Mommy's Checking Boxes

Last year, around Thanksgiving, I decided to apply to graduate school. I could see that my daughters, ages ten and twelve, had entered a less needy phase of life, and I felt ready for my own new phase. So I braced myself, recalling the last time I’d toiled over college applications, circa 1984. This time, I was deeply grateful for the technological tools that ease the process. Filling out all those forms, and writing and revising all those essays, without having to load up my mother’s IBM Selectric with carbon paper and triplicate forms! No need for Wite-Out! Hallelujah! Even my Letters of Recommendation were processed electronically.

On each school’s application, I found that the “Ethnicity” boxes were new and improved, too. 

Some had a “multiracial” box, equipped with a drop-down menu of “specifics”.  Some encouraged, “list all that apply”, with an extra field in which to enumerate the ingredients of “Other”.  Even without the old discomfort of having to single out my blackness, I still felt a queasy Affirmative Action twinge. Would my exoticism boost my acceptance chances? And if it did, was that a bad thing?

In the months I spent waiting for acceptance letters, our family life took an unexpected turn. 

For reasons I won’t disclose here (saving it for a future post), my husband and I found ourselves looking for a new school for our ten-year-old daughter. We threw ourselves into a past-all-deadlines dash to find her a sixth grade slot for the 2016-17 year.  And once again, I was checking boxes.

The thing about my daughter is, her looks don’t disclose her black heritage.  

Her skin is “peachy” like her father’s. I’ve been told she looks Israeli, which complies with her genealogical makeup: five of her eight great-grandparents were Russian Jews. Her hair is smooth and wavy with no trace of curl or kink. No spirals. Nada. 

I checked the “multiracial” boxes on her school applications, same as mine. 

It’s who she is, and how she identifies. I’ve heard her defend her blackness with a hint of defiance. I felt it too, as I filled out her forms. And I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer these statistics would matter: how many more dilute generations will bother to claim a measurable mix?

The good news is that my girl had a great classroom visit at a school filled with children of every imaginable color.  She fit right in, and reported having made a few new friends in that one, short day. A much-needed reassurance that, for the next three years, she will thrive in that new community: Accepted.