Traveling around the world with your child is a gift that keeps on giving. Our little citizen of the world has continued to amaze us with her adoption of other cultures into her ways. I adore that she kisses friends hello and goodbye on both cheeks. It pleases me when she answers the question “how are you?” with “nos nos” which is Arabic for so-so. It is entertaining when she looks to a pointy sculpture and exclaims “hey, an obelisk!” It is silly when she adamantly refuses ever returning to Mexico because there are “too many mosquitoes.” A recent conversation with Olivia validated all our past travels and all future travels.
First, let me tell you, fighting for a kindergarten school in San Francisco is quite a battle. Private schools require you participate in a specific tour prior to applying. We, of course, were out of the country for the tours. This left us with the choice of public or catholic schools as our only options. My husband and I are recovering Catholics. That left us with public school. Currently, kindergarten at Olivia’s public school is nearing an end and I felt it was time to shop around for the potential of other school’s 1st grade. Test the waters and see if there was a better option. I woke Olivia up on a Sunday morning and said, “lets go check out St. Brendan’s!” She moaned and groaned and very clearly but politely told me “I really don’t want to go to a Church school.” Perhaps it had to do with my teaching her to say the pledge of allegiance with a “one nation, under science” and ending it with a giggle to each other. Yes, I am thinking that may have been a catalyst. What never occurred to me is that she has absolutely no idea what Christianity is about.
I took her, against her will, that morning to the Catholic School’s open house. Olivia is a very calm, go-with-the-flow kind of girl. On the drive to the school, I was hit with an uncharacteristic barrage of question after question with moments of contemplation between. “Mommy. Do church people go to lunch?”
“Yes Sweetie, people who go to church are like everyone else.”
“Mommy, do church people play outside?”
“Of course Honey, church people are people.”
“Do they study science at Church schools?”
“Yes Darling, it is a school like every other school except for the whole evolution part.”
I could tell I wasn’t communicating to her the normalcy of “church people.” She had a fear of the unknown and every answer I was giving her was making no progress so I went another angle and said to her, “Baby, remember when we were in Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Remember how they went to the Mosque five times everyday and prayed, remember the voices over the loud speaker calling to prayer? Church people are the same as that but they don’t go to a Mosque, they go to a church and they usually only go one time a week.”
With a tone of complete understanding, a true “why didn’t you say so sooner” moment, Olivia said with her voice rising and falling, “Oooohhhh. Like Muslims!” It was all clear to her at that point. And in my mind with a tone of complete understanding, I thought… Wow, how special is it to briefly explain religion that is evident daily and everywhere in our own country with an explanation from a culture so radically different such as the one she experienced in Saudi Arabia. The only way she understood that christians are just people like everyone else was in terms of Islam. I love that. Olivia is truly a citizen of the world.
As I was feeling a inner sense of pride for being able to parent such a unique way, we drove up to the school located next to the Church and Olivia said, “Wow Mom, Church people have nice flowers.”
