Think Like Rosie

Tomorrow is Halloween and as such, we are encouraged to wear costumes to school today.  My librarian is an all-in, party, let’s do it person so of course we are going to dress up and it is going to have a theme.  The first year we were witches which the kids really appreciated.  Last year we were Teletubbies which I think they appreciated even more.  This year we struggled for a good theme.  When I say that we struggled, I really mean she did because I just wanted to be Rosie.  Finally she got me to agree to be a superhero and my immediate thought was Wonder Woman.  I flashed back to me, age 6, Wonder Woman Underoos and tinfoil bracelets and thought not that Wonder Woman.  I flashed back to me age 20ish, downtown Dallas and a homemade Wonder Woman costume that had very little fabric and thought not that Wonder Woman either.  I moaned about not wanting to be this superhero or that and all I really wanted to be was Rosie when she commented “Just be Rosie!  She’s your superhero.”  Light bulb forced on and done!

Yes, Rosie is a piece of war propaganda but I think she is one of the best.  Rosie encouraged women to join the workforce and keep the war effort moving at home.  History.com says it nicely with “American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. “Rosie the Riveter,” star of a government campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry, became perhaps the most iconic image of working women during the war.”  They needed us and we responded.  Of course the women were paid much less than the men who held the same jobs and yes, they were kicked out of their jobs when the men came home from war, but in that time they filled the roles that needed to be filled.  Superhero stuff for sure.

But let’s think even more about Rosie.  She answered the call and went to work.  Probably for the first time in her life and that is big.  But guess what?  Not all our Rosies were just working; many of our Rosies were moms.  They were still raising kids and they were working while their husbands were shipped overseas.  They were raising kids and working and growing Victory Gardens to supplement the food they couldn’t buy due to rationing. They were raising kids and working while waiting for a letter home saying that he was still okay, or he was thinking of her and that he missed her too.  They were raising kids on their own and working while dreading a knock on the door, a telegram in their hand, a finality they didn’t want to face.  Goose bumps.

I admire the hell out of Rosie because in my own life, I am a mom, I work and I sometimes grow a garden.  Thank God we don’t have to live on what we grow because the 15 tomatoes and 38 green beans would not have gotten us far.  There are many days where when I am doing all that I do I feel like I am not doing any of it well.  Or I do some of it well and fail the other parts.  I have days where I feel I rock the parenting and tank the working.  Or I have a day at work where I give, give, give to kids who need it and have nothing left to give my own kids.  And aside from the occasional date night or quiet coffee in the morning, the time I spend with my husband is not always the best I have to offer.  This had me feeling rather blah but as I dressed up as Rosie today and drove to school, I started to think like Rosie too.  Maybe I am not doing it all well, but I am doing it.  I will probably not be immortalized in any war time propaganda, but that is okay. I will take the belly laughs from the teen, or the fleeting snuggles from the preteen after he pours his heart out.  I will revel in the look my husband gives me when he laughs at something I said and tells me that he like-likes me.  I’ll store up the “Thanks Ms. McMahons!” and remember that dotted throughout the day, I am doing good things.  Probably not all the good things in all the places on any day, but I bet Rosie had her off days too.  

Ask Not What Your School Can Do

These first two months of school have been crazy.  They have been frantic, frazzled and frenetic.  Teachers are looking harassed, harangued and harried.  They are wearing their April faces in October.  Our loving library has been referred to as a “police state” and “fascist regime”.  Rules have changed, things have changed, people have changed and all and all, it has been disheartening.  We have been negative, needling and near-sighted.  We have felt put upon, put down and pushed aside.  As a result we are slow to smile, quick to anger and a little lifeless around the edges.  We don’t like to be like this and we talk about what to do to fix it, but until today I didn’t have an answer.

Today I taught.  Today I stood in front of a class of about 25 or so and spoke, directed, instructed, lectured and modeled.  It was exciting and new and it went well.  It could have gone a lot of ways, but it went well.  We spent 90 minutes discussing forgotten people of American history: the women and more specifically, the suffragists.  It was thrilling!  I don’t know if it was thrilling for the kids, but they were at least engaged.  At the end of the class, they watched a clip from Iron Jawed Angels.  The clip I had them watch is where Alice Paul (Hillary Swank) is force fed in prison to end her hunger strike.  After the clip, the class was instructed to write for two minutes, non-stop, about how they felt.  And they wrote.  Not all of them wrote for two minutes, but they wrote.  Like the wanna-teach-teacher I am, I brought them all home tonight to read.  There are some true gems because they are teenagers and when instructed to write how they feel, they pepper their feelings with profanity.  They say things like “Damn that sucks.” Or “I am worried those raw eggs will make her sick”, or the best one, “Jesus Christ that’s blasphemy. The one that really got me was the “I am so mad right now!!!!!!”  I showed someone something that made them so mad.  This student was mad so she was listening. And if she is mad then she might be mad enough to care and if she is mad enough to care, then let’s change the world!!!  I am excited that I finally made someone mad and not mad at me! 

Someone else has been having a year like mine!

This student helped me realize that I probably make people feel something every day.  I am hoping it is not always anger.  I am hoping I help them feel relieved when I offer them a solution or happy when I show them how to fix what isn’t working.  I would like to think I make them feel encouraged when I listen or amused when I share a pearl of wisdom.    Somehow in the hullabaloo of this 2015 school year I forgot that what I say and do can make a difference.  I forgot that if I can’t change the big stuff, at least I can impact the little stuff.  That little stuff can carry you through a day if you take the time to notice it.

It’s going to rain this week and as a result lunch will be a nightmare.  However, I am not going to dread it.  We are going to plan for it and go in like the warriors: the nurturing, caring, “this is still a library!” warriors that we are.  And while I am walking and walking and walking around and grow disheartened by the swelling crowd and those who insist on breaking rules they know are there, I will not let it set the tone for my day.  I will take care of the rule breakers because that is my job, but I will look for those I can help because that is what makes my job worthwhile.