A few weeks ago, my daughter A and I were walking out to the car after it had rained, when she told me the ground was slippy. This may not sound like much to you, but it certainly is a phrase that made me proud and my heart a little warmer.
I’m not native to Connecticut; I’ve only lived here for 5-1/2 years. My roots run deep, however, in western Pennsylvania, specifically the Pittsburgh area. It’s the land of black and gold, bridges galore, Heinz Ketchup and a language that corresponds with heavily accented people. I pride myself in not having that accent, but sometimes certain words in the dialect of a ‘yinzer,’ like slippy (instead of slippery), come out of my mouth.
It pains me that A will call the carbonated drinks in a can – soda…it’s called pop! Or those summer sales you have in your yard – tag sales…who sells only tags? Or even that place you buy alcohol – package store…uh, they sell booze not boxes, but that is how she’ll grow up living here. Not that this is a problem, of course. It’s just different. For me. I don’t want her to be my exact copy, but it makes me a little sad to know there is something that will make her special that I can’t relate to.
On the flip-side, it’s important to me as her mom to have A know what makes me who I am. I realize that at (almost) 3, this is lost on her, but it will matter someday. Someday she’ll thank me. She will. I know that I’m a better person for knowing that kind of stuff about my own mother, who is is no longer alive for me to ask. I’ve played on the elementary school playground my mom attended; I have her sorority scrapbooks; I had more than enough photos of her life to make 7 poster-sized collages for her memorial service and knew who almost every person in the photos was. I’m sure there is much I don’t know, but I haven’t ever felt like I really didn’t know my mom. This is what I want for A.
We don’t get out to PA very much. It’s either an expensive plane trip that in the past has not gone well for any of us or a 7-8 hour car drive; pick your method of torture. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to A being old enough to take this trip and see my high school (the elementary school no longer exists), drive across the Ft. Pitt Bridge and have the same out-of-breath experience I have when it opens up to my city, to know the story of how I met her father like the back of her hand. We were in Pittsburgh, after all.
What is it you want your children to know about you and what makes you “YOU?”
