To Answer a Question ....

My father practiced law, my mother taught high school French, and from the day I started kindergarten, I had a job, too, an important job. I went to school. How well I did would be up to me. At the dinner table, we talked about our jobs. My father didn't ask my mother and me to help him with his cases, but he did talk about his clients, his days in court past as well as present. One former client had been the Chinese Exhibit at the Centrury of Progress in Chicago. My father got them through a messy bankruptcy. As a result, he was a most honored gentleman in Chinatown, and Mother and I benefited from reflected glory for several years. My father shared his love of the law. My mother didn't ask my father and me to help her plan courses of study, but she talked about her fellow teachers, her students. She really loved her students. Many seem like siblings. It may be hard to comprehend, but she also managed to share her love of grammar, pronunciation, and irregular verbs. My parents never ever grilled me about school. "How was school today, Dear?" Following the lead of my parents, I never asked for help with homework or with anything else in the academic realm. I wanted to do everything myself. I also shared what I wanted to share, no more, no less. Since I wasn't grilled, I sometimes shared more than anyone wanted to know. In first grade, I gave a daily traffic report. "Eileen and Marjorie threw up again on their bus this morning, so everyone else threw up, too." "Their" bus was not "my" bus, but I worried that one or both would move.

My parents and I talked, of course, of other things. Yes, of cabbages. Yes, of kings. Sometimes, we'd still be at the dinner table as late as one A.M. Either my mother or my father would utter a mild expletive and say, "It's one o'clock, and the petit pain has school tomorrow!"

When I began high school, Mother, who also counselled college bound students, had the following to say. I would go to college, no matter what. If necessary, I would go to the government run University of Illinois at the Pier which had low tuition. I would scrub floors, if I had to. I would get a grand education because I would be motivated. Was that understood? Yes, that was understood. If my father and she were alive, kicking, and solvent, I could choose the college of my dreams. However, to do that I would need good grades, etc., etc. If I didn't have good grades, etc., etc., I wouldn't be choosing the college; the college would be choosing me. That was our one and only discussion about college. What more did I need to know? Nothing. During four years of high school, I was never ever nagged about homework, about grades. Not once. I wanted to do the choosing, and in the end, I chose.