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Heroes Don’t Always Wear Capes
“Meeting Vandra Zandinski”
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“What do you know about children, Ms. …Zaniski, is it?”
After slaughtering my name, she never gets it right, I want to stop the interview right here and ask her exactly why it is that people who are trying to adopt children must be subjected to these impossible inquisitions. Why must I be made to explain away my life, when the fifteen-year-old at the end of my street is raising her baby and getting financial support to do so? Did anyone ask her what she knows about mothering?
This is my first face-to-face interview with Barbara Sanders. She is a cold woman who speaks in an affected, upstate New England accent. Her cropped auburn hair sets off her does eyes and swan-like neck. She reminds me of a ballet matron interviewing me for an apprenticeship.
In our prior telephone conversations, that run more like ask-and-answer sessions on C-SPAN, I have been asked to chisel away the meanings behind any philosophy I have ever ascribed to, any bumper sticker I have ever brandished, and state, with certainty, the political votes I have cast in every election since I turned eighteen. Did I vote in every election? What makes me a model citizen?
I have filled out paperwork, reams and reams of paperwork, about my health, physical and mental, and degenerative illnesses that run in my family. How can I answer what I do not know? When I was growing up, I only received a little piece of paper that stated the romanticized version of how I was conceived, and that my biological mother wanted a better life for me; one that, as a college student studying art, she could not provide herself.
I have listed hundreds of references that even top-level security government officials aren’t required to provide. I must show without a doubt that I will be able to raise a child in this changing world of moral values and new dangers and general apathy; that my superb sensibilities will propel this youngster into a stratosphere that leaves all other children being raised by equally good and decent, and loving and caring, parents behind.
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“Ms. Zaniski? If you could answer the question. What do you know about children that will make you fit to be a mother?” Her pen in hand stands at attention, ready to take down my answer in shorthand. How can she possibly write down everything I have to say about what I know of raising children?
I remember all of those times where I relied on the help of an adult to get me through some really difficult experiences. I know I can be an effective adult role model to any child because of the compassion someone else showed me. But this answer is too clipped. I need this woman to really know that I have learned some pretty big lessons in life and, if I can pass them along to my child, she will become a stellar individual.
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I swallow. I breathe deeply. And I begin in the sweetest, most poised, yet confident, manner I know. “Mrs. Sanders, it’s Zandinski, not Zaniski. Don’t worry, lots of people have trouble with it. I tell them, ‘That’s okay. It’s one of those names you’ll either never forget or never get right.’” I am trying to lighten the tension in here. “If it’s easier, please just call me Vandra.”
“Very well, Vandra. What do you know about children?”
“Well, aside from the fact that I was one, I remember vividly many pivotal experiences that shaped who I became. I remember the loneliness that children feel sometimes when things aren’t going right at home. I remember the thrill that children get when their dad comes home early from work to take them looking for salamanders in the rain. I remember the hopefulness that maybe this will be the day that there are freshly baked cookies waiting for me.
“I remember adults who were kind to me, and not so kind to me, and I vowed that I would never forget these lessons as I became a grownup. I have the richness of a dozen or so strong role models etched in my heart.
“What I know about children is that they want to be loved, and they want to have boundaries. They are not looking for material items to make them happy. They are looking for recognition of their achievements.
“And nothing makes a child feel more special than knowing some adult who saw a little spark of potential there went out of their way to help hone that into a talent.”
“I would like to know some specific details about particular lessons you say you have learned. How will these make your children better able to handle life’s difficulties? Can you please tell me about the people who, as you say, impacted you in your youth?”
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So I start from the beginning.
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