The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

We raised our children in a very unusual place.  The county had little cable access and only an AM and an NPR radio station for 90 miles. We had a booster TV antennae on the roof, allowing us to watch one PBS channel and one channel with NBC programming.  We looked forward to autumn for more than the beautiful changing of the leaves because when those leaves fell off, we could get two more channels if the cloud cover was just right.

I was delighted by these limitations because making parenting rules and sticking to them would always be difficult. As an ADHD mom, I would have struggled to limit their screen time and oversee the music they listened to. In addition, our rural setting did not provide a neighborhood with playmates. For children to visit took effort and planning, so they had to find creative ways to entertain themselves while developing vivid imaginations and talents discovered in books and nature.

Their peers were in similar situations regardless of their family’s income and status, which made their school a surprisingly egalitarian place to learn. They all dressed similarly, listened to the eclectic music played on the AM station, and went to the two-dollar non-first-run movies played in town.  What made the acceptance of each other even more unexpected was that the families that made up the community were equal parts university personnel and generational mountain families. Still, the students and teachers made little note of those differences.

This combination of factors made my children and my children’s friends an anomaly in the culture beyond the mountains.  My husband used to call them “the valley kids,” he genuinely worried about them when and if they ventured out to the world beyond.  He was afraid they would be unprepared for what they would find and not have the skills to meet the challenges of a more jaded and unkind world. It turned out that, more times than not, they had internalized a sense of identity that transcended place and time, born of community and acceptance.

Facts were my son Stanton’s gift. He played on a community soccer team, was a Boy Scout in a very active troop, and had various friends. Still, he would never be the quintessential athlete usually elevated in a small town. His quirkiness made him interesting, not alienated. Roles were not assigned but lived into depending on one’s gifts and passions. There were your everyday disappointments and disagreements, but for the most part, children worked out their issues, and parents usually trusted them to do that.

We saw all these unusual community characteristics come to fruition when Stanton was in the sixth grade. One of the teachers in their Kindergarten through eighth-grade school encouraged anyone who wanted to participate in the preliminary steps leading up to the National Geography Bee to sign up.  Since all the tests and trial Bees were done during school, I learned little about the whole process. That is until I picked him up one day, and he informed me that he had won the school’s Geography Bee and needed to go to Raleigh in two weeks for the statewide Bee.

Amazingly, he won the state competition and was invited to go to Washington, DC, to compete with 54 other students from all 50 states and five territories. It was a great honor and accomplishment but a bit overwhelming. Others were equally surprised that a boy from a remote part of western NC attending a small public school beat others who had trained and prepared for the competition for years. When the PBS reporter asked how Stanton thought this would impact him, he said, “ Well, it should be good for my self-esteem.”

We stayed in Raleigh for the night and headed home the next day.  His CPA father had not been able to travel during the height of tax season, so when we called to tell him, he called the teacher who had sponsored the program and let her know.  We returned to the mountains Saturday afternoon and turned on the road toward home. First, we noticed that the Kentucky Fried Chicken marquee said Congratulations, Stanton Kidd, and as we looked up the way, all of the fast food restaurants had some variation of that message. We looked at each other, overwhelmed by the public affirmation.  Since the phone call twenty-four hours before, his teacher, Anne Laughlin, had organized this homecoming,  but it was not over.

Monday morning, the school called and said that a limo would be at our house soon to take Stanton to school, and his dad and I could follow in our car because we would want to see what was planned. Stanton was looking out the kitchen window when the limo pulled up. He looked at me and said, “I think my ride is here.”  As we scurried to get in our car, the limo went down the driveway with our son waving out of the sunroof. As we turned on the school driveway, children lined the path holding signs expressing their appreciation and support for Stanton’s accomplishment. The superintendent of Jackson County schools waited to open his door and shake his hand as the loudspeakers played the school song.

All I could think of throughout this whole experience was THAT EVERY SINGLE CHILD NEEDS A DAY like that – a day when a community values each child’s uniqueness and appreciates their accomplishments. Where a teacher gets to celebrate their student’s gifts and a town supports the experience without questioning and diminishing it with small-minded pushback. 

Everyone may not live in a remote community or get a parade, a limo, or a billboard, but everyone needs affirmation and celebration from the people who are the caregivers in their lives. I am NOT talking about everyone getting a Participation Award. Those awards are primarily for parents. Few kids display those trophies because they do not reflect a sense of value and worth for the child’s giftedness. Each child wants SOMEONE to look at them with genuine engagement and understanding. To be seen and valued for who they are and, in so doing, celebrate their worth. Not a fantasy, but a rooted passion born in every one of us, waiting for someone to notice and nurture it.

Our children and young adults need us to form communities of acceptance, not just for the children we birthed but for all of God’s children. As a campus minister,  I told the students regularly,  “You are a BE-LOVED child of God.  Not because of anything you do or accomplish but because you “Be” you are “loved.”  Each time, I would watch as some of the young adults sitting there would wipe at their eyes, and inevitably, someone would come up later and say, “I just needed to hear that.” Children and young adults are our hope and our future.  Let’s treat them as BCOG: Beloved Children of God.