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I loved The Cosby Show growing up and my kids enjoy watching it now. I don’t think they realize that it is an old show and they are watching re-runs. In the day of the DVR and TIVO, there seems to not be a prime time anymore.
We were watching an episode tonight where Rudy was in trouble for hiding a teacher’s note from her parents. We laughed at the funny parts of course. At one point Claire sends her to her room. Hubby stops the TV and says something like,”See how she goes to her room without fussing.” Mita then says,”Yeah, but her mom didn’t yell – she just told her quietly to go.” I didn’t say anything, but I was very jealous of Claire Huxtable right then.
I’ve never been jealous of the girls’ Ethiopian mother. The only time I have felt bad about “missing” certain things (first step, first word, etc.) was when I realized that when they have their babies I won’t be able to say,”You first walked and such and such an age”. There have been times when I have heard them yell,”I miss my mom, she was nice.” and even those times I was okay with that as this is normal kid stuff adopted or biological (”I wish you weren’t my mom!” is something I will probably hear from Meg and Elle someday).
But Claire Huxtable has everything my kids want. She is always patient, always says the right words, is successful at home and as a professional. She is also brown and I cannot help but wonder if the girls wish they were in the Huxtable family because that would be one less stressor for them. As much as I wish it weren’t so, I know that being a transracial family can be difficult at times. The kids have to answer questions and have people stare. My hubby and I signed on to all of that, they did not. Being a kid is hard enough sometimes without having added “differences”.
While I confessed to being jealous for a brief moment of a fictional character, I have to take the high road and learn some lessons from Mrs. Huxtable. I can work on my patience, I can yell less and I have been a good role model in being a professional (now I’m on hiatus from nursing, but that is just recently). I cannot ever be brown though. We will always be a transracial family and I still feel that we are a successful family. Being a transracial family has been a wonderfully eye-opening experience and will continue to be a positive in our lives. On a day to day basis, I don’t think we even think about it much anymore. I’M sometimes surprised when I get that double look at the store when I’m hugging my kiddos.
I think Mita and Enu are happy with our family and their admiration for Claire is normal. I can remember pretending I was in the Ingalls family and I turned out okay! I do hope their is an episode on The Cosby Show where Claire loses her patience…a shallow but true hope!
Have you ever been jealous of another mom, fictional or otherwise? Tell me about it so I know I am not the only one!
