I grew up in the city. At the age of 12, I was navigating buses on my own, going to and from school everyday. On the weekends, I navigated buses, trains, and trolleys with my parents. By the time I was 14, I was doing it all on my own. The journey to the supermarket alone took a total of three hours round-trip, or 30 minutes by car. As immigrants who had just arrived to the U.S., we did not own a car and relied on public transportation to get us to and from places. I have a soft spot in my heart for public transportation and all who rely on that service for their daily routines.
By the time I was my daughter’s age, I knew how to navigate Boston’s public transportation to get me around the city. It was a necessity, not an occasional adventure or luxury. Let me pause here to say that my kids are very privileged. Perhaps not so in others’ eyes, but in comparison to how I grew up, they have it pretty good. “The girl,” aka my teenage daughter, got into a two- week art program at Massachusetts College of Art, better known as Mass Art. (I affectionately refer to my kids as “the boy” and “the girl”. It may sound harsh in American culture, but these are terms of endearment in my culture, though they can be used in other ways). This was a half- day program in Boston every day for two weeks. Through a last-minute miracle, one of her closest friends from “the country” where we live also got accepted.
The Sunday afternoon before the program started, we packed the car with all the supplies that we thought we would need for a week with a planned return trip home for the weekend. Of course, with a teenage daughter, we had an ample supply of hair and personal hygiene products and what I thought were clothes to last her a month! After a two-hour drive, we arrived in Boston. I was excited for the adventure that my daughter and her friend were about to have and immediately began orienting them to the area. Little did I know…very little of it would stick. The next day was itself an adventure!
Let me paint the picture of how it all went down when I told my daughter and her friend that they would be coming home by train by themselves on the second day of their program. After all, I took a half day from work to take them to class. I began our brief orientation to our surroundings and key landmarks like the chain restaurant breakfast, department store, the nearby Indian restaurant (since I knew that would be of interest to my daughter) the evening before. I showed her and her friend where the train stop was and felt confident that it all registered. On the morning of, as I pulled out of the driveway to the apartment where I stay in the city during the week, I thought I would re-orient them to the key landmarks. As I spoke, I kept on glancing back for affirmation since both my daughter and her friend were sitting in the back. (Yes, I am the Mama Uber Driver (MUD)! I chauffer them around).
As I completed my orientation refresher, I asked them both how they felt. My daughter’s eyes swelled with tears. She was ready to explode. I felt like I was running in slow motion to keep the tears from actually streaming down her cheeks. This was supposed to be a happy moment. She and her friend get to be independent, roaming the city with their own train passes and money in their pockets and mothers who want them to make mistakes and learn and be adventurous. The other mom and I wanted these things for our girl and boy, all things that we didn’t have and ways that we wished we had been raised. Luckily, only a few tears made their way down her little cheeks. I quickly asked her friend if he was afraid to which he replied a convincing “no.” I suggested that he comfort his friend. After all, he has been her closest friend since we moved to rural Massachusetts. He said that he had taken mental notes of the street names and landmarks.
That evening, they made it home safely having navigated two trains and a walk back to the apartment where they promptly locked themselves in. They successfully went to school and came back every day for the rest of the week. The following week, due to unforeseen circumstances, her friend could not continue and my daughter navigated the city on her own, even figuring out (with some mama help) how to recharge her train pass. When I got home in the evenings, we cooked dinner or ate leftovers. One evening we went to dinner with one of my mentors, then went for a stroll at Hahvad Yahd, aka Harvard Yard, for non-Bostonians and enjoyed cannolis on our walk. She’s still not sold on Harvard, even though she is proud that the University’s President is Haitian-American.
With more experience under her belt now, my daughter laughs at the entire episode. She does acknowledge that it was one of many fears that she conquered last year. I am a proud mama!
