Teens as International Citizens

My daughter Hattie left yesterday for a six week language exchange program in Morocco. As mentioned previously, the whole experience is courtesy of a full scholarship through The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) , a program sponsored by the U.S State Department.  Her group of about 15 students spend their first 2 days in New York for a pre-departure orientation at Columbia University, then they'll fly to Morocco where they will each live with an assigned host family for the 6 weeks and study Arabic at the  Qalam Wa Lawh Center for Arabic Studies for several hours every day. This is an awesome opportunity for any high school student interested in studying less commonly taught languages abroad. Hattie will be blogging about her adventures in North Africa at Hattie's Moroccan Summer. 

Her friends gave her a little surprise send-off party at the airport...

On Celebrities Experimenting With Poverty for a Day #BelowTheLine

The latest anti-poverty campaign Live Below The Line challenges people to live below the poverty line for 5 days... or $1.50 a day for food. The goal of the campaign is to help us all better understand how 1.4 billion people in the world live their lives every single day - in profound and extreme poverty. This is a great campaign, and as an ardent foe of wealth inequality, I wholeheartedly support it. What I don't support is excessively wealthy celebrities throwing their public participation behind the campaign. It's offensive, and based on some of the comments floating around the interweb, it offends a whole lot of regular folks.
Some of the celebrity names attaching themselves to this campaign include Ben Affleck, Hugh Jackman, Sophia Bush, Nick Lachey and Josh Groban. Some of them even got a shout-out in a Huffpost article for committing to live on $1.50 for a day. I have to confess I had never heard of Sophia Bush... I thought maybe she was one of George Bush's daughters.

A quick review of the website http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ assesses the net worth of the aforementioned celebrities to be the  following:
Sophia Bush: $6 million
Nick Lachey: $20 million
Josh Groban: $30 million
Ben Affleck & Hugh Jackman: a whopping $65 million each

I like Ben Affleck, and I like his movies, and I applaud his social conscience. But Ben Affleck needs to let go of the idea that he's still just like the the rest of us, an average homeboy from Boston. Those days ended long ago, right after he made his first couple million. Exceedingly wealthy celebrities can better show their support for the Live Below The Line campaign by making substantial donations of their extreme wealth to organizations that can distribute the resources to those living in extreme poverty. Just please stop trying to impress us by making a personal "sacrifice" to live on $1.50 a day. It's offensive, and we all know the kind of privileges you really enjoy.

Moving Through Fear ...of Boston & the World

My daughter Hattie returned from a 2 week French exchange trip yesterday. It was a thrilling and eye-opening experience for her, which was sadly punctuated the 2nd week by frightening news of bombings and manhunts happening back in Boston. We had a couple of skype sessions with her tearful over the violence, and fearful of flying back into Boston. I did my best to reassure her, and the events in Boston thankfully resolved just hours before her group returned.
All of this reminded me, again, of how lucky she is to have been too young to understand 9/11. She was five years old in 2001, and small enough that I could shield her from seeing or hearing about the horror. Those days are over.
As much as my instinct as a parent is to continue to shield her from hearing about and seeing bad things, I know that's no longer an option. Now my role is, if I'm lucky, to help her process frightening events in the world, maybe even in her own backyard, and keep them in perspective. Hattie is young and determined to live her life and experience the world, and I'm just as determined to keep her path clear so she can continue to move forward and achieve her goals - and do it without fear.
Stay strong Boston.

Kids Deserve #EqualAccess to Global Travel

As I mentioned in my last post, my kid is currently in France on a 2 week exchange trip through her high school. The only reason she's on this trip is because she worked her butt off earning the money to participate. The international travel opportunities that high schools offer to students are not free, or paid for by the schools. If students want to go on these trips - they, or their parents, have to come up with big bucks to send them. Since I'm not one of those parents, my daughter Hattie had to work and earn a minimum of $2000 last summer in order to go on the school trip to France.
Most of the kids who typically take advantage of these school trips are the ones who come from economically advantaged families -  families that can more easily pony up several thousand dollars to send their kid on a trip to Europe. And frankly, that stinks... and I've let the school know I think it stinks.
The rest of the students stay home. A lot of kids who work while in high school are holding down jobs to help their families out. They're not putting money aside for school trips, their helping their families pay bills, buy food and keep a roof over their heads( if they're lucky enough to have a roof), or just trying to put something aside to help offset the daunting costs of college.
It's infuriating to see multiple high school trips promoted every year with no consideration for making travel accessible to ALL students. If your kid's school is offering these trips, ask the school administrators what they're doing to provide equal access to global travel opportunities for all the students. If they're doing nothing, DEMAND that they make it a priority. All kids deserve the opportunity to be global citizens.

Bon Voyage Ma Fille

Hattie discovered in middle school that she really loves studying languages. So today I said goodbye to her as she boarded a bus with other kids from her school, and a few teachers, for a 2 week exchange program in France. She'll be staying with a French student host and her family in the city of Nantes, attending school with her, and generally doing things tourists do in France. Hattie worked her butt off last summer to earn the money to go on this trip. Since she's a working jazz musician/vocalist, she was fortunate to be able to book plenty of gigs during the summer- and also had a day job as a camp counselor. The trip cost her about $2000, but the hard work paid off and she was able to earn enough to make it happen.

Hattie, as it turns out, will also be turning 17 next week while she's in France. I was a little sad when I first realized that she wouldn't be home for her birthday - but it hit me a whole lot harder as I drove away after they boarded the bus for the airport. I'm trying not to dwell too much on the fact that this will be the first birthday in Hattie's lifetime that we haven't spent together. Gulp. 

I'm trying to focus on how cool it will be that she'll always remember turning 17 in France. Most of our birthdays are forgotten blurs, this'll be one for the records. Still, as I said in my last post - independence really is a bitch sometimes. Joyeux anniversaire kid, we'll celebrate via skype.

Independence is a Bitch

My 16 year old daughter Hattie (soon to be 17) is leaving for Morocco in June to study Arabic and live with a Moroccan host family for seven weeks. All of this is courtesy of NSLI-Y, a government language initiative for youth that provides full scholarships to high school students to study less commonly taught languages abroad. The idea behind these programs is to prepare youth to be leaders in a global world, and promote international dialogue. Hattie is all for this and she can't wait to go to Morocco, immerse herself in the culture, learn Arabic... and hopefully ride a camel while she's there. And did I mention it's a full scholarship? IT'S FREE!
I've discovered, however, that adults are not so excited when they hear about Hattie's impending trip. They tend to respond to the news with expressions of wide-eyed horror ... followed up by a deeply concerned look, and the question, "How are YOU doing with her upcoming plans?" 
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about her being so far away, on a distant continent with strangers... for seven weeks. But the program does have lots of supervision, it's government sponsored and they seem to have all the bases covered for insuring the safety and well-being of the kids who participate.
I mostly look at this as a practice run for my looming empty nest when she goes off to college in a year and a half. Since our nest is just the two of us, it's going to feel more like a huge empty chasm when she goes. But hey, I started preparing myself for the empty nest on the day she was born.  I think I'm ok with this.
Hattie wants to be a citizen of the world, and who am I to hold her back. I just hope the camel doesn't spit at her.

Brilliance and Wealth Not Required

I generally operate as if I'm in a low level state of war, or maybe a minor border skirmish with the 1%. Kids from extreme privilege can have their profiles raised effortlessly when a parent simply writes a big fat check to buy access to select programs, cultural enrichment activities, private lessons, private tutors, travel opportunities, and ultimately, the college of their choice.
Not so for the rest of us. I'm always exploring how the other 99% of kids without the economic advantages can  raise their profile to receive recognition and rewards? We, and our kids, have to work a whole lot harder at finding access to opportunities. And we have to start early. If you wait until your kid's in high school, you may have lost valuable time. Kids don't need to be intellectual giants, or even especially talented. What they need to be is motivated, passionate and innovative enough to stand out. Those are qualities that can actually be taught and nurtured. It doesn't matter what they're passionate about, as long as they are able to envision that passion as a means to a bigger end. Something that could ultimately earn them a recognition award, a scholarship, a trip, a contract ... a job. It is never too soon to start talking to your kid about their passions, to help them uncover what they love and then help them transform that into something that will raise their profile in the world.