I sat mesmerised, staring at the television screen. Erin from The Waltons was positioned on a swivel stool, facing a large board that was double the width of her desk. The board was covered in tiny holes, and some had been plugged with what looked like sticks attached to string. Every now and then, she would pull a stick out and place it into a different hole. As this oblong piece of metal entered a new orifice, a tiny bulb would light up to confirm a connection had been made. Eventually the wires would cross over each other like a giant game of Cat’s Cradle, but this meant that many people were satisfactorily connected to each other and communicating. I gathered from my dad that the contraption she was playing with was a telephone switchboard and she was known as a telephonist, which in later years, became described as a switchboard operator. It was the most fascinating thing I had ever seen.
Sometimes she pulled a connector out too soon which meant she cut off the call too early and would have to face an irate customer shouting at her through the headphones she was wearing. It was indeed a pretty fast paced job, but I decided then and there that this is what I wanted to do when I left school. I was about ten years old at the time, but had my mind made up: I was going to be a telephonist.
Years later when my own daughter was 12, I was reading information about the revised examination requirements for 15–16-year-olds. Every test was going to be harder, and Science and Geography would contain more mathematical questions.
All modern foreign language papers would now be submitting their questions in their native tongue and course-work for all subjects would only contribute to a tiny percentage of the final score. This meant that children who were better at practical work rather than written tests, would have to face the fact that it’s now all about memory recall in a stressful atmosphere of silence and adjudicators, rather than taking the time to decide how to display a beautiful presentation of research and ideas, which they’ve had time to plan throughout the year.
I sat back on my chair and breathed hard. Sarah was not even a teenager yet, so why the panic? I looked across at myself in the mirror and wondered if I was becoming my mother.
The thought of this gripped me with more fear than that of my offspring leaving school with no qualifications.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Lord, help me! Please don’t let me morph into my mum!”
I could hear the cries of parental woes in my head: “The pressure on children today is phenomenal and the fight for college places and vocational courses is getting fiercer.”
But, when I began this story, I had something else on my mind: my experience of living with a paranoid parent.
With all due respect, my dear mum meant well. But she’s always been a bit of a panicker and struggles to trust in the Lord’s providence, owing to past bad experiences where she failed to recognise his hand in the situation. He turns all bad around for good if we let him, but when we choose to forget this, it turns us into worry-worts and the devil has fun filling our head with ‘what ifs’.
Most black kids – ‘African American’, if you’re from across the Atlantic – are brought up with the notion that ethnic children have to work harder, be smarter, more assertive and more alert than their white counterparts. A pushy negro parent is going to drum this into their nappy-head offspring till it’s ringing in their ears.
Unfortunately, I was no exception and was frequently told by my mother, “Black people must make the effort to get ahead.” I was rather nonplussed about all this and was happy to just play with my white friends in the school yard without any notion that they will get better jobs than me or have their C.V.s placed on top of mine. Plus we were Christians. Christians don’t panic…do they?
I scratched my head in confusion, dislodging a bunch of hair from the decorative comb that was at the side of my temple. Big clumpy strands stuck up erect, pointing to the ceiling like a devil’s horn. Maybe this was why black kids were pushed aside. With hair that stayed upright once the wind blew it that way, maybe some cream skinned people were nervous that we might be little brown imps put on this earth to cause havoc in every corner. Vaseline (petroleum jelly) used to be the substance Caribbean parents used to try to keep strands horizontal. Great big dollops of it would be smeared across the scalp in an effort to moisten the brittle locks and make them look smooth.
In reality, it clogged our pores, and the modern replacements such as Blue Magic, smelt horrible. At least Vaseline was odour free!
Because of this, I did everything I could to draw people’s attention away from the top of my head. There was an Italian girl 2 years older than I, who at school, would occasionally stop in the corridor and enquire, “Do you comb your hair with a fork?”
A rough boy in my class called, Michael McDonald used to revel in throwing racist jeers at me to make his buddies laugh. Thus, each morning when I entered the class he would say,
“What’s the matter? Never mind. Go to bed and you’ll be alright in the morning.”
Well what’s wrong with that? He never pronounced it like that. His version was,
“Wogga matter? Nigga mind. Go to bed and you’ll be all white on the morning.”
I suspected that these were the type of people my mother wanted me to supersede, just to teach them a lesson, if nothing else.
So, when I reached the tender age of 13, my mother decided it was time to take serious action.
“You need to apply for a job. Then, when you are 16, you will have one already lined-up for you.”
She made me sit down and apply for two jobs. I don’t mean weekend posts. I am talking about ‘jump ahead of those white kids by starting your career now’ jobs. The first letter I was made to write was to a bank (TSB) the other to British Telecom, because of my fascination with Erin Walton.
I was okay with the salutation, but cringed when she made me sign off the letters by saying,
“I humbly look forward to a reply.”
I don’t think they were convinced I was humble. They certainly must have thought I was unhinged.
Nevertheless, both managers graciously replied by thanking me for my interest and suggested that I write to them again in 3 years’ time after I had completed my exams.
I breathed a sigh of relief that my life could return to normal again. But my mum was not satisfied. I saw her coming towards me and feigned tiredness.
“I think I’ll go to bed now.”
I ran to my room and searched for the grease-stained cloth I used to tie my unruly curls down with at night. There was no time to plait it in like I needed to if I was to have a free half hour before leaving for school the next day. I decided I would just have to stick a metal comb on the gas hob and try to straighten the spools. The cloth was covered in hair pomade and smelt of lanolin. Tough. No time to search for a clean one – I had to jump into bed quickly.
“Sharon, wait a minute – before you go to bed – I need to you write this address down somewhere. Do you have a notebook?”
Nah. No phones in those days. No fancy diaries. Just odd bits of paper and…
“Ah, I know…” said Mum too enthusiastically. “your knicker drawer.”
“Eh?”
“It’s got good solid wood at the base and the pen won’t rub off on there. Here…write this address on the bottom of your drawer. You’ll never lose it then.”
So there I was, dragged out of bed to go and push my undies aside so I could use the base as a notepad.
Mum stood over me as I carefully wrote:
Mr. D.G.Waring
Personnel Manager
Trustee Savings Bank
34 Market Place
Reading
Hertfordshire
The only thing I cannot remember as I write this today is the postcode, but it began ‘RG’.
For many years, each time I was running out of underwear, I saw this note staring up at me reminding me that mummy was ever so keen on wanting to tell all her friends that her Sharon was a banker, and TSB if you please!
I did actually secure a job in a bank 4 years later and I started the job on the Monday after I left school. Yes, this was a blessing to jump straight out of education into a highly esteemed job, but it wasn’t what I had really wanted to do.
It was more the respectable thing that gives mummy and daddy something to be proud of when people ask, “What’s your daughter doing now?”
Anyway, I decided to not follow in my dear mother’s footsteps and just leave my Sarah to decide on her own future. It’s okay to do that when you are walking with the Lord, because,
any worries or fears are shared with him and left there at his feet, so we don’t have to carry them around.
I also learnt a few things from my own childhood experience:
- God responded to my mum’s prayers which were more effective than trying to get me to do silly, competitive things.
- Don’t live your life out in your children – it never works.
- Be pleased for them no matter what they end up doing.
- Don’t waste time wanting to be better than everyone. My mum was mortified at the thought of me ending up working in a supermarket, but what if I had done? Let boasters boast and mockers mock. I actually liked Michael McDonald, and when I remember his racist ditty, it doesn’t upset me – it is a fun memory of the silliness of childhood. I found the Italian girl more annoying, but looking back, she was just 16 and very vain. I loved the Italians in our area because most of them were really friendly. She was just an exception.
- Our children’s happiness is more important than our ego.
- Friends who mock your kids for being in a less fortunate position than their kids, are not really your friends, so remove them from your life.
- Don’t be paranoid. Encourage your children to do their best but recognise it’s not healthy to try to instil competitiveness in them all the time.
- If you are going to follow in my mother’s footsteps, do not use the kicker drawer. Invest in a nice notebook, or pretty diary or bless your tween with a modern smartphone to record all the addresses they’ll need in 5 years’ time.
Thankfully, I ended up enjoying my time in banking, where I remained for 16 years. But I had no desire to climb the corporate ladder, nor strive for promotion and was happy to remain doing the tasks I loved. Who cares about status? No matter how far we go in our careers, nobody cares when we die. Somebody else will take our place and no memorial plaques will be put up in our remembrance. And even if they did, it means nothing in the light of eternity. We live, we die, so at least exist for what you enjoy doing according to what brings God glory and strive to bless others in the process.
Finally, leave your 13-year-olds to decide what they want to do when they’re older and let them apply for jobs at a more appropriate time, even if you are black.
The only time you should ignore this advice is if they invent a hair pomade formula that softens kinky heads without making your pillowcase stink. In this case, get them on ‘Dragons Den’ as soon as possible.
