Bangles from India

A good friend of mine recently went to India for a wedding. She's gotten me several great pairs of earrings over the years on her trips to India, and when someone compliments them I say, "Oh thanks, my friend got them for me in India." And I always feel quite pleased with myself for having a friend who travels to India, me, who used to live on a dirt road not far from the county line.

So I got a package in the mail the other day, and in it were several dozen tiny girl sized bangle bracelets. Hot pink ones, sparkly jeweled ones – as soon as I opened the package, I squealed and told N, "OMG, she got bracelets in India for Turtle and Monkey!" The girls were thrilled to put them on and show them off to us, and take them off. And put them on. And take them off. Suffice it to say, they love them.

I continue to marvel at what will be "normal" to my girls. "Hey, where'd you get those cool bracelets Turtle?" some girl in kindergarten will ask one day. "Oh, my Auntie S. got them for me in India." What? I didn't know anyone who'd been anywhere until I got to college, and almost everyone I knew before then was either Caucasian or Mexican. But Turtle and Monkey have "aunties" from a wide variety of backgrounds, living all over the country, who have traveled all over the world. They will grow up with parents whose friends and acquaintances are business owners, lawyers, elected officials, and other professionals, and where a picture of mom with Secretary of State Clinton sits on the book shelf.

I can't conceive what it would be like growing up with a photo of one of my parents shaking hands with a national politician, and being part of a community where that’s not really all that remarkable. How does that impact a child's thinking about the kind of life that is possible for her? What kinds of things, for better or worse, will she take for granted in her life? Will she take advantage of the vast opportunities that lie at her feet? How do I teach each of my daughters to appreciate their abundant good fortune, when that good fortune will seem no more unusual to them than the oxygen they breathe?

These questions swirl around my brain with no answer, because I have no idea. Maybe these things will have no impact on either girl’s drive, because that drive is already set. Some of my earliest childhood memories are feelings of dissatisfaction with my station in life, and I’ve worked feverishly since adolescence to create more opportunities for myself. I’m starting to believe I was born with that trait because I see it in Monkey – that sense of absolute entitlement to everything in the world, and dissatisfaction with the status quo. Turtle doesn’t seem to have those sentiments, and it’s been that way since they first started to show their personalities. Or maybe they’ll become well-adjusted, productive adults simply because that is what we expect from them, and all of this analyzing is just more useless obsessing on my part.

It's something I'll keep thinking about, though, because that’s how I am. But for now, I'm trying to just relax and let my girls enjoy the sparklies Auntie S. brought them from India.