Living the Census

Barantunde Thurston’s essay entitled “My Life: the playlist” deals with his disappointment in how little the Census asked about his life. He obviously had the short form that the majority of Americans received. Hopefully you have sent your form in.

His essay made me think, though. What does the Census not say about me, and my family?

Yes I told the Census Bureau the names, ages, and birthdates of all the persons living here. I even included our “race”. I did this despite my firm belief that the Constitution does not require racial information in the Census. In fact, depending on your interpretation of the 13th and 14th amendments, it specifically forbids consideration of race as a factor for choosing the number of House of Representative seats for each state and Presidential electors. But, I digress.

So the US government now knows we’re a family of four white, not of Hispanic descent, persons living in a rented apartment in Colorado.

I didn’t get to tell the government about our 13 year old mutt, Katya. I didn’t get to tell them about Frank, Ethan’s imaginary cat.

I didn’t get to tell them about the house we sincerely hope to be moving into come June. I didn’t get to say that we’ll be owning that house, after scrimping and saving and refusing to refinance our old home in Springfield so that we would not be underwater and in debt. I didn’t get to tell them I sold that house last year at a profit. (Though I did tell the IRS, but I know as well as anyone else that the different government offices don’t share information.)

I didn’t tell them how I’m unemployed by choice and Mark is employed in a job he loves. I didn’t get to tell them about the book I’m writing, the blogs I post to, the recipes I make up to satisfy the various dietary restrictions of my menfolk.

But the Census was never meant for that, it could never be the sole record of our lives. 75 years from now, if I’m lucky, some historian might want to know where the Davis family wound up. They may have tracked us from Kentucky (where we were in 2000) to Colorado, but they’ll miss those 10 intervening years. 10 years of babies, small apartments, leaky houses, long commutes, hot summer nights at Lake Accotink, surprise winter snowstorms, broken arms, skinned knees, friends found and loved ones lost.

The Census won’t show how I struggle to impart our joint Southern heritage to our children. How we make sure that they know their grandparents and great grandparents. The Census won’t know that I talk to them about their Uncle Adrian and what a funny guy he was. No, the Census won’t realize how hard it is to raise my boys and teach them about the sacrifices their Godfather makes – sacrifices that kept him from meeting them for most of those ten years.

The Census doesn’t record recipes for Gramma’s cheesecake, Ed’s rosemary chicken, Linda’s monkeybread, Mamma’s lasagna. It doesn’t know about my MP3 playlist that includes Charlie Daniels, Juice Newton, John Denver, Bon Jovi, Nickelback, Michael Jackson, Beethoven, Coplin and the Backyardigans. The compiled list of facts doesn't show how loudly we cheer for UK football and basketball or how we spend the first Saturday in May.

The Census could never record the look of joy on my children’s faces when they discover that perfect stick for playing “Pooh sticks” in the creek. It cannot record their belly laughs when tickled, or their tears when a favorite toy breaks.

We are more than names, birthdates, racial pigeonholes. We are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, uncles, loved ones. We are Southerners, Americans, patriots, followers of God or followers of conscience. We are the living breathing essence of our nation, a constant oral, visual, digital, written, debated, history of a people.

It is good that the Census form did not require more of our time. Our time is better spent living and sharing our lives with those around us. What we are today determines what we can be tomorrow, what we can be ten years from now. We do not need a Census to tell us that. All we really need is a child to sit at our feet and listen to the stories of the past and our dreams of the future.