Just Say Yes

A mother and her daughter came through my line the other day. The mom was blonde, the daughter, brunette. Both, freckled. The daughter carried a brightness, an openness. Her eyes met mine with a smile. She seemed happy. The mother, conversely, held herself in a posture that closed her off from the world and avoided my gaze. I asked how they were doing. The girl shook her head and said, "Not very good."

"Why? What's up?"

"I got kicked out of school today."

The mysteries of my outward manifestations never cease to amaze me. Maybe it's because I fully embrace the first rule of improvisation in my life. As often as I am able, I say "yes" to the circumstances around me. Or I take a verbal cue and run with it to the affirmative. I can think of no other reason why in a moment when this 13 year-old girl confessed to me that she'd just been kicked out of school, I threw my head back, raised my arms over my head with fists clenched in a power-to-the-people victory stance and exclaimed, "Yes! Fantastic! Way to go!"

The girl was surprised and delighted by my reaction. The mother seemed to be just as confused as I was by this unexpected outburst. Her face grew red, her eyes teary. At this point I realized that I was treading dangerous water and needed to smooth over my initial celebratory moment with diplomacy. I'm about as diplomatic as a bulldozer. But this was my challenge.

I began, "This is a great opportunity for you! You can take this time and explore things you are really interested in. Maybe you can home school for a while!"

The girl said, "It's just my mom is really upset."

I look at the mom, who continued to avoid eye contact. Her eyes were fully filled with tears. Her breathing seemed erratic. She fought to maintain composure but she was falling apart.

"Why? What's so terrible?"

The girl tells me, "It was a private school." I struggle to make sense of this statement when she offers what she believes to be a clarifying point: "A Quaker school."

"Oh, the Friends' School?" The girl nods. I understand a bit more. The Friends' School is the cool school in certain circles. It is the place to send kids if you want them to learn a particular agenda in a very non-agenda way. Not to say the Friends' agenda is bad. Compared to other agendas being shoved down kids' throats, the Friends' agenda is pretty useful and positive. But it is an agenda nonetheless.

If you send your kid to the Friends' school, it suggests you have attained a certain degree of enlightenment. You are better than certain members of society who wish to destroy the Earth and all the people in it for a fast buck. There is an awareness that this school kicks ass and you are doing the right thing by sending your kid there.

So here is a mom whose lovely daughter managed to do something so appalling, even the ever-loving Friends kicked her out of their school. The mother must be beside herself with shame.

I return to my efforts to smooth things over. "Ok, so it was the Friends' school. Big deal. You have an opportunity to do something entirely new and amazing now!"

The girl looked at her mother, who had begun to heave with sobs that she could not quite let out of her system, and attempted to comfort her. "See? It's ok, mom. Everything's going to be ok."

At this point, the mother spoke out of the corner of her mouth to her daughter for my benefit: "I just don't want you to make bad choices. I just don't want you falling in with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble."

The girl looked at me, the default mediator, for help. I was stunned by the words coming out of the mother's mouth. I wanted to say, "Can you see your daughter? Can you see how lovely and amazing she is? How smart and socially adept? Can you not see that these are good things?" Instead, I reeled with the incomprehension that parents still say things like this and proceeded to offer some element of help.

Again, my improvisational nature led me to make remarks that could have worsened the situation. I directed my gaze firmly at the mother. I addressed her as I said, "You know, I have to tell you something. I mess around with Native American totem animals and their teachings a bit." Miraculously, the mother raised her head, looked at me, and spoke. "I do, too."

"So are you aware of Rabbit's teaching?"

She nodded. "Fear."

"That's right. Rabbit tells us that we call our fears to ourselves."

She nodded, snuffling. "Rabbit is one of my totems."

"There you go! You now have a great opportunity to really listen to the teachings of Rabbit - to really explore them and apply them to your life."

The girl continued to stroke her mother in an attempt to calm her. The mother nodded. "Yes. It's an opportunity," she said through stifled sobs. I felt an overwhelming urge to hug her but recognized that she would not be receptive to such an act. So I extended my arm and put my hand on her shoulder and said, "It'll be alright."

After the fact, I reflected on the relative appropriateness of my behavior. I have no idea whether I made the situation better or worse for the girl and her mother. And it occured to me that my commentary was completely unprofessional - if such a thing as professional commentary exists among cashiers. But this is the sort of behavior that usually propels a customer to write a negative comment about me which is then dropped into the customer comment box for the managers to read aloud at their weekly managers' meeting. I wondered whether I would be reprimanded at some point in the future for momentarily celebrating - and permitting this young girl to celebrate - a perceived freedom from some form of oppression.

Sometimes I wish I could rescue all children from parents who are too busy pushing their own agendas to really see their children, to really hear them. But then I realize that I wasn't able to really see and really hear my children all the time. Hard as I tried, I still had an agenda to push.