My "Little Sister"
Mentoring is a beautiful thing that comes in all colors. Read today's Globe for your morning inspiration.
I was an awkward teen and at 24, I still wasn't cool. However, I was black and when someone from Big Sisters asked me to help develop a minority recruitment program, I said yes. I spent much of 1985 doing recruitment talks at African American churches in Providence.
At the end of the year, I became a Big Sister to Melissa. A 12 year old girl whose mother was overwhelmed and didn't have the energy to focus on her very active daughter. I spent every Saturday afternoon with Melissa for 4 years. Now at 47 and 35, we are grown-up friends. She was the first in her family to graduate from college, get a masters and start a business. She is married and has 2 children. A few years ago, her mother wrote to thank me for the influence I had on Melissa's life.
I grew as much as she did and I hope other adults will give themselves the gift of mentoring a teen because it is gift that they will enjoy forever.
Patti, Thank you for this
Patti, Thank you for this post! I love hearing stories that illustrate the value of intentional mentoring. I think many of us have taken for granted the mentoring relationships in our lives, because our mentors have been the persons traditionally expected to guide us: our parents. However, many young children like Melissa, whose parents are overwhelmed by the demands of work and other life struggles, find themselves vulnerable without the support and guidance of other caring adults. It does, after all, take a village to raise a child.
Before joining the UW team, I worked at a charter high school in Boston. The students in our midst were mostly African-American (63%) and Latino (30%) from the inner-city, and would take a bus and two trains to make it to class each day. Not only did our students struggle with the usual teenage angst, but they dealt with poverty, violence, the vestiges of an inadequate early education, and the fear of that comes from limited prospects for the future.
I met many children, whom I love immensely, but one girl became the primary reason for getting to work each day. She reminded me of a girl I used to know some years ago... me. Like me, she is Puerto Rican, blessed with a loving family, and growing up without her dad. Unlike me, she had very limited options for the future. Ever since I met her, I have been committed to her success and her happiness. All I can do is show her the choices, advice her from my experience, and encourage her to be persistent. I have messed up sometimes, and I certainly don't have all the answers she seeks, but now that she is 21 years old and in college I am satisfied with how far we've come. I'm looking forward to her college graduation because, like Melissa, she will be the first in her family with a college degree.
Whenever she's feeling like she can't go on I remind her that: "just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly." She thinks it's silly, of course, but I know she gets it.
Everyone should care for a caterpillar, whether their own child or someone else's. I can't wait for my little caterpillar to become a butterfly!
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