I grew up in New Jersey, not far from the Atlantic Ocean, and one house away from the Shrewsbury River. When I was 7, there was a terrible hurricane, like today.
The cat was making a lot of noise while we slept and my mom got up to see what the cat wanted. What she saw was that our first floor was under water; the river had flooded and overflowed its banks, and the entire street was underwater.
Today, while we listen to news reports about Hurricane Irene, we hear about death and destruction, and preparations for the storm. These are serious adult concerns. But did you ever think about what a flood is like for children? Their concerns may seem trivial compared to adult losses, but they can have life-altering effects.
Like Katrina's victims, my family (the cat, too) went out the second floor window into a boat and rowed down the street to higher ground. My parents presented this to my (younger) brother and me as a great adventure, so we would not be scared; my mom took her recently baked cookies into the boat - a party! - and from that time on, her butter cookies were called flood cookies. But my parents saw the damage, they knew this was devastating to our home, and my brother and I sensed their fears.
When the water subsided, my parents went back to the house to pick the seaweed off the screen doors and windows and fix the structural damage. Everything on the first floor had to be discarded and replaced. I lost most of my toys, my special dolls, and I was sad; this loss stuck with me: I made sure to safely save all of my daughter's childhood toys and dolls. And now there is a little granddaughter to discover these playthings and take some of them home with her. I still look at old photos of me playing with my dolls, before the flood, and feel wistful.
With all new living room and kitchen furniture, nothing downstairs was familiar anymore. It was as if we were in a totally new environment -- I was wary and confused, but again, my parents tried to put a good spin on our misfortune.
Meanwhile, they decided that they would not hang around for the next hurricane; so they sold the house and we moved a few miles inland, away from the river and the ocean. The move wasn't far, but it put me in a different school system. Midway into the school year, I had to enter a new class and be the new girl, making friends as best I could. My little buddies from the old neighborhood were gone. Adults would see this as a silly concern for a little kid, who can no doubt adjust, but it was not that easy.
I listened to news reports of Katrina victims being relocated, to other states and cities around the country where there were few (if any) African-Americans until they arrived, and they had to cope with racism for the first time. I understood. In the new school, I encountered Anti-Semitism. My parents, trying to shelter me from life's tough lessons, didn't tell me about people who hate Jews. So when I had trouble making friends, I just thought I was a loser. My two friends "coincidentally" were Jewish like me. And it didn't occur to me, as a young child, to wonder why there were no African-Americans in my new school. Now I understand it as the work of equal opportunity haters.
I went to that school through 8th grade and it affected my self-esteem. Yes, it would have been better to have been told about Anti-Semitism, what was happening to me, but my parents didn't know that. Now there is research that demonstrates that African-American children do best when their parents talk to them about racism; when a child is taught that some people have hatred towards others, they learn to see the problem as internal to the hater and not a problem within themselves.
There were academic challenges, too. I was only in second grade, and you might think changing schools at that young age would be inconsequential; normally you would be right. Children of military service men and women move often and adjust. Companies used to routinely transfer workers from one regional office to another: there was an old joke that IBM stood for I've Been Moved. But in some cases, like mine (and often with children of divorce who are forced to move), changing school districts is difficult. I stepped into a class of second graders who were reading cursive writing, and I had no idea what the teacher was putting on the chalk board. I had only learned to print (cursive in my old school was scheduled for 3rd grade). I struggled and I was laughed at.
And somehow I didn't learn to tell time very well, either: 15 minutes to/before 3 was familiar to me, but 2:45 was not. And as I learned, I made mistakes, like thinking of 3:45 as a quarter to 3. A small thing, even a seemingly dumb thing, but sometimes I still think for a minute, to make sure I get times right. Time telling was also scheduled for 3rd grade at my old school, but these new second grade students had already learned it, and the teacher was not giving me extra help; she just thought Jewish kids must be dumb.
For high school, my parents moved again, back to the old school district (but not on the water) with my old friends, away from prejudice. A school with African-Americans, Italians (Jersey Shore, remember), Jewish kids... diversity, and everyone got along. High school was wonderful.
So when you listen to the enormous devastation of Hurricane Irene, and reflect back on Katrina, please take just a moment to think about the children. Many went through much worse than I did; they have to cope with fear, with lost homes, and some lost parents and other relatives to the rising water. But even seemingly inconsequential losses and adaptations, for a child who seems fine after a storm, can lead to lifelong changes, good or bad, that make up his or her character.
