R E C E N T L Y

Second Thoughts: Twinns
By Sallie Tisdale
Double your pleasure, double your funn: Create a fantasy version of your child that will stay cute and small long after your kid leaves home and dumps you
(12/03/98)

Kids just want to have fun
By Anne Morrow Sampson
Why do the toys I bought my kids to improve their hand-eye coordination and spatial dexterity just sit in the closet?
(12/02/98)

The men's room
By Diane Lore
There's no rest for parents weary of making the decision whether to send their kids into public bathrooms
(12/01/98)

Go with the flow
By Jenn Shreve
A small, vocal group of women wants you to toss out your pads, tampons and liners and go -- no joke -- reusable
(11/30/98)

Thanksgiving
By Anne Lamott
If I can muster the love and patience it takes to deal with my mother, does it still count if my hands are trembling with rage?
(11/25/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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FOR MY HOLY SPIRIT-POSSESSED
SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER, IT WASN'T
ENOUGH TO SING THE SONGS FOR
OUR SCHOOL'S CHRISTMAS PARADE,
WE HAD TO FEEL THEM.

BY DANNY MILLER | Mrs. Seidman gripped my jaw with fat, stubby fingers and forced my mouth as wide as a blowfish.

"Mouths open, mouths open!" she shrieked. "Sing out, children!"

O holy night
The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night
Of our dear Savior's birth.

It was early December and our sixth-grade class was preparing for the annual parade of Christmas carols through the halls of our elementary school. Our teacher was relentless in her coaching as she drummed the sacred hymns into our heads. Mrs. Seidman sought a level of enthusiasm that bordered on religious reverie. The irony of this tiny Jewish woman force-feeding Christian songs to her mostly Jewish students seemed no less odd than our public school's obsession with the Christmas holiday in the first place. What ever happened to separation of church and state?

Mrs. Seidman, a practicing Jew whose husband had survived the Holocaust, was enamored with the deeply spiritual canons of the season. Her arms flailing, she conducted our rehearsals as if she were preparing a papal choir for the Second Coming of Christ. It wasn't enough to sing the songs, we had to feel them with our souls. Our practice sessions turned into marathons, eclipsing all other schoolwork. Terrorized into submission, we transformed ourselves from a motley group of awkward preteens into 12-year-old apostles, proudly asserting our hosannas to the Lord. Sweat formed on our brows and our little chests heaved with pressure as we belted the powerful crescendos again and again.

Fall on your KN-E-E-E-E-E-S
O hear the Angels, V-O-I-C-E-S
O night DIV-I-I-I-I-NE
O night when Christ was born.

We spent every school day in December genuflecting in song. I tried not to think of my Orthodox grandparents, who forbade me to even utter the words "Jesus Christ" in their home. One whiff of this ecclesiastical curricula and they would have me transferred to Arie Crown Hebrew Day School before the next chorus. But families were not invited to the yearly Christ-fest, and I was smart enough to keep my liturgical repertoire to myself.

Though Jews dominated the scene at Peterson School, our neighborhood also boasted a large number of Swedes, fellow immigrants from a few generations back. Their families congregated around nearby North Park College and Swedish Covenant Hospital, and their white-blond, blue-eyed children mixed in well with the Semitic majority. Some of the Swedish students resented the fact that the Jews at Peterson were co-opting their special holiday. Rhonda Hellstrom cornered me one day during choir practice.

"I just don't see why you guys get Christmas off when we have to come to school on Young Kippers and Rich-n-Shiny."

"That's Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah," I corrected, but I didn't know how to answer her legitimate query. "It's not our fault," was all I could think of to say. "We don't make the rules."

"You made the rules when you killed our Lord," Rhonda spewed, and flounced away in a huff.

N E X T_ P A G E: Jews and Swedes scattered about in some weird yuletide orgy

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