the wall and squashed into the garbage pail.

“I’ve outgrown the Jonas Brothers. I don’t need them anymore. I have DB!”

I stood there stunned—it was a moment I had always prayed for (the absence of the Jonas Brothers from our basic house décor and background sound), but now wondered if I was really ready for it.

I then turned and caught her just as she was about to cut into a group grad photo that one of the parents had printed off and given to each of the students when he came to pick up his daughter from Drummer Boy’s party.

“What are you doing?”

“Cutting out me and DB. I’m going to put THAT on the wall beside my bed!”

Jessie has truly graduated.

Who's Your Role Model?

Our constant haggling over the Jonas Brothers (okay, MY constant haggling) has had new wood added to the fire as Tanya and Nancy—Jessie’s teachers at Storefront—told her yesterday that the Jonas Brothers were not appropriate role models for a young woman of her age. She was more than slightly miffed as she shared this little piece of her day with me.

Taylor Hicks, Season 5 American
Idol winner lining up for JB tickets

I do wonder, sometimes, where she gets this tendency to fawn over TV/pop stars from and am quick and happy to blame it on Dan. Not that he would even deign to watch the show, but he is the guy who can relate to late nights watching movies on TV. His are usually in black and white and involve long-dead actors and auteurs, but that doesn’t stop me from pining the fame blame on him.

When Jessie was little, I wouldn’t even have Barbies in the house. At least not until I was forced to let one in when it came as a gift and I was obliged to welcome it as an act in our moral commitment to inclusion. Really! It was my first ethical conundrum around inclusion because all of Jessie’s friends were playing with Barbies and by denying her that experience, I risked further separating her from her peers. Of course, as all parents will tell you, things change. You let your moral compass shift slightly off true North and welcome any diversion that will buy you more than 5 minutes alone in the bathroom, or, in our case, any diversion or interest that will connect your child to their peers.

However, the Jonas Brothers, and all things Jonas and Camp Rock and Disney, are driving me to distraction and may even require some serious intervention. I’m just not absolutely sure who needs the intervention.

Do I lay down the line as to what I deem acceptable as entertainment and as a way to spend one’s time, or do I respect her choices? We have tried to lead her to other sources of joy. There is no doubt in Dan’s mind that my proclivity is toward social justice and that I see beauty in magnolias, not Miley Cyrus. Dan himself loves baseball, biographies, and jazz. Most of our family games (and we have played LOTS of family games) were of the cooperative variety; the TV shows she watched growing up were on TVO and PBS; best-loved stories were often the classics (Wind in the Willows, Little Women, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Story of Rosa Parks); and outings were usually to farms and museums and rarely to any place that had a roller coaster.

When Jessie shared her dismay (or was it disdain?) about Tanya and Nancy’s response to her chosen role models, she was taking a risk, because she knew full well my own opinion about the Jonas Brothers. So I took a moment to reflect (instead of jumping on the bandwagon), and asked her if she could explain WHY the Jonas Brothers were her role models. She came up with a pretty good answer: because they loved music, they respected their mother, they were family oriented, they were fun-loving, and they wanted to share their love of music with everyone. That, I pointed out, made sense. She grinned.

Then she thought for a while and said “Okay. Maybe I just shouldn’t share that with them. Maybe the Jonas Brothers can be my role models but I just don’t tell them that.” That, to my mind, was an interesting and thoughtful solution. And we talked about what we share with other people and how we choose the appropriate place and people with whom we share certain interests. Let’s face it. She does have a few friends (both with and without disabilities) who love the Jonas Brothers.

She was quiet for a moment and then said “But I also think of Nellie McClung, from the Famous Five (women who fought for women’s rights in Canada) as a role model I guess, and Nelson Mandella.” (I admit, this made me feel a bit better about my parenting skills.) We talked more about role models and what they mean to us and how we find new role models as we mature and meet the world in different ways. We talked about her former dance teacher and mentor, Hannah Beach, as being a role model, and Craig Keilburger (Canadian activist for the rights of children), and Alito Allessi (the founder of DanceAbility).

I also realized that since she has exited formal schooling (i.e., classes in English, Civics, Geography etc.) she is not as exposed to new people and ideas as she was. She doesn’t read the newspaper, doesn’t really listen to the news, rarely watches current affairs TV, and our days seem so filled that there is not as much time as there used to be to discuss current events or social issues. That’s something I hadn’t really thought about as we transition into adulthood, and I realized that it’s something we might need to address (although I am not sure how!).

But as I watched her process and think and be willing to consider new ways of stepping out into the world, I began to feel very proud of her. Even though she loves the Jonas Brothers, she also loves her best friends, her family, and her art. She is passionate, determined, loyal, and has an uncanny ability to believe in something even when the world is trying to force her in a different direction. She is unafraid to dance on the beach to music that only she can hear, and if only more of us were willing to do that, it might be a more interesting world. So maybe Jessie should be MY new role model.

Photo source: http://igossip.com/gossip/Photo_from_Taylor_Hicks_is_not_a_Hick_Till_Proven_Otherwise--/633

RETRO JESSIE: Best Laid Plans: The Jonas Brothers [November 2008]

We are negotiating these transition years with a great deal of angst, frustration, and—when we can step back and look at the bigger picture—laughter as our daughter Jessie’s drive for independence often leads us down what we (as her parents) feel are major detours or even crashes (of will). Of course, as parents our opinion is suspect at best.

Anyone who has been to our house knows that, while the house is a disaster, our plans for independence would rival the best book on the subject. We have checklists (for her morning routine, for the evening routine, for food, for homework, for breakfast). We have visual cues (for laundry, for making and packing lunch, for taking a shower). We even have clocks colour coded to support her telling time. What we don’t have is any degree of ‘buy-in’ from Jessie, or what we as parents would label ‘success.’

Our biggest challenge these days is getting Jessie to plan. Plan her day, plan her goals, plan her homework, plan her precious time with friends, plan getting out the door on time so she doesn’t miss the bus. We have backed off on rescuing her (we no longer drive her to school when she is late, remind her when her homework is due, gather her dance clothes and costumes together, or make her check her email) and then have to lock ourselves in the basement to stop ourselves from intervening to make it all work out.

Somehow, she does not quite grasp that telling me that she needs hawk wings for a performance that is in 2 hours is not a terribly effective plan. She looks at me first in desperation, then in anger. What kind of a mother am I, that I can’t make hawk wings in a ten-minute time frame. “But, I’ve made a commitment!” she wails (oh yes, she has the language down, just can’t make the connection to HER role in it all).

Then yesterday she came home from school very excited about . . . yet another scheme. Jessie always has lots of schemes ... for creating a choir, making a movie, writing a documentary, going on the road with Miley Cyrus, living in New York with her best friend, buying our local rundown movie theatre—the Mayfair, stopping all injustice in the world, being the most popular girl on the planet ... and the list goes on. Great, I say. What’s the plan?

And low and behold she had one! A very detailed plan! That started with a rough copy of a letter she wrote to the Jonas Brothers (I refrained from asking WHICH class she wrote this in. I don’t want to know, and if I ask then, as a parent I will have to say, again, you need to be paying attention in class to what is going on IN class! Which I am tired of saying and I am sure she is tired of hearing and which really makes no difference. Ah yes, the humbling experience of parenting a teen—when we are faced with our utter powerlessness, which I have heard is supposed to lead to a spiritual awakening but has only really sent me into expensive therapy.)

I do have to share the letter with you, because she said I could and because, when I ignore the fact that it is to the Jonas Brothers, it actually demonstrates a certain degree of skill in its structure and its argument. It goes like this:

ROUGH COPY
TO: Jonas Brothers.
Please
Respond
Politely !!!!!!!! (yes, 8 exclamation points)

Jonas Brothers,
My name is Jessie Huggett and I write lyrics and I was wondering if we could get together so I can show you my lyrics and you guys can help me with the music and the beat and the tempo and everything. And maybe I could come on the tours to be your lyricist? I know Nick is the songwriter, but have you tried to get a lyricist to write the songs for you?

This will be like a huge opportunity that you cannot miss out on. Please. Pretty please. With whipped cream on top.

It will be great opportunity for me as well, because when I grow up I want to be a Hollywood lyricist. That is my dream.

I also have a laptop. I can type. Plus I have a printer. If you guys let me go with you on tours, I can type the lyrics out and I can print them out and you guys can have the printed copies.

Thank you so much,
Jessie Huggett

Now, the letter is pretty good, but the piece de résistance is the plan. All neatly written out and the key to the whole scheme.

Here’s my plan (writes Jessie)

Step 1: Make Letter.
Step 2: Type out the letter.
Step 3: Ask Mom to print it out.
Step 4: Get stamps.
Step 5: Address the letter.
Step 6: Mail the Letter.
Step 7: Wait until they respond.
Step 8: Receive the responded letter and read it.
Step 9: When they say yes, say “Oh Yeah” very loud.

“Oh yeah!” very loud, is what I exclaimed when she shared her plan with me. All our hard work has paid off! Not in the way that we had planned (we still despair her ever getting out the door on time), but in the way that SHE has planned. And that’s the point isn’t it? When it comes to something truly meaningful and important to her, she can plan how to get there. Baby steps, baby steps. Both going forward (her) and backing off (us).