Becoming

Michelle’s elementary school, Bryn Mawr, falls “somewhere between a bad school and a good school.” The population, Michelle writes grows “blacker and poorer with each year.” When Michelle is in seventh grade, a newspaper popular with African American readers run an article claiming that the school had in just a few short years become a “run-down slum.” The school principal fights back with a letter, arguing that this is a lie, the only purpose of which is to incite “feelings of “failure.”

Michelle acknowledges the truth in the principal’s statements. There are “feelings of failure everywhere in her neighborhood, in the form of parents and children who are simply unable to get ahead. The word “ghetto” is used like a threat in her neighborhood, and better-off neighbors are leaving for the suburbs in droves.

Michelle’s mother doesn’t buy into these fear tactics. But, she does become heavily involved in Bryn Mawr, raising money for equipment and lobbying for the creation of a multi-grade classroom designed for high-performing students. Michelle becomes a beneficiary of this classroom for her final three years at Bryn Mawr, given special opportunities like field trips, independent work, and dedicated teachers.

Michelle realizes (looking back) that she doesn’t know what her mother might have thought about being a homemaker. Her mother is the caretaker of the home. Her projects consist of cooking for the family, lending a hand at her children’s schools when needed, and improving the house and making it feel new on a tight budget.

Michelle explains that her mother’s parenting style is an “unflappable Zen neutrality,” not quick to judge and not quick to meddle. She loves her children, but she is pragmatic and doesn’t overmanage them. Her goal, Michelle writes, is to enable them to make responsible decisions, and to handle adult situations with maturity.

At fourteen, Michelle begins to think of herself as a grown-up. She starts wearing bras, she eats in school with her classmates, she gossips and tries on makeup and clothes at friends’ houses. As Michelle moves around the neighborhood with more independence, she also starts to become “aware of the liabilities of [her] body,” learning to fix her gaze firmly ahead anytime she passes groups of men on the street.

Now teenagers, Michelle and Craig get separate rooms in their house, including their own phone extensions. Michelle arranges her first real kiss over the phone, with a boy named Ronell who was a friend of one of Michelle’s classmates. They had decided they liked each other and mutually agreed to meet by her house one day and “give kissing a try.” Michelle had already understood the fun of being around boys by watching Craig’s basketball games.

Michelle grows more interested in boys, but never thinks about marriage. She takes the steadiness of her parents’ union for granted, but years later, her mother explains that every spring, she thought about leaving Michelle’s father. Michelle understands, as an adult, that marriage can be difficult and it is “best renewed and renewed again, even quietly and privately—even alone.” She wonders what alternate life her mother might have been dreaming of, perhaps on a tropical island, or with a corner office somewhere. But, she notes, each time, her mother made the choice to stay.