tuesdays 


 

D's favorite day of the week is Tuesday. He sits by the window and waits. See, on Tuesday the recycling truck and the trash truck come. Recycling comes at about 7. Trash at about 8. D. won't do anything until he sees them both. Breakfast? nope - only after the trucks come. Get dressed? No way - we might miss the trucks.

He's in heaven when they come. He jumps up and down and waves madly at the sanitation workers, who (luckily for me), wave back.

I bet he thinks there is nothing cooler than to be a garbage man. You get to ride on cool trucks. You get to be outdoors.

When does it become "uncool" to be a sanitation/garbage worker? When will D. develop his sense of "status" and economic earning power? Or will he become one of those very rare people who don't automatically connect worth with careers and earning potential? And how do I help him do that?

While I don't necessarily want him to *become* a garbage man...I hope that he can always keep a little part of that excitement he gets from seeing a garbage truck. I hope he never thinks he's above the garbage worker. I hope he becomes friends with people of all backgrounds and income levels.

We've recently moved into a neighborhood where this becomes harder to do.

Our old neighborhood was full of blue-collar workers and had very few kids. It was considered to be a "not safe" neighborhood. (So, they found a dead body at the park down the road. It happens....) When Doug got the new job with the new paycheck and the new "I'm going to go to Asia every month" schedule, I wanted to move. When he was gone, I didn't feel safe and I was horribly lonely. I wanted friends nearby. I wanted more kids in the neighborhood. I didn't want to go to a park where there were drug deals going on.

So we moved. Only a mile down the road in distance. But a thousand miles up in status. And it is is much safer. A neighborhood police car drives by our house 5 times a day. There are a zillion kids and a ton of parks and activities. I have a huge support group of wonderful neighbors and friends within walking distance. All good things. Very good things. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Hallmark commercial. Can a neighborhood really be this nice?

But what do we lose when we segregate ourselves from the people who collect our trash and clean our houses? And how do we balance the need to be safe and happy with the need to be "real?" That I haven't figured out.  

Posted: Tue - April 12, 2005 at 02:21 PM          

©