Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:08] Today I'm going to share a story about the journey I had with the girls when they first came to the US and the adjustment they had in their school.
[00:00:24] It was not an easy situation for anybody involved.
[00:00:30] So the first story I'll tell is about my oldest daughter.
[00:00:34] She was in the third grade, and I think if you've been listening to my podcast, you will remember that when they got here, the oldest daughter had had an abscessed tooth before we left Romania.
[00:00:51] And when we got her to the United States, one of the first things we had to do was take her to the dentist.
[00:01:00] She had six teeth pulled. I think it was between six and eight teeth. The other one had 10 teeth pulled. Most of the other one, the little ones teeth, were baby teeth, and the older one had less teeth that needed to be pulled, and her adult teeth were starting to grow in.
[00:01:25] So we made it through those first couple of appointments having all their teeth pulled, and we had the little one have her teeth pulled first.
[00:01:38] And my mom was with me, so she would stay at home with her. And then I took the older one the following week to have her teeth pulled. And the only reason why I'm telling you this part of the story is because the little one was completely frantic about her sister not being there with her. It's kind of like a foreshadowing of how they've lived their life since.
[00:02:05] And you can imagine you're moved into a whole different country where nobody speaks your language and you just have the two of you together.
[00:02:15] They've been through quite a bit of trauma in their life.
[00:02:19] So we had cell phones then, or.
[00:02:25] Yeah, like a flip phone, I think I had. And I must have received, like, 20 phone calls while I'm in the recovery room with my daughter, my oldest daughter, waiting for her teeth, waiting for her to recover from having her teeth pulled.
[00:02:44] She couldn't speak any English when she called. She'd just call and go, hello, Hello.
[00:02:51] That was it. So I knew it was her. And I would just say her name and say, everything's going okay. We'll see you soon. And my mom didn't want to stop her from calling because she knew that she had a lot of anxiety being alone with my mom and not having her sister there.
[00:03:12] So we get both of them through having their teeth pulled and. But the oldest one subsequently had some cavities that needed to be filled in, the adult teeth that had grown in. So I had to make follow up appointments for her to return back.
[00:03:34] And the first follow up appointment came and I had sent a note ahead letting them know that I would be coming to get her to take her out of school so that she could go and have her dental appointment.
[00:03:53] So it was in the middle of the afternoon, I think it was about 1 o' clock in the afternoon.
[00:04:00] And I drive to the school, which wasn't, it was only a couple miles from our house, but it was all very rural, so it wasn't like we lived in a neighborhood. We lived out in the country, about a three acre farm.
[00:04:21] And so that part was good for them because they were used to being outdoors, so they appreciated that. But still so far away from houses where friends lived, so. So that was an adjustment for them.
[00:04:36] So anyhow, I get in the car, I drive up to the school and I go into the office and I say, I'm here to pick up my oldest daughter. And the secretary goes, take a seat. I said, can I just go up to the classroom and pick her up? She says, no, you can't.
[00:04:54] I'm thinking to myself, wow, really? This seems kind of strange. I mean, she had only been in school maybe three or four weeks, not very long.
[00:05:08] And although we had been having them have ESL classes, English as a second language class, they still had a long, very long way to go.
[00:05:20] But I'm like, okay, probably the teacher will bring her down.
[00:05:25] So I sit down, you know, and I'm sitting there for like 15 minutes now I'm starting to get a little nervous.
[00:05:31] So I go back up there and I go, my daughter has not come, what is going on? Kind of thing. And she was rude to me again, the secretary. And I looked her directly in the eye. I said, I am going right up to the classroom myself right now. I don't care what you say.
[00:05:50] So I walk up to the classroom and I knock on the door. It was on the second floor of the building.
[00:05:57] And the teacher comes out and I said, I'm here to pick up my daughter. She goes, I dismissed her a long time ago. Go, what do you mean you dismissed her? Yeah, she said, I dismissed her. So here you have an English as a second language child that doesn't speak very good English. Her teacher telling her it's all right to go.
[00:06:20] She doesn't know what that means.
[00:06:22] I was completely panic stricken. I'm like, where is she? I just have been sitting in the office for the past 20 minutes and she never came there. So now the teacher's starting to understand, oh my Gosh, what did I do?
[00:06:41] I definitely did something wrong. So I went back down to the office and I started yelling at that secretary. Well, she's already left her classroom. She doesn't speak speak English and she's wandering around.
[00:06:55] So you're gonna help me find her. I was livid, let me tell you. Well, we tore the whole building apart. Everybody was looking for her and she was nowhere to be found.
[00:07:09] So I went out of the building and I'm looking all over the playground, looking, where could she possibly be? Where could she possibly be? I was so upset, I.
[00:07:21] I can't even tell you. My blood pressure must have been sky high.
[00:07:26] So I get in the car and I go, I'm just gonna start driving towards home and see if that was what happened here.
[00:07:36] So I'm past the school, I get out of the school driveway and I'm going through the town, okay, It's a little one stoplight town.
[00:07:49] No daughter, she's nowhere to be found. I'm like, oh my God.
[00:07:55] I was so worried that someone had picked her up. I was starting to cry. I was that upset about it.
[00:08:06] And I start making my way out of town and all of a sudden, there she is. I see her just with her little backpack on her back and she's just walking down the hill on the side of the road out in the rural main country.
[00:08:20] I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
[00:08:24] I pulled over, I got out of the car, I ran up to her, I gave her the biggest hug, I said, get in the car. I'm going to take you to the dentist now. But I started crying.
[00:08:37] She had no idea what was wrong.
[00:08:40] She didn't understand. She thought she had done something wrong. I'm like, no, you're. I just didn't know where you were. You're fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. It's all good now.
[00:08:54] So I get my act together, get myself situated and focused on to getting her to the dentist.
[00:09:02] I get her to the dentist, she gets her tooth filled. But the whole time I'm in the waiting room thinking to myself, oh yeah, I'll be calling the superintendent today.
[00:09:14] I mean, I don't know, it really brought out the mama bear in me.
[00:09:19] And they never came out looking for her. They never came out of the building looking for her. They didn't do anything, okay? They just let me, a panic stricken mother, run around like a crazy woman looking for my daughter.
[00:09:35] And they never one time came out of that building.
[00:09:39] So I was stewing about that in the dentist office, let me tell you, not in a good way. Okay?
[00:09:48] So I get home that night, and I called the superintendent immediately, and probably about half an hour later, he called me back. And he had heard the story already. I'm sure he was investigating.
[00:10:07] I had kind of left a preliminary.
[00:10:11] I had a problem today, and this is what the problem was, and I need to speak to you about it directly.
[00:10:19] So he had already had a chance to talk to the teacher, and he was more than armed for a conversation with a hysterically angry mother on the other end of the phone.
[00:10:35] So he calls me and he's like, Mrs. Clem, I'm really sorry about what happened to your daughter today. That never should have happened.
[00:10:44] But let me assure you, her teacher is a wonderful, wonderful woman.
[00:10:50] She probably just didn't have any idea. We're going to be so much more prepared now.
[00:10:57] And I really can't say enough about her teacher. I said, her teacher.
[00:11:05] I'm not calling you to complain about her teacher. He said, you're not? I said, no, I like her teacher. The teacher already apologized to me. She knew she made a mistake. She just assumed that my daughter would walk right back into the office downstairs. But there still is a language barrier there.
[00:11:28] And my daughter thought that she just needed to walk home, and I would take. Take her to the dentist, which would be very typical of how something like that was managed in Romania.
[00:11:43] I said, I have no problem with the teacher. He says, well, who is your problem with? I go, my problem is with the secretary in the office.
[00:11:54] First of all, she was completely rude to me.
[00:11:57] And second of all, there's no reason why a mother should not have been allowed to go and get her daughter a. Especially when it's, you know, there's a language barrier there from the office to or from her classroom to take her out of the building. There is absolutely no reason why that even occurred. And really, she was quite rude to me both times that I was starting to panic.
[00:12:31] So I am filing a.
[00:12:33] A complaint about her, and I would like some action taken.
[00:12:39] And he was very nice to me. He was very apologetic to me, and he said he would take matters into his hands and look at the situation a little bit differently from what he had thought the situation was going to be, and he was very kind about it.
[00:13:02] I did hear later that the.
[00:13:07] The secretary had worked for the school system for a very long time, and there had been other complaints about her attitude.
[00:13:18] I think she had been ill and maybe going through chemotherapy treatment, and so she was not necessarily in Their best frame of mind in a school dealing with parents and children.
[00:13:36] And so I think they ended up actually moving her to a different type of position where she didn't necessarily have to deal directly with the public.
[00:13:49] So for that I was very, very grateful, even though I was a hysterical mother at that time.
[00:13:59] So that was the story with my oldest daughter.
[00:14:02] My youngest daughter had an issue with the phys ed department at school. Now you got to remember she's in the second grade and they do have a swimming pool there and they're teaching the youngsters how to swim.
[00:14:23] Most of them already did know how to swim, but in their phys ed class, for those who didn't know how to swim, they were going to teach them how to swim.
[00:14:35] So my youngest, both of them really had never been around a body of water where they were swimming regularly. They were raised up until, you know, the seven and nine years old that they were more in a countryside environment in a small village. I think my oldest daughter actually would herd cattle from one farm to a field to another field. So they did things like that.
[00:15:09] I would say they were more like chores around the home.
[00:15:16] I'm not sure how much they actually did as far as housekeeping goes, but they were, they were.
[00:15:25] Would rake the yard.
[00:15:27] They always had trees in their yard. And we actually have a video of them in Romania where they would get sticks and they would hit the walnut trees and shake them and then they would gather walnuts.
[00:15:43] So they did chores like that.
[00:15:46] They didn't participate in a whole lot of activities, recreational kind of activities that would include swimming, playing games, things like that. I saw some video of them singing, but not much else other than that.
[00:16:07] So for my youngest daughter. Daughter, we had gotten her a bathing suit and I was kind of excited that the school was going to take on the responsibility of teaching her how to swim because the water is not my favorite thing.
[00:16:24] And so it would be good to get her trained by a professional. So I was hoping for a good outcome with that.
[00:16:34] So the very, you know, I got her the bathing suit. She's all excited to be in the pool. I think she wanted to stay at the shallow and then play with the other kids. That's what she had in mind.
[00:16:45] Well, she comes home the first day and she's very, very upset and I have no idea what's going on at all. I'm trying to negotiate through. And her older sister was a good translator, so I could understand a little bit more. She didn't always communicate that well, the youngest one, but the Oldest one would take the lead so she could explain to me what was happening. And apparently the youngest one had told her that the gym teacher would take them to the deep end and then just throw them into the pool.
[00:17:25] So I mean, this isn't anything new from what I was used to growing up. When I was growing up, they would just take us outside in the boat and then throw us in or push us off the dock.
[00:17:37] I mean, I remember I was completely terrified. I have claustrophobia. So when somebody's dunking me under like that, I was petrified. I'm surprised I'm still alive. I didn't die of a heart attack at an early age.
[00:17:51] And I. When I heard the story about my youngest daughter, I think it brought back all those emotions to me all over again. I'm like, that is not going to happen.
[00:18:02] She has to learn how to swim the normal way, not pushing her off the diving board or the edge of the pool in the deep end. I'm going to need somebody to pay a little bit more attention to her than that.
[00:18:18] So I decided I'm going to be going to her swimming lesson. I need to see for myself what's going on. And of course I called her teacher in advance to let her know that I was going to be coming because my daughter had been very fearful full from what had happened or taken place at her previous lesson.
[00:18:43] So that was good because then she could kind of warn the gym teacher what was going to take place.
[00:18:51] So when I got there and I sat in the bleachers and watched what was going on, he didn't do anything like that that day.
[00:19:01] And at the end of the swimming lesson, he actually did come up to me and say, I heard you had a problem with the way I was trying to teach the your daughter how to swim.
[00:19:15] And he said, you know, this is kind of old school. This is how I learned how to swim. I said, you know, I understand that actually, I really do because that's how most of my friends learned how to swim.
[00:19:30] It wasn't this formal kind of swimming lessons. Most of the. I knew a lot of my friends that had but just been pushed into the water. I know sink or swim. So I get that you're using old school methods, but the challenge is my daughter doesn't speak very good English yet you're a man that she's not really familiar with. She's is very timid and, and she is going to struggle with someone pushing her like that. They didn't come from a very good situation, I believe Their father had been somewhat abusive to them.
[00:20:14] So I actually think that maybe before you treat everyone exactly the same, it might be good for you to at least learn their background. Because I struggle now thinking, is she going to be afraid of the water like I have been my whole life? I don't want that for my daughter. I want my daughter to love the water and be in the water swimming as much as she wants to swim.
[00:20:48] So we kind of had a meeting of the minds that day, and that part was really good.
[00:20:55] And I looked over at my daughter who was in the pool, and she gave me, like, the yes kind of gesture. I think she really felt supported, and she was extremely happy that I had come to school to stick up for her. That's probably something that had never happened to her before in her life.
[00:21:24] So she made it through that second grade class year, and by the end of the year, she actually did know how to swim.
[00:21:35] So it was a successful story. A little traumatizing in the beginning, but it ended up well.
[00:21:42] And as an aside note, when she was in college, she joined ROTC in one of the skill sets that they wanted to train them on is having a full C bag on your back and you're in your uniform. And let's just say that you had been on in a plane or on a ship or some kind of transportation and you go underwater.
[00:22:17] And so she had to learn how to escape from having the backpack on her and be able to rise above in the pool to be able to get out. And she successfully completed that.
[00:22:30] So she is not afraid of the water.
[00:22:32] It ended up to be a really good situation. And I would say that she is confident in the water.
[00:22:42] Her older sister absolutely loves the water.
[00:22:45] And so I felt like for somebody that's not so good in the water, I ended up being able to manage a situation quite successfully.
[00:22:59] You know, when I look back on these little things like that, every parent, and I know this to be true, goes to through some kind of challenge with a teacher or, you know, a situation.
[00:23:15] For me, it was heightened because they didn't speak English.
[00:23:19] So I think I was even more of a fierce advocate than maybe other parents would be.
[00:23:27] But they couldn't stand up for themselves. They couldn't say, no, I don't want to do this.
[00:23:33] And so they learned during a couple of these episodes very early on when they came with us, that I was going to be their advocate and that I was going to stand behind them.
[00:23:49] And that is what made our relationship grow faster. It's hard to adopt children from a foreign country.
[00:24:01] And a lot of the reason is because of the communication that goes on. But. But it's not just communication.
[00:24:08] It's what they've experienced in their life. Many of them have been abused before they get here.
[00:24:15] And there's other things, too. You know, they're already afraid. They're trying to fit in. I mean, socially, American kids already go through that on their own without having being a foreigner on top of it.
[00:24:32] So I'm glad that I had the presence of mine to be able to be their best advocate.
[00:24:40] It was something that helped them remain calm and do well in school and all of their activities.
[00:24:56] Thank you for listening to my story today. I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:25:05] Until the next time.
