Posted on by Danna Bach

Remember what harassment feels like?

I had forgotten what it felt like to be harassed. Honestly, it’s been awhile.

The sun was shining. I was walking home after dropping my children off at school. Ready for work, I was mentally adding items to my to-do list and wondering what I’d already forgotten.

I sensed a vehicle approaching from behind, but only paid attention as it began to slow, which was odd as it was nowhere near the intersection.

A dark blue Dodge with a lawnmower in the box pulled up alongside. Smiling, the driver leaned out and said something. I couldn’t hear him over the sound of the truck’s exhaust, so I stopped and turned; assuming he was lost, I smiled, ready to point the way.

He raised his voice: “You’re like an angel. You’re so beautiful,” he shouted, before laughing, reaching over and high-fiving the guy beside him on the passenger seat. He put the truck back into gear and drove off, not before giving me wink and a wave. I think he thought he had made my day. 

There I stood, dumbstruck, wondering what the hell had just happened. 

There was a time, back in my teens, twenties and early thirties, that I was always on the lookout for this type of situation, but always failed to see it coming. Now in my 40s, I’ve become complacent. I haven’t been harassed in, like, forever. One man leering out his truck window, however, and it flooded back. I know this feeling. Every single woman I know, and every woman I don’t, knows this feeling. 

It’s dread, combined with embarrassment, anxiety, fear, anger and helplessness. 

I remember the first time I felt this way. I was 13, it was halloween and I was dressed as a cheerleader. My mom, who taught elementary school during the week and Sunday school on the weekend, put the costume together for me to ensure it wasn’t too scandalous. The skirt was short, but with the tights I wore, she said it was OK. She stitched a letter on my sweater, and bought me pompoms, which I adored. My long brown hair was held up in a high ponytail by a thick red ribbon, and I’m sure that ponytail was swinging back and forth as I walked home from school.

The truck pulled up beside me and there were three young men inside seated together on the bench. I remember exactly where I was. There was no sidewalk on this part of my route. I was walking on an unpaved shoulder with the road on one side and a wooded ravine on the other. I remember thinking that I could turn around and run the other way and that they might not be able to catch up to me if they had to throw the truck in reverse.

My heart still pounds thinking about it, and about what might have happened but didn’t. They commented on my cute costume, laughed, and whistled as they drove away. It was my own fault, I thought. I should have worn pants. I should have waited and walked home with a friend. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I’m an idiot. There was nothing to be afraid of. I should take it as a compliment. At least they weren’t insulting me. Or wait, maybe they were just making fun of me?

My best friend had a similar experience, but the man in the car was alone when he reached out his window with a quarter in his hand and said: “Give me a call when you turn 16.” She turned and fled. She was out of breath when she called me. She lived in a rural area and walked the same path home from the bus each day. There was no shortcut. We both wondered whether she should tell her mom. We both worried that maybe he’d come back. We both decided that she should just take it as a compliment. We were 13.

After a while, you get used to it. You get used to that feeling as you walk past a group of men and they stop talking, mumble to one another and then laugh. You get used to the feeling of people looking at you, leering. We cross streets, we walk in pairs, we look straight ahead and walk really, really fast.

I worked in a department store in my early 20s. If I had a dollar for every man who told me to smile, or who asked what I was up to after work, or who wondered what a pretty girl like me was doing working in a place like this, I wouldn’t have had to take out a student loan.

This is why we have ladies only gyms, and why we pretend to be on the phone when we use public transit. A male relative once observed that women drivers always stare straight ahead at stop lights: “Why is that,” he asked me, sincerely. 

I explained that we stare straight ahead because we can see you looking. If we make eye contact, or smile, you might think we’re interested. Sometimes you follow us. The scenery is not worth the risk.

Eventually, the catcalls stop, though. Eventually, we slow down, take out our earbuds, and remove the keys from between our knuckles. 

So we forget. And we think maybe times have changed. Maybe girls don’t have to put up with street harassment anymore. Maybe men have gotten better. 

And then this happens. I’m a grown ass woman walking in my middle-class suburban neighbourhood on a sunny Monday morning, but to a man in a truck, I was object on display — I was something he felt entitled to comment on.

To be honest, I debated posting this, worried that readers would tell me to be flattered, and to take it as a compliment. Perhaps the trolls would suggest that the driver must have been blind, or that I’m just too sensitive, and that our society is too politically correct, and why can’t women just lighten up and take a joke?

But I’ve been deflecting, walking quickly, making jokes, and saying “thank you,” to unsolicited comments about my body and my appearance my whole life, and it’s made me feel small, and stupid. It guts me to think of girls who are still made to feel this way as they walk home from school, work out, or try to do their jobs, and who are told to “just say thank you.” 

This has never been flattery; it has always been harassment, designed to make us feel small, and remind us that we are here for your pleasure.  

We are not. 

 

 

Posted on by Danna Bach

The day the school burned down

What is it about an elementary school that grabs at our hearts? When you think about it, it’s really just a place where cinderblock meets vinyl floors, and where the walls (not the windows) tell you the season. Autumn leaves are replaced by jack-o-lanterns before the poppies bloom only to be replaced by snowmen (and women).

There are a lot of irritating things about elementary schools. Like parking, and the drop-off zones in which one parent always decides to stop and get out and mess up the whole system; like the lost and found bin that fills up the first week of school and gets progressively smellier over time.

And then there’s our little community school, composed of a maze of interconnected classrooms in which one could easily get turned around. Our school was built in the early 1970s and was trendy back then. An open concept school, it followed the principle that children would learn more effectively in open, creative spaces. They would learn at their own pace, and let their interests lead them. Teachers would work together alongside the students, and would learn from each other. It sure sounded like a great idea, but open = noisy and distracting, and before long the walls went back up, and our little school became super confusing, a maze of interconnected classrooms without hallways.

My old elementary school had high-tech machines that beat up chalkboard erasers. This school has Smart Boards and Chrome Books.

But there is still carpet time; children still sit criss-cross applesauce, hands in their laps. There are still stars on reading charts and cubbies with little shoes in them. There are still swing sets and hockey nets and a little room in the office that you sit in when your tummy aches.

Or at least there was, before it burned to the ground last week.

Driving by the other night on my way to a parent meeting to find out where my children would spend the next two years while their school is rebuilt, I stopped by our school and cried for a bit. Its roof had caved in, and it sat, crooked in the rain, like a hodgepodge of scattered blocks destroyed by an angry toddler.

I didn’t expect the sight would make me cry. Everyone got out safely. Nobody was injured. The building will rise again even better than before.

Everything will be OK.

But everything will be different, and so much has been lost. The fire even took away the smell of crayons, new shoes, old shoes, leftover lunches and library books.

My old school, Fraserview Elementary, still stands. Today if I wanted to, I could wander its perimeter, sit on a swing, or look through the window of what was once Mrs. Taylor’s Grade 3 class.

Today, 36 years after I began kindergarten I can close my eyes and see Mrs. Greenwood’s classroom perfectly, and remember her face as if no time had passed. If I needed to use the bathroom, I’d know exactly where to go, and I can picture the playground perfectly, as though I’d chipped my front tooth on the monkey bars yesterday.

I can smell the glazed donuts on hot lunch day, and I remember faking injury in warm weather so the secretary would give me ice, which I’d eat and enjoy like it was the best dessert I’d ever tasted.

This was where I learned to read, learned to write, and learned all the words to Oh Canada! This was where I danced in front of the whole school to Pump Up The Jam, and when I’m drinking, I can still remember the moves.

So this is why I cried sitting in front of our school and watching it through the windshield wipers. It’s not the building, it’s the memories. It’s the teachers, and the friends. When you’re in it, when you are there, you have no idea that it’s all sinking in, that you’re becoming part of its history and that it is becoming part of your own.

My children will make new memories, but they’ll never forget the day that their school burned down.

***
Parkcrest Elementary in Kamloops, British Columbia, was destroyed by fire on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019. The Parkcrest Parent Advisory Council is actively raising funds to replace many of the teaching materials lost in the fire. Please consider joining us, and help us meet our goal.

Posted on by Danna Bach · 7 Comments

A bottomless pit of parenting guilt

If you asked my kids what they did this summer (as I’m sure their teachers did today), they’d respond with the classic, “nothing,” and further elucidate that it was “fine.”

But let me tell you, their summer has been amazing. Stupendous. Chock full of memories galore.

Funny thing, though, just as we all begin flossing two days before our semi-annual dentist visit, I busted out the home reading books and sight words four days before the start of school.

And I groaned, and mentally chastised myself for letting the book-learning slip. My littlest child, for whom reading has never come easy, struggled through words that had stars behind them when he left his classroom on that final day in June. He grew frustrated and annoyed with my choice of books, and flatly refused to sit still, insisting that he’d read with me, “tomorrow” (which coincides with the day that my diet always starts).

What have my kids done this summer?

They’ve gone swimming more times that I can count. They’ve sailed down water slides, and turned over rocks looking for crabs. They’ve scooped up fistfuls of sand in a quest for clams, and took turns announcing theirs as the biggest, or most beautiful.

They’ve trapped jellyfish in travel mugs just to watch them pulse, and named them before setting them free. They strapped on lifejackets and paddled out into the surf in a kayak, one of them spotting a family of otters along the beach.

They’ve visited with grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles and cousins and even a great grandpa who refused to turn up his hearing aid so he couldn’t hear about great adventures, but warned us loudly (as he always does) to visit more, because he won’t last much longer.

They stayed up way past their bedtimes, and rode bikes and scooters in the neighbourhood with friends. They’ve bobbed around on lakes, and learned how to do backflips into pools. They’ve gone camping; they’ve eaten in restaurants and around fires.

I’ve ensured that they’ve experienced summer, its sunsets, its weird bugs and its skinned knees. They still smell of sunscreen even after they’ve bathed, or maybe they just smell of sunshine?

They’ve been healthy. There have been zero trips to the doctor, or late nights with big bowls. There have been no fevers, coughs, or stuffed noses.

But as the new school dawns I have so much guilt — not for the things we did do, but for the things we didn’t.

When our routine went out the window, so did the homework. Teachers ask us every year to keep up the great work, and to practice over the summer, but we didn’t, and that’s on me.

As is the case with so much of parenting, it’s easier to dwell on the activities that you didn’t do than it is to congratulate yourself for all of the things that you did. Contriving such amazing experiences requires boatloads of effort, and quite a bit of cash. Nightly reading and flossing is cheap by comparison.

But what does dental hygiene have to do with literacy? Guilt.

The guilt kicked in during a visit to the dentist last week where several cavities were detected. It was in this moment of handwringing that I began tallying up all the other ways I’ve failed my sweet children. Flossing. Reading. Probably not enough vegetables. They went to Sunday school with their grandma twice though, so that had to count for something.

How did I let this happen? Was it too many campfire marshmallows, and not enough gargling around the fire? Probably.

While looking into my child’s mouth the dentist saw the thing I didn’t do well enough, not the 999 incredible things I did. When my children head back to school this week, their teachers will sigh and see where I cut corners. They may even imagine my nightly refrain: “That’s OK. You’re tired. We’ll read tomorrow.”

And the guilt makes my tummy hurt.

So, here’s to the start of the new school year, the start of a routine that includes fewer campfires and jellyfish, and more vowels and fractions. Let’s give a cheer to those food groups we’ll welcome back into our lives again, and for the oral health that will once again take centre stage.

Mind you, if you were to ask my children what they did this summer, and they answered, “brush, floss, and practice sight words,” I’d probably get a failing grade also.

There’s no climbing out of this bottomless pit of parenting guilt.