Parents are not perfect; they make meatloaf and mistakes

Parents make mistakes. Sometimes it takes a while for the child to realize it. In my case, this occurred during the fourth grade. She was sitting at the kitchen table studying out loud for an American history test. Sister Mary Florence was the toughest nun in the convent, and that has already been said. Brother X referred to them as the Little Sisters of the Gestapo.

Sister Mary Florence was the only teacher who had failed me, a scarlet “F” in handwriting, with the comment: “Unless Kevin can learn to write, he will never accomplish anything on his own.” He put the curse in italics.

So I memorized dates while my mother, Nurse Vivian, made meatloaf. She crushed stale bread to make breadcrumbs and then poured it into a bowl of ground meat.

“Who discovered Florida?”

“Polka Derry Long,” Nurse Vivian replied, cracking an egg into the bowl.

However, in my “Catholic History of America” the name of Juan Ponce de León was printed. For the first time I thought she knew something she didn’t know.

“I was looking for the Fountain of Youth. But I bet that book doesn’t say what the Native Americans thought. “They don’t publish the history of the Calusa.” My mother may have gotten the names wrong, but she knew what was important.

Last month, we painted the interior of the Bedlam Blue Bungalow. My husband Brian narrowed down the color options, and in fact, the painters didn’t even shrug when we asked them to paint the cove living room Confident Yellow. Or Zane’s bedroom, Batman Blue.

But we never talked about the bathroom door.

As we drove to Belmont to pick up our son Aidan at Compass High School, one of the painters applied two coats of bright white to that doorway.

The bathroom door has been the most neglected element in the 98-year history of our house in Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior. It was a little warped from the moment Aidan flushed magnets down the toilet and flooded the bathroom. It had claw marks from every dog ​​that ever lived with us, and every male dog had marked them. And several cuts to many of Zane’s tantrums.

But on the left side it also showed a bit of Fisher-Paulson family history: the Taling of the Boys. Every New Year’s morning after cinnamon buns for two decades, our sons Zane and Aidan stood tall and Brian recorded their heights with a blue clothing marker. It took them 17 years to get over me.

Zane came home that same afternoon. The painters ended up in Aidan’s bedroom while I made meatloaf. Unlike Nurse Vivian, I buy the breadcrumbs and mix ground turkey with ground beef. “The bus took forever,” Zane grumbled. “You should have let me use the car.”

“Zane, you don’t have a driver’s license,” I responded, while shredding carrots and onions, on the theory that any vegetable I introduced into a meal counted twice.

“But I know how to drive. That’s the difference, dad. My people just let their kids use cars. They don’t trip over things like a license.”

No matter how many parents he cited who insisted on that C class document, Zane wouldn’t budge. His implication: If I were a straight black father, I would raise my children much better.

Zane walked into his new blue room to sulk. On the way he didn’t notice the bathroom door. Aidan did it. “Didn’t you tell them to leave the door alone?”

“I didn’t think to tell him,” I said. “I made a mistake.”

I went back to the meatloaf. Nurse Vivian glazed hers with tomato sauce. I glaze mine with barbecue sauce. And put strips of bacon on top because everything is better with bacon.

We don’t sit down to dinner together as much as we used to. Sometimes I’m too sick, and most nights Zane goes out, except maybe spaghetti or chili night. But that night the meatloaf came out splendid.

We toasted the new paint job and toasted the loss of Talling of the Boys.

My job, like Nurse Vivian’s, is to love my children and make mistakes even when I make them meatloaf. And that’s true regardless of whether a Polka Derry Long ever existed. Whether or not other parents lend their cars to their children. Whether or not there was a door that proved it had once been higher, or whether we had painted over our history or needed to make room for a new one.

Kevin Fisher-Paulson’s book “Secrets of the Blue Bungalow” (Fearless Books, $25) is available from Fearlessbo.oks.com and area bookstores. Be reading and signing copies of his book at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 27 at Books Inc., 1344 Park St. in Alameda. Free; registration requested. www.booksinc.net/events

Contact Kevin Fisher-Paulson: [email protected]