KQED Perspectives

(February 10, 2000)

A few months ago my high school freshman and I went shopping for shoes for the Homecoming dance. “These would be perfect, Mom,” Jennifer gushed, picking up a pair of strappy silver sandals perched atop three-inch platforms.

“You’re crazy,” I said. “They’ll kill your feet, and you’ll be lucky not to fall off and break your ankle.” I knew this, of course, because twenty years ago I suffered through my cousin’s wedding wearing an almost identical pair of platforms. Why in the world were they back in style again? Would anyone who wore them once ever purchase another pair?

Well, the answer to that last question is yes, if it’s for her daughter’s first formal. I gave in. I’m pleased to report that Jennifer did not break any bones, but her feet started to hurt in the school parking lot. Memo to self: save those shoes as a warning for the next generation.

My three daughters are coming of age at the beginning of the twenty-first century — not yet the world portrayed in the Jetsons cartoons, but one that is more high-tech every year. Still, fashions will continue to be recycled in this third millennium, and teenagers will find new ways to make their parents shake their heads and say, “I can’t believe you’re wearing that.” I froze my knees and thighs below my mini-skirts as I walked to my Connecticut high school. This winter Jennifer and her 12-year-old sister, Allison, go off to school in midriff-baring tank tops. (When did bra straps become a fashion statement?) Their 9-year-old sister, Molly, wears bell-bottomed jeans with flowered embroidery. I had a pair of those, too — in high school. “What clothes will our kids be wearing?” wondered Allison out loud the other evening.

I smiled, imagining a day when rap and hip-hop are played on the World Wide Web oldies station and my children’s children sit in front of computer screens wearing virtual tank tops and mini-skirts. In that scene, platform shoes are definitely not in the picture.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(November 1, 1999)

Five years ago, my husband came home with a . . . Suburban. Yes, one of those mega-ton vehicles that occupies more than half a neighborhood street. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it in our driveway (it takes up more than half of that, too). “Oh, my gosh, it’s a, a, (looking at the writing on the back) a TRUCK! What in the world do you need a truck for?”

“So we won’t have to take two cars when we drive to Tahoe,” he explained.

“But sweetie, we could rent a big car once a year.”

Bill’s was only the third Suburban in our part of town, but soon there were more. Many more. As I witnessed the SUV explosion in the Bay Area I concluded that they are, in a phrase, socially irresponsible vehicles (call ’em SIV’s). They gobble gas. They pollute. And when the articles began to appear about the dangers they pose to cars in collisions, I exploded, too: “That doesn’t even count the number of times they cause wrecks because they always seem to be next to you when you want to change lanes or in the parking lot when you pull out, and their tall, tinted windows make it impossible to see around them.”

“So how do you really feel?” Bill asked.

I drove the monster for two days recently while my car was in for service. How embarrassing! I kept running over curbs and wasting time looking for places to park. Heaven forbid I park next to a car. It’s bad enough to share a driveway with a Suburban. I found it nearly impossible to drive one safely and responsibly.

I had hopes that the popularity of the new Volkswagen Beetle would signal a sea change in car size preference. No such luck. I shudder when I contemplate the fall debut of Ford’s Excursion, which the Sierra Club calls the “Ford Valdez.”

What can those of us who drive at ground level do to stop this insanity? I suggest guilt. A campaign with the slogan “Friends don’t let friends buy tanks.” Spouses, too, need to do their part. I may tease Bill about the vehicle he still adores, but he knows I’m serious as well. This will be the last SUV to call our house home, because seriously, SUV’s are a 90’s excess that should come to a screeching halt in the two-thousands.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(June 2, 1999)

Attention, parents of teenagers: I want you to read aloud to your child this summer. That’s right, read to your 14, 16, or even 18-year-old. Today’s teens were born before “twenty minutes a day” of reading became a mantra for parents of young children. Neurological research tells us that babies’ brains develop better when little ones are read to. Teenagers’ brains are also developing; exposure to rich language and intriguing stories helps them mentally and spiritually.

Everyone enjoys hearing a good story. But what to read? Anything. Pick out a book you liked as a teenager. Ask a librarian or bookstore staffer for a recommendation. Read a best seller. Read poetry. Read a play. When Robert Pinsky was named Poet laureate, he confessed that he still read aloud to his adult daughters. Begin tonight. Don’t ask questions. Just read.

Children are robbed of the joy of reading when they are only reading books for school — for homework, to meet a requirement, to please someone else. Even children who already read for fun deserve to be read to. It’s a wonderful way for teens and parents to connect. No one can stay mad for long when they’re enjoying a book together. If it’s an especially entertaining story, teenagers will often grab the book to finish on their own. That happened in my household the last two summers when I read Philip Pullman’s fantasy/science fiction thrillers, “The Golden Compass” and “The Subtle Knife,” with my older daughters. At the end of this school year I read J.K. Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter books aloud to my nine-year-old, and on many nights her 14-year-old sister migrated from the homework table to the edge of the couch. “Don’t stop reading NOW!” they cried at the end of an exciting chapter.

“But you have to get up early tomorrow for school,” I replied. Well, now that it’s summer we’ll have the luxury of reading “just one more chapter” many times over. Reading aloud is indeed a luxury, and also a simple, inexpensive gift every parent should bestow upon a child — and teenager.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(March 19, 1999)

I cringe every time I hear news stories about “the homeless,” and not just because I wish I could wave the magic wand that would provide a warm and comfortable home for every person who wants one. No, what I’m talking about is the expression “the homeless.” Also “the poor” or “the needy.” In my mind I always complete these incomplete phrases with the word “people,” because it’s homeless people we’re talking about, not homeless dogs or rats or canaries. They are men, women and children. Families. They have faces and names, probably living relatives, most likely dreams and goals — even if it’s only for a warm bed and a good meal. “Homeless” or “poor” or “hungry” describes their situation in life, it’s not who they are.

I can’t help thinking that when we leave off the word “people” when referring to persons who don’t have a home, we are allowing ourselves to ignore — at least partially-the problems these people face every day, of finding shelter or food or help for their physical or mental well-being. Make them nameless and they won’t be as much of a burden. Maybe someone or something else — “the government,” “the church,” “the rich” — will help “the poor” until they don’t need any more help.

But of course that won’t happen. Each of us as individuals must do our part to help in whatever way we can and feel is appropriate, whether it be donating time, money, or “things” that are of more use to others than they are to us. As parents we need to teach our children not to ignore poverty, but to work to eliminate helplessness and despair.

Words are important — and powerful tools. Adding the word “people” when we talk about persons who are homeless or poor or hungry is a simple, subtle change to our way of speaking. Yet it also might lead to a more humane way of thinking about homelessness and poverty as we move into the twenty-first century.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(January 14, 1999)

The afternoon Governor Davis gave his inaugural address challenging California students “to raise their sights and lift their performance,” I was in the homework trenches with my three California students — third grade, sixth grade, eighth grade. And it wasn’t a happy scene.

I am a product of California public schools during the so-called Golden era of the 1960’s. Yet when I was in junior high, I had time to read novels, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, even watch TV, as well as complete my homework on my way to college at Stanford. My daughters have no such free time. The handbook from their middle school states that the average time spent each day on homework in seventh and eighth grade should be one to two hours — total. But since my eldest began seventh grade, she can count on a minimum of an hour of math plus an hour of Spanish homework every day. Those two hours, as well as the daily work required for English, science, and social studies do not add up to only one to two hours of homework, no matter what kind of math you use. I hear it gets worse in high school.

Even more alarming is how much these students are expected to learn on their own. My husband and I spend hours each evening tutoring our daughters. My friends do the same. Yet what about the students whose parents or guardians aren’t able or willing to help them? I worry about the education they are missing out on.

Governor Davis, if you and the state legislature are serious about restoring California’s schools to greatness, you should lengthen the school day and add a few weeks to the school year. Kids need more time to learn in school so that their outside time can be freer — for sports, theater, music, being a kid. Maybe even reflecting on what they learned that day. And while I know there would be objections to this idea from state teachers unions, I beg of individual teachers to consider the alternative, of having their students sink further behind the rest of the country.

I cheered when I heard about the governor’s intention to weed out bad teachers. It is long overdue. Inferior teachers should not be allowed to continue in the classroom and expect parents to do the teaching for them.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(June 23, 1998)

The news from the American Association of University Women that single-sex education is no better for girls than coeducation caused quite a stir among parents this spring. Since 1992 we had been relying on an earlier AAUW report that said girls were shortchanged by coed schools, especially in math and science. We also knew of Mary Pipher’s “Reviving Ophelia” and Peggy Ornstein’s “School Girls,” best sellers about the loss of self-esteem many girls face in adolescence. All of this evidence had caused even life-long public school advocates, including me, to consider girls’ schools for our daughters.

I remember well the pain and conflicts of adolescence. In seventh grade I told my mother, “The boys wouldn’t like me if I ran for student body president.” That didn’t keep me from doing well academically, though Chemistry was a struggle. I wasn’t discouraged from technology — my father even thought I’d make a terrific mathematician. I just preferred arts to sciences.

So it came as no shock when my first daughter, now in seventh grade herself, was especially verbal. She talked earlier than most boys, and when she learned to read, that was a snap, too. Her father and I helped her with her “math facts” (as they are called) in elementary school, but she would rather have been reading or on the stage. When the time came to consider applying to an all-girl school for sixth grade, she would have nothing of it. I told her I expected her to show the same assertiveness to her teachers and the boys in her classes. Indeed she has.

Her two younger sisters have a knack for math. Still, my current fifth grader did not want to apply to a traditional girls’ school or to the new, technology-oriented middle school for girls. I didn’t push, but part of me still worried, are we doing what’s best for her?

I think so. Parents should be aware of educational research, but they shouldn’t let so-called expert opinion — fluid as it is — outweigh parental instinct about individual children. We should also consider the societal implications of abandoning public schools, where most girls — and boys — are educated. Better, insist on gender-fair instruction and equal access in all subjects: math, science, and even English and drama.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(December 24, 1997)

It’s the end of Christmas card season, and my annual frustration about the way many of the envelopes are addressed to our household. (For the record, my name is Deborah A. Duncan. Debbie Duncan, for short. I am married to William E., or Bill Stone.) Cards come to:

Mr. and Mrs. William E. Stone
The Stone family
The Stones
or, the one that really gets to me: The William Stones. Sorry, but only one William Stone resides here. (Bill’s uncle and namesake is six feet under in Peoria.)

I am not a Stone any more than Bill is a Duncan. I like the name Debbie Duncan, and chose to keep it — legally, professionally, socially, totally when Bill and I married sixteen years ago. “But what about the kids?” (We have three.) They have their father’s last name with mine in the middle. They go by all three names, except that the school district’s computer is unable to handle a complete middle name. I complain that if Martin Luther King were registered in Palo Alto, he would show up as Martin L. King, and his teachers would call him Martin King. Our oldest has decided to hyphenate.

More than two decades after Ms. came into the lexicon, confusion reigns, even though lots of moms have different last names than their children — nine out of twenty in my second-grader’s class, for example. Yet some people still fail to recognize us. Or they get the last name right, but use “Mrs.” My mother is Mrs. Duncan! I hold out hope that by the time my daughters are adults, it will finally be fully acceptable to be Ms. Yourself instead of Mrs. Somebody Else.

Before next holiday season, please consider the Debbie Duncan guide for addressing families with different surnames:

Ms. Deborah A. Duncan
Mr. William E. Stone (formal)
Debbie Duncan and Bill Stone (informal)
The Duncan & Stone family (not much harder to write than The Stones)

Don’t write off those women who have chosen not to change their names. Continue to write to us, but please address us properly.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.