Tuesday, June 01, 2010

The Beginning of the End

This is the last week of school and transition times are not fun. However, my mantra, as Cindy also pointed out, is one day at a time. Last night we went and picked up Salinda and Gabby because Salinda has a traffic violation court hearing today. It really was an honest mistake as she (and I) were not aware of the law that she broke. She has not put it this way, but it seems to me it could have had been a racial microaggression. She had her brights on and was pulled over for that reason. She had 2 other friends in the car (she and bfs sister were giving a friend a ride home in our car. All three of them are people of color). The officer checked all of their IDs, gave them a long lecture, and ticketed Salinda for having more than one person under 16 in the vehicle with her, which is a law in MN (the one I didn't know). I don't know if it was anything having to do with race, but I wonder if all the kids had been white if the officer would have been so overbearing.

It's interesting how when a white family adopts a child of color then they become a family of color and all these kinds of issues come up.

Our adult son who is now a vehicle owner arrived home sometime after five. He has some friend sleeping downstairs with him -- I discovered that when I went to wake him up. I started to lecture him, but he said, "Mornings aren't the time to talk about stuff. (which meant, do you have to embarrass me in front of my friend) and I said, "It's the only time I ever see you. You're never here unless we're not here with people here that aren't supposed to be.

Bart leaves today until Friday night. My biggest challenge will be keeping my mouth shut with that particular "adult." As long as I can control my own anxiety and relax, things go OK. It's when I let them get to me.........

4 comments:

Shantra said...

Just close your eyes and put all that anxiety in a big box, with a lid and a lock. tell your self that there is nothing you can do about it now and put it in. close the lid and lock the box , put the keey in a pocket or if you are a control freek like me in you hand and know that when ever you want or can change things it is there and you can open it!!! now take a deep breath and smile!
Now have a wonderful day!
Ps. I have a few ?s abouut having a mega family could you Email me
Shantrarogers@gmaiul.com
thanks

GB's Mom said...

When I read "It's interesting how when a white family adopts a child of color then they become a family of color and all these kinds of issues come up.", I realized that it the thing I was most unprepared for when we started our adoption journey.

Cyndi said...

The MN law about the number of kids in a car got us too. Karre was driving our handicapped accessible van with Lauren in her wheelchair and the neighbor kid to school. Now that is quite the trio to pull over. The law is so out of line. These kids were not in any way messing around, they were car pooling to school because there are never enough parking spaces there we thought it would be a good idea to leave one for some one else who needed it.I do not think color is the issue here.

Claudia said...

Well, I am not saying it was getting the ticket that was the issue. It was the over kill in grilling each person in the car, checking all of their IDs, running a background check on all of them, and the intense lecture they all received.

The ticket was just a ticket. The way the officer handled it was the issue.