5-Minute Time Out: Sandra Tsing Loh
The writer-performer takes on those scary, scary public schools.
by Madeline Holler
September 12, 2008
Race and poverty, percent of kids on free and reduced lunches — a lot of families see the numbers and flee. Suddenly the white middle class kid at the local elementary is "the other."
In LA Unified, something like eight percent of the entire school district is white. English speakers are the minority too. So to be white is to be the minority in this district. Well, white people aren't bad people. But it's a little daunting if you're the first white person to
go to the corner. It doesn't mean you're a racist . . . it's just a little, "huh." So just like there's help for Cambodian-speakers and Tagalog, there should be a port of entry for the English-speaking parent. It's not a racist thing. It's just an entry for someone to integrate into their schools.
Then it's okay to notice and be sort of . . . conflicted?
To see your blond daughter go into where it's almost all brown kids, it's the first time you see it, you learn it's fine and kids are kids . . . it's just there's a moment of adjustment, but that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a racist. It's okay to acknowledge that. It's just
different from what you're used to seeing. In L.A., in a lot of urban areas, it's a reality. But no one wants to talk about it.
You got fired from your NPR gig a few years ago for dropping an F-bomb, which didn't get bleeped. But I think you've got an even tougher crowd than producers or the FCC out there who might not like what you say: other moms. Specifically, those who feel "judged" or "disrespected" or "guilty" for choosing private schools over public. How do you get away with being so critical — in a funny and disarming way, of course — and still have friends?
The people I judge harshest are liberals who are taking Republicans to task, while sending their kids to the most affluent schools in the world.
I don't know why. Maybe because I'm Chinese-German passive-aggressive? So you don't know what I'm thinking? There are plenty of people I can and do judge. But it's not the clueless mom who wound up at the Lutheran school because there was an opening and she didn't know what else to do. The people I would judge harshest are the fire-brand, liberal, Democrat columnists who are
taking Bush to task, Republicans to task, everyone to task, while sending their kids to the most private, affluent, selective schools in the world. The very elite, wealthy blue, blue Democrat, Manhattan or L.A. people railing against the educational system. They could make it
better. All the money they're dumping into the private schools, all the favors they're doing for private schools — speaking at commencements, the fundraising, teaching the little Latin class, dumping all their resources into the private schools — then looking critically at all of us
people out there in the not-so pretty schools. Those are people I would judge most harshly.
Public schools = PTA = misery for some of us. How do you recommend handling the PTA mom who has made school and fundraising her life's mission? She makes the rest of us feel inferior, guilty and worst of all: lazy.
The thing about her, the thing I have realized, moms are the ones who are getting it done in schools. Not mayors, not elected officials — their kids go to private schools. It's the moms at public schools who are doing all of it: cutting out cute heart-shaped figures, bringing
snacks for field trips, figuring out the system, selling the wrapping paper, writing grants for the violins, getting money together for a music program. So the PTA mom is glaring at you! So she's a little disappointed in you! She's hormonal, she's on her period . . . but leave her
alone, she's getting a new gym built!
Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting is available on Amazon.
Photos: Tatjana Loh
©2008 Madeline Holler and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Madeline Holler is a writer and mother of two. She lives in Long Beach, California. |
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