Born a Rockefeller
My oldest daughter is a certified registered nurse anesthetist, a former NICU nurse, a business owner helping people with medication resistant depression, the mother of two and has been happily married for 18 years. She is a success by every definition of the word. She figured out her own education to include its financing and her housing situation all on her own after graduating from high school early. She has regularly been involved on lobbying the state legislature on health care issues. For fun, she raises laying hens, gardens and still has time to keep up with the rest of our family. She is amazing.
I was looking through some of my old writing recently and I found this character sketch I wrote about her when she was in middle school. She was a high energy kiddo, to say the least. She always knew what she wanted and was very determined to get it. Her determination and drive were evidenced early. I know now why she's been such a winner. At the time though, it was a little overwhelming. Read on.
From 1997
In an unnamed middle school somewhere in Southeastern North Carolina, a teacher asks students to raise money to refurbish dog pounds in Cuba which have been closed since the revolution of 1959. My Anna immediately raises her hand, "Can we bring in some pet treats too? My dog really likes People Crackers! Maybe we can get our pets to write letters to the little Cuban puppies. We can mail them to the embassy in Washington and get the pets of diplomats to do the translating for us. How much extra credit will we get? Can we send email to Cuba? Is there some way we can incorporate buying candy into this project. I know. We can get our parents to buy the candy. We get to eat half of the candy and we'll send the rest to the people who work at the dog pounds."
In the last week Anna has required the following items for school: feta cheese, a tri-fold cardboard science fair backing, a check for $13, an article from the internet about water purification, cinnamon candy hearts, valentines, a check for five dollars, a new PE uniform, an article from the internet about Paris, two bags of potato chips, and miscellaneous cash amounts for pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, etc.
This is a typical week.
In the same period, her brother, who attends the same school has required only lunch money.
Yesterday afternoon, in the brief interim between my day job and a three hour tutoring appointment I had lined up, Anna approached me with the news that her band would be traveling to Busch Gardens and Carowinds, NEXT YEAR, and how much of the $198 would I pay and could she start a savings account to put her part into and did I have time to print a border for her science fair project and could she type her homework on my computer because she would get extra credit if it was typed and did I know that her sister wore clothes that didn't match to school AGAIN which she better not do in two years when she goes to the middle school because it would be SO embarrassing and her brother had two bowls of Fruit Loops in the morning instead of the one bowl limit and what could she have for a snack and could she stay up late to watch a show on PBS please because she could get extra credit for doing so...
Back to 2024
Yeah, it was overwhelming sometimes. I must interject that she loved her sister and her brother and wasn't really a snitch. She would have gladly dressed her sister if only she'd only been amenable to it, instead of having, like, her own taste and preferences. As for her brother's cereal habits. What Anna didn't disclose was that she ate the exact same amount of cereal he did, only she ate it from a mixing bowl so as to meet the requirements for only having one bowl.
I miss those days now. They were challenging at the time and I didn't half know what i was doing as a parent, but who does? All the kids survived into adulthood and I survived them.
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