Andrew's Dresden

Andrew had a special assignment for school.  It was MEANT to be a three week school project, but he came home last weekend and told me he had a Power Point presentation due on Dresden that Monday.  He wrote the essay and we added the photos the morning of my birthday.  (Which might sound really lame, but for all who know me, was actually not a bad birthday gift for me!)

With ANZAC day coming up here - and inspired by Lindsey's piece on peace (!!!) - I just wanted to show what homeschooling can do.  Although we learned a lot about Dresden as part of a homeschooling project, Andrew's essay shows me that just talking about things informally at home, exposing kids to complicated ideas and encouraging to think about them, goes a long way.

It also shows that they ARE listening more than you think they are. 

And that it is never too early to start teaching kids about peace!

I feel really lucky that Andrew's teacher is carrying on the same lessons at school that I teach at home.  (And yes, Andrew wrote those last few pages himself.  I was actually trying to get him to tone it down or even delete some of it but then realized that was crossing the line from editing to censorship.  Hmmm....might be Andrew has the same preachy style as his mother!  But then again he is only nine!) 

Some photos have been omitted in the interests of time.  It's Andrews WORDS that I am so proud of!

Dresden
By Andrew Connor



My Opa was born in the nearby town of Rathen two weeks after Dresden was bombed. 
(This is us visiting Rathen.)



His Mum, my Ur-Oma, saw only dust and fire.  Dresden was bombed by the Americans and British because they were fighting the Nazis who ruled Germany at that time.  The Nazis were the bad guys.
(This is me in front of the Golden Horseman, a statue of August the Strong.  He was the Kaiser of Dresden in the 1700s)

Before the bombing Dresden was as pretty as today.  It has a famous Opera house.   It has paintings by famous painters like Rafael.  Martin Luther even studied there!  (This is me near a statue of the great Martin Luther.)







A lot of the buildings are fixed.  Some are the same as before and some not.  Good paintings burned and are redone.  This is the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady.  It was completely destroyed by the bombs.  Today it has been rebuilt.  It is a symbol of hope.  A piece of the old church has been kept standing to remind people of the bombings.  Ryan and Matthew stand in front of it.  (Photo omitted.)

Of course many people died.  Some also survived.  The survivors had even more pain than the already dead people of the bombed city of Dresden.

Dresden shows us all how terrible war is.  How much pain it can cause, how deadly it is and how not fun it is.  (This is the Elbe River that my Opa played and swam in as a little boy.)

Just Me (An Apology)

I knew I'd probably offend someone at some point, but I hadn't counted on hurting a friend. At dinner last night, Ladies' Night at the Brauhaus in Boeblingen, I casually mentioned the unfairness of the last line of my latest blog. I'd already added an apology for it in the comments section and I was obviously thinking about it enough to bring it up.

But my friend's reaction totally stunned me. "Yeah, you are right. That is totally unjustified and unfair. It isn't right to bring up something from over 60 years ago. At some point it is time to stop bringing it up and let it go."

She hadn't read the piece, and doesn't read the blog regularly, or I don't think the one line would have been as offensive. If you truly know me, and my writing, you know when I am venting unfairly. And you know the true me underneath it.

But all of a sudden I didn't want to take it back, no matter how unfair it is. It is MY blog, these are my personal thoughts and essays, and I don't force anyone to read it. Or agree. In fact, let's face it, the crowning glory of a blog would be to get an animated exchange of opinion going on between its readers.

I see my friend's point. I truly do. But all of a sudden I am fighting for the right of a writer to write.....even if it is a pile of shit. Even if it is hurtful or painful or even untrue. I suddenly understand why Stu quit our Writers' Group when Starbucks asked us to keep our readings nonpolitical. It wasn't that any of us were planning on writing anything political, it was just the point that a writer shouldn't be asked to curb his/her thoughts.

Okay. I get it. (But I'm still doing Starbucks.)

But it also brings me back to that last line, and why it is so important for me to keep the stupid thing in there, overexaggerated and unfair as it is.

It's because I am angry. And because I am finding it more and more difficult to live in a system that just accepts things as they are and is uncomfortable with change or with any ideas different than their own. (And yes, I do realize I could be talking about just about any society!)

It's not about Germany, or Germans; it's about more than the school system (which I will however continue to disapprove of and work to change).

It's about being German. It's about knowing that a part of me, that people close to and directly related to me were part of one of the greatest atrocities in the history of mankind; and let's face it that's saying a lot. It's competing with the American blight of slavery and racism. The annihilation of the native American culture. Ditto with the Australian Aborigines. More recently, countries all over the world look on at ethnic and religious wars in Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria.

Indirectly, I am guilty of way more than one stupid, little misguided sentence.

I do think quite often about what I would have done if I had been alive in Germany when Hitler was VOTED INTO power. My grandfather was too old to fight this time around. He was bummed about the loss of his factory. My grandmother had two young children and another (my father) on the way. One of the daughters from my grandfather's first marriage ended up in a concentration camp. She survived and married a Jewish man she had met and fallen in love with. They relocated to Israel,covered up her German heritage and raised their children, my half cousins, as Jews and Israelis with no knowledge of their German background.

I can't imagine not working to save as many children as I could.

So, in the end, it's all about me after all. I can say that it's the American in me that loves freedom, change and the rights of every individual to determine their own lives. Or the German in me that abhors racism and intolerance.

But it's just me. Just dumb little-old me. I can be a lot of things. (Irresponsible, irreverent, silly, stupid, funny, insensitive, unfair and wrong.)

I can also be sorry, sorry friend, that I hurt you. I know how you feel, I understand and even empathize with your view, you are right and I am unfair.

But I cannot be silent.

She's Back! (Parenting Ryan)

"Life is good." Both kids were wearing new T-shirts and sporting a summer tan when they arrived home last Sunday. Ryan came slowly and shyly through the front door, first up the stairs but pushed aside by Andrew's exuberant sprint. They both were full of stories of family and friends they had met in the USA, on Damon's side dozens of young cousins we hadn't yet met and didn't know to place with which parent. Lucys and Logans, Cole, Ryan, Jade, Jax and "oh yeah, those came from Lily's Grandma." Okay, and Lily is?

They had a world of their own and they were perfectly comfortable in it without us. "What kind of parents are we that we send our kids away for a month and they don't miss us at all?" asked Damon. "Good parents with happy, confident kids." I replied. They were at home without us but then slipped right into home here again too. (I'd been a little worried that the grandeur of the USA would make them see Altdorf for the sleepy little farm village it is, but no, the thrill of society at the local pool and the allure of the village soccer team still held sway.)

Andrew was just the same but I felt like I had to get to know Ryan all over again.

Little did she - or I - know that I had changed too. In subtle ways, but firm ones. You see, it turns out that I have found myself. At least a little piece of me anyway. Without the chaos of four young personalities swirling around me, the constant needs of two young infants and the demands of two older ones, my own personality was beginning to emerge again after a 3 year shock- induced coma. For over over two years after the twins were born, I simply coped and carried on. The kids thrived; I survived.

But now I was beginning to breathe again.

I'd also forgotten what it was like having Ryan around. You see, she's so quiet and unassuming in appearance that you forget the monster will lurking within her seemingly innocent charade. Nine year olds. OH YEAH! Vacation was definitely over.

I couldn't believe she already had my hand imprinted on her left thigh after only 26 hours.

It started innocently enough - my innocence. We were visiting the Bebenhausen cloisters on Monday afternoon when Andrew asked if he could sit in the back of the VW between the twins. (We'd used the smaller car all summer while the older two were gone.) It seems my previous blog on entertaining older children was as true now as before the summer; Andrew wanted to go home and play soccer with his friends and Ryan was just bored and pissed she had been forced to come along. In the meantime, seating arrangements for the car ride home were first priority.

Ryan had already sat in the back seat twice, wedged in with a lapbelt while Andrew rode in the front. Grandpa and Damon had the 7 seater Chrysler to themselves, but it was fun. I liked having all my kids packed in around me like sardines! But it seemed only natural - again to me - that the older two should take turns in the choice back seat between their brothers. Ryan made a big stink, but my word was final. After all, I am the mother here, right?

Half an hour later - we were walking and biking back from the Bebenhausen cloister - Andrew pedalled back in tears to tell me that Ryan had spoken to the twins about the seating arrangement and coerced the two of them into taking her side. So she was sitting in the back and he didn't think that was fair. From innocent summer back into the reality of older children. Wow. But wait, wasn't I the mother here?

Back at the car, I calmly continued to override Ryan's objections. Mostly because I'd forgotten how hard that can be to do. She cried and screamed and physically resisted. And then she sat in the front seat next to me and pouted. Loudly. And I thought, "Wait a minute, I don't feel like dealing with this shit anymore. This is unacceptable." My hand came down on her left thigh in a brief burst of - let's face it, appropriate - anger. And then I calmly but firmly asked her to get out of the car. I opened my car door - and she stopped. Just like that. Either I got really lucky or she could sense that I really was going to let her out of the car. I am sorry - no, I'm not - I just am not dealing with shit like this anymore. (Damon was in front of me, both of us pulling out of the parking lot, so she wouldn't have remained abandoned on the road side for more than a few seconds.)

As a parent, I realize it was only one battle, but I'm hoping to win the war by just refusing to get into it. (Maybe I should direct American foreign policy, but that's another topic.) As a pacifist, I still left a mark on my child's thigh, but I figure anyone with older children will understand the difference. I'm not proud of the mark, but I am proud of the calm that descended on us all when I just refused to fight.

We drove to Weiler Huete - our favorite summer Biergarten - where Ryan spent over an hour pouting next to the car while the rest of us sat outside to eat. But there was no pall over the meal, no lingering unhappiness or sense of doom. We had fun and Ryan was forgotten. She had made HER choice to be miserable and I had made mine not to be dragged down by it. I was remembering that I had no choice in her behavior, but also learning that I had a choice in my response to it.

It is WAY easier said than done. And we're only a week into it today. But I think the key is that I didn't see Ryan standing at the car as an appropriate punishment, something she deserved through her bad attitude or her behavior. It wasn't a need to "show her the consequences of her actions." All of that just seems spiteful to me now, not worthy of a loving parent, just another muscle game of a powerful parent over an essentially powerless child. I wasn't punishing or proving anything; I just refused to go to war.

I get it now. She doesn't want me to rule over her. (I believe they call it democratic parenting, something I don't yet 100% believe in.). This house is NOT a democracy, or even a republic (do you remember the difference from highschool history?!); it is now officially a "kinder, gentler nation." (Tell me I did not just quote Bush Sr. - where the heck is that from?!) Ryan will be Ryan. And Christine will be Christine. Two women in a housefull of men. Like two cats warily circling eachother in a household full of Labradors.

Ryan did eventually join us at the table, smiling and cheerful and all traces of resentment forgotten. A happy ending, but only because my happiness did not depend on it. Ryan is back. So am I. Life IS good.