eyelash growth

By Evelyn Jackson December 18, 2011

Turn on Nickelodeon’s “Victorious” and you’ll see the star, Victoria, sparkle and shimmy. She and her male co-singer harmonize, “I will try everything to make you grow closer to me … I want you all to myself … I’ll try 365 days, 365 ways to get to you.”

Tame for teens, and intriguing for many preteens, but not perhaps for an 8-year-old girl who may be mystified by the sexually suggestive moves of Victoria and the male-female lyrical message.

What about the latest Barbie dolls you can see on the Internet — the first 11 pages of the website full of Barbies with blue eyes and blond hair? Barbie is, of course, part of the mainstream culture, and many girls see her as a role model. but what kind of message does Barbie give when your child is half Latino and half Indian?

How do you respond when your 6-year-old son chooses a toy gun as a gift for his friend’s birthday party? Fine if you accept that toy as one that would be fun for the birthday boy, but what if you are a parent who does not think toy guns are appropriate?

Finally, is it OK to give your child permission to celebrate the April herring run if your family is Native American even if that ceremony falls on a Thursday and the teachers will not excuse that as a legal absence?

For the first few years of a child’s life, the TV programs, toys and celebrations experienced at home may not be seen as unusual. the only world your child knows is the one you have created for him. Once a child starts school, however, the culture of the home may not match the cultural norm.

Lisa Delpit, author of “Other People’s Children” (2nd edition, the new Press, 2006), knows it is not easy for a child to realize that the way he has been raised looks peculiar to his friends.

“We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs,” she writes.

What are these clashes and what is the best way to handle them?

Caitlin Hamaty of Eastham has experienced the cultural clash for two years. Her parents, Monica and Rob Hess, feel that Nickelodeon’s “Victoria” is “not a model for their daughter.” Victoria, they say, dresses as if she should be in her 20s and yet she is marketed to tweens.

“At first,” says Caitlin, “when I was 6, I was kind of sad that I couldn’t watch what the other girls watched. They talked a lot about Victoria. One of my friends said she would be Cat from ‘Victorious’ for Halloween. Others talked about what was happening on the show and I said I remembered it when I didn’t really know about it. I was confused. if told them I was not allowed to watch that

program, they would say, ‘Your mom is so

Danielle Carrigo of new Bedford is from Mexico, her husband from India. She is faced with a similar dilemma when she looks at the cultural norms and sees that they do not fit her family. Carrigo is aware that her daughters — now 5 and 7 years old — need guidance when they get blond/blue eyed Barbies as gifts. Her girls are brown-eyed and brown-haired. She does not want them to think that “beauty is only in one color.”

The culture clash may also come when you as a parent choose gifts for other children. your selection sends a message about your values and may make clear that the beliefs in your home do not match the mainstream.

Cindy Horgan is the Family Support Coordinator at Cape Cod Children’s place in Eastham. “Two of my sons had a universal craving to play with guns. When they were little, I stood so strongly against this. They would choose a toy gun for a gift for a friend’s party and say, ‘Mom, this is the present they want.’ I’d answer, ‘I’ll never contribute to anyone’s arsenal.’ then I’d buy something artsy for the birthday boy and my sons thought they would be laughed at for that present.”

Fear of being singled out for a different way of behaving is familiar to many young people. for the Wampanoag of Mashpee, this awareness that they are different extends to their education. according to Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, the disconnect comes when we put the traditions of the tribe against the established educational system. “Our people,” he says, “suffer from a high school graduation rate of only 48 percent.”

Cromwell explains, “We give thanks for everything on the earth, for the four-legged creatures, for the trees, for the resources that are part of the circle of life. Historically the Europeans took away many pieces of who we were. though those things don’t happen today, the school system has to teach our kids in a way they can understand. Native American children are a different kind of learners, for example, they have to see a picture of a bear and talk about what a bear does. if they are just shown the word bear, it does not build as strong a foundation.”

Then too, he says, children learn better from role models they can identify with and who understand the Native American identity.

“Right around April,” Cromwell says, “the earth opens up, bearing her fruit, the herring come out. They are part of our sustenance, part of what kept us alive, and we need to give thanks. In the dominant society, however, educators may say, ‘What the heck are you talking about? the herring is just a fish. go back and read about Paul Revere. Why are you taking a day off from school for a herring ceremony?’”

Carrigo’s job as assistant superintendent of equity, diversity and family in the new Bedford public schools puts her in a position to see a spectrum of cultural clashes and therefore many opportunities for misunderstanding.

For example, she says, “There are some Asian cultures where people will smile when they are apologizing. it may mean ‘I’m happy you are punishing me, correcting me.’ if you haven’t had a chance to educate educators, they may see the child as disrespectful. for children of Latino background some may address the teacher with ‘teacher, teacher, teacher.’ some teachers feel if they were respected they wouldn’t be calling that out, that the child should know my name. but in Spanish, the word is maestro, which is someone who has mastered their subject. it is a very respectful term.”

Horgan sees these colliding value systems on the Cape as well. She says, “In addition to different family designs — same-sex families, grandparent families — there is also a unique economic clash. In some inner cities in the state, for example, everyone is on the same page — poor. In Wellesley, rich. on the Cape we are land-rich and resource-poor. there could be a child from an upper-class, educated family sitting next to a child from a family that is pressured to make ends meet. it is unusual to have both ends of the spectrum here — wealth and poverty side by side. we can see this clash when children open their lunchboxes. for example, one child might have a lunch of dipped cheese, another with cut roast beef from the deli department. Clothes also tell the difference. One child has $150 sneakers, the one next to him, sneakers from Kmart. by middle school, children begin to notice.”

For both families and cultures with different belief systems and for those in the mainstream culture, knowing about these differences is key to softening misunderstandings. for those children who might think Caitlin’s mom is “mean” because of the TV choices she makes for her child, perhaps when they are older, they will understand the thinking behind her prohibitions.

Until that happens, it is the role of the parents to educate the child — to keep firm to their beliefs.

“When Caitlin was in preschool,” says Monica Hess, “some of her classmates were having ‘Hannah Montana’ birthday parties. At 4 years old, they wanted to dress like her. there were ‘Hannah Montana’ party hats, paper plates.

“The fact that the plates and hats exist shows that the ‘Hannah Montana’ company is marketing its product toward a younger age. At 13, girls would not be having a themed party.

“Sometimes it is frustrating to me because I am making a lot of unpopular decisions,” Hess says. “Maybe I’m the odd parent out. but then I think again and say, no, this is what I believe. I know I’m making unpopular decisions, but I believe in them. Being a parent is not a popularity contest. It’s not about giving into peer pressure and seeing what others do and saying so I should, too. my children totally accept these rules.”

Caitlin gives evidence that her mom is right.

“If I watched those programs I’d keep talking about it,” she says. “I’d probably not want to stop and I’d turn into a couch potato.”

Caitlin’s little sister, Keira, is 14 months old. what rules would Caitlin make for her if it were up to her?

“I’d say she should watch the shows I used to watch at her age, like ‘SpongeBob’ and Elmo and not inappropriate shows. I don’t want those shows to get stuck in her head.”

Like Hess, Carrigo holds firm to her beliefs for her own children. She explains, “In this house, we do it this way, in that house, that way. we have conversations and they are not always easy, but we try to get them to a level that they understand. if they get a gift like a Barbie doll, I don’t take it away, but we do talk about how the dolls they have are just as beautiful.”

Some cultural clashes can be eased through compromise. Remember Cindy Horgan’s opposition to buying toy guns for a birthday gift? recently her family bought a vacation place in Vermont on 10 acres. there, Horgan said, “we have a neighbor who hunts. he invited our sons to go skeet shooting with him. he told us that one of our sons was very good and had an eye for it. I had to re-evaluate my opposition. I moved from the no-guns position to the perspective of guns used responsibly. I realized that with my first stance, I was not teaching: I was controlling.” the Horgan family saw what was positive in a toy they had previously opposed.

Through her position with the new Bedford school system, Carrigo has suggestions to further cultural understanding when the dominant culture that the schools represent educates children from a different background. .

“It is always helpful if families can go to school and explain their differences just as they can go to school and say, ‘My child has peanut allergies, or can’t eat wheat,’” Horgan says. “They could say, ‘My

child speaks a different language at home, or we celebrate this religion during this time, or my child will be dressed in a different way, or my child

will not be eating lunch this month.’

“In a perfect world, schools would begin with this knowledge,” she says, “but we are not there yet. This way, schools can at least be prepared.”

Cromwell sees that having the dominant culture understand the American Indian traditions is in part financial. In his view, under No Child Left Behind, more Title 7 funding should have been put into school to enable students to succeed. “In Mashpee” he points out, “only $40,000 of Title 7 dollars have been allotted to pay for tutoring, educational advocacy, recruiting high-quality teachers and principals, and for the development of a curriculum designed to meet the learning style of our tribal students in the public schools.” it has not been enough, he says, in light of the low high school graduation rate.

Cromwell hopes that if the school better understands the customs and traditions of the Native Americans, that understanding will boost the students’ confidence, and it will help to overcome all the years that the tribe has felt disrespected. Once that happens, the Wampanoag will prosper and be competitive; they can collaborate so that both sides will benefit. Or as Cromwell puts it metaphorically, “We can walk with one foot in the moccasin and one foot in the shoe.”

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<a href="http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111218/LIFE/112180301/-1/newstag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111218/LIFE/112180301/-1/newsSun, 18 Dec 2011 07:31:05 GMT”>When worlds collide