Close to Home: The Story of Four Families

Leaving for college has long been an American rite of passage. A time when newfound hopes, expectations and independence tend to obscure the childhoods left behind. But the stories of our early years are important ones. Harvard families have confronted a variety of challenges, from dealing with the effects of globalization to the loss of a loved one. They have also encountered unique joys, such as a commitment to a family member in need and the satisfaction of a relationship made stronger through hardship. Long before and long after they arrive at Harvard, students' relationships with their parents and families influence and shape the people they become.

Lindiwe Dovey '01 grew up knowing exactly how her parents thought of her. "Lindiwe is a Zulu names that means `the one we waited for,'" she says. Her parents Ken and Teresa Dovey waited nine years after their marriage to have children in order to ensure that their relationship was strong and stable, and this stability within the family has helped the Doveys cope with a rapidly changing South African landscape.

Lindi grew up in South Africa and Australia. "My dad is an academic, but is more of an action-academic since he combines community work and action with academia," Lindi says. "He began an institution to promote nonracial relationships--this was all going on during apartheid." Though the Doveys have deep roots in South Africa, subtle pressures from the apartheid regime eventually prompted her parents to move to Australia when she was three. From then on, Lindi's family shuttled back and forth between the two countries about every two years, drawn back by her parents' desire to help South Africa and pushed away by the country's volatile political situation. The family was trapped in a vicious circle of constant relocation and Dovey's mother notes that early on these frequent moves left her daughter with a sense of loss in her life that has perhaps heightened her appreciation for life.

Amid the many moves, her family remained the only constant factor. "We are really, really, really close," Lindi says. "Maybe too close at times--I still feel a kind of subconscious presence that they are with me." But Lindi hasn't lived with her parents in four years. With her younger sister Ceridwen working in London and her parents back in South Africa, the Doveys are scattered across the globe.

Lindi and Ceridwen first separated from their parents in 1995 when the Doveys moved back to South Africa and the girls made the painful decision to stay in Australia together. "I had two years left of school," Lindi says. "They went back to their jobs in South Africa, but my sister and I got an apartment in Sydney. We saw them twice a year for four weeks at a time." Lindi was 17 years old.

In Sydney, she assumed the responsibilities of an adult. Two weeks before her parents left, she paid the bills, cleaned the apartment and bought groceries. She also learned how to drive. "At first I was really worried about living up to their trust in us. Perhaps it's a first-child syndrome to always do the right thing in their eyes," she says. "My parents actually made a big sacrifice and they must have gone through a lot of stress."

It may seem counter-intuitive that such a close family would voluntarily separate, but the Doveys knew that it made the most sense. Political upheaval in South Africa had destroyed the country's infrastructure and education standards were low. "They were so happy and integrated. It didn't make sense to bring them back," Lindi's father says. "I saw it more functionally, in terms of the education."

Being apart was more difficult for Lindi's mother. "The way Ken and I divided our responsibilities made me more involved in the girls' daily activities from the time they were little. So it was very tough for me to lose that role two years early. I went through a difficult year but at the same time I knew it was the right thing for them. I knew they could cope. In retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing to do. We transcended possible problems."

The Doveys knew that their daughter could adapt to a real world situation because she had no illusions about the difficulties of life. Ken Dovey says, "She was never sheltered from the national context--poverty, conflict and the realities of everyday time. I had a sense that no problem would get on top of her."

Even when Lindi was a toddler, she revealed a natural ability to deal with changes in life. Teresa Dovey explains, "When Lindi was almost two and we were expecting our second child, I was concerned about how Lindi would react to having her place at the center of things usurped by a new sibling. I thought it might help if she had a new doll to play with when we brought a new baby home...and I imagined she would enjoy dressing the doll while I was dressing the baby. When I came back from the maternity hospital with a new sister in a carry cot, we presented Lindi with the new doll in a carry cot. Our family and friends were there to admire the new arrival when Lindi came through with her carry cot. The new doll had been thrown out, and in its place was her old doll--dirty and without clothes. Lindi didn't have the words to tell us, but she found a way to communicate her disapproval of the `usurper' and to show us that she knew about loyalty to the `first-comer,' even if the rest of us had temporarily forgotten."

The Doveys always encouraged communication within the family--be it nonverbal, conversational or over e-mail. Lindi's parents take their roles very seriously and can clearly articulate their philosophy of raising children, a philosophy that reflects an optimism about human potential. "If you bring someone into the world, you have a responsibility to make sure she is a happy person, that she has a sense of joy as well as being well-developed socially and intellectually," Ken Dovey says. "Some parents use other explanations as a cop out. In the end, parents have a huge influence on their children."

"Whenever there was a problem, we'd look at ourselves," says Teresa Dovey. "We'd say, `They are reacting to what's going on around them.' True enough, there'd be something wrong in our lives." This introspection and focus on the family has forged an especially tight bond between Lindi, Ceridwen and their parents despite the distance between them.

Today Lindi and Ceridwen have taken over their parents' role as intercontinental travelers. "They're increasingly guiding us," Ken Dovey says. "They're in the global fast lane. We say, `It's your turn to guide us.'"

At the first lecture of the popular core class Historical Studies B-27: "The English Revolution," Baird Professor of History Mark A. Kishlansky spoke in front of a packed Harvard Hall 102. Matthew, his son, sat in the crowd to secretly witness his dad's shopping period performance. During the lecture, Professor Kishlansky went over the course's reading list and drew attention to a book that he authored. He encouraged students to buy his book not because it was the best source for the class or because he wrote it based on the class. "He said he was the single support for his impecunious undergraduate son and he told them that without the royalty checks from his book, I couldn't shop in the Patagonia catalogue," Matt remembers. As his friends laughed, Matt slunk down in his seat.

Matthew T. Kishlansky '00 knew that being a `faculty brat' at Harvard would carry certain stigmas, not the least of which being that his dad would gibe him publicly, given the opportunity. "I made fun of my parents at my high school graduation and I've been doing time ever since," Matt says. But his father's witticisms aren't a form of revenge--he didn't even remember the graduation speech. "I would do it anyway," the professor quips. "He can take it."

Matt doesn't mind seeing his father around campus. "I see my dad all the time," he says. "I might run into him or go to his office to say hi and borrow his car. For a lot of people it would be a bugout, but it was something that I wanted." On the other hand, Professor Kishlansky thinks that he sees his son less often. "We share a printer," he says. "That's my way of making sure that I see him."

Going to college near his Lexington home was always a priority for Matt. He never felt any impetus to go to a far-off university because the Kishlanskys had moved several times when Matt was younger--from Chicago to Los Angeles and to London for a year. "I've been around," Matt says, "so getting away wasn't an issue. We are a really close-knit family and that's the reason I stayed here."

Particularly, he explains, "I wanted to stay as close to my brother as possible....He's very special."

Matt goes home at least once a week to see his 15-year-old brother Edward, who has Down's Syndrome. "Eddie has taught us all patience and compassion to a degree you aren't normally taught," Professor Kishlansky says. Since both his parents worked, Matt assumed greater responsibility in the family and became a parental figure for Eddie. "From age six or seven I've been taking care of my brother," Matt says. "Eddie's probably the most stubborn person on earth--he can be hard to deal with and I had to pick up a lot of slack from my parents. I became pretty independent at a young age due to the realities of the situation with my brother. I couldn't dominate my parents' time and attention."

The Kishlanskys fostered their son's independence and felt that it was important for him to make his own decisions. "We've always tried to let Matt learn on his own. We didn't manage his life at any point. We try to give advice," Professor Kishlansky says. Indeed, Matt had an unusual amount of freedom during his teenage years. "I had no curfew in high school," he says. "My parents were always generously lenient with me, almost laissez-faire."

Growing up in an academic household offered Matt the opportunity to learn both in school and out. "As a parent you try to provide the right environment of learning and communication in the home," his mother says, "but a strong school is important. Parents can't do everything."

Matt's high school in Lexington was a rat race, where 12 of the 350 in his class came to Harvard. "My dad pushed me pretty hard academically in high school," Matt says. "But it was more like he told me what to do and then gave me the space to do it."

Yet when it came to writing, certain tensions arose. "He discovered much to his dismay that I know how to write and he didn't," Professor Kishlansky says. "I write for a living. Of course I should be better than a high school student. At first Matt denied it, but ultimately he figured out it was to his advantage...to learn from me," Kishlansky wryly reminisces.

The family dynamic, however, has been characterized by mutual support. Kishlansky still remembers with pride coaching his son to the Little League World Series. In the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, Matt made the winning catch. He may have been twelve and it may have been just Little League, but his father couldn't have been more proud.

Los Angeles native Antoinette C. Nwandu '02 completed her college applications alone. "When I was filling out my college applications, my mom said, `I couldn't help you even if you wanted me to because I've never done this,'" she recalls. Nonetheless, the two women are so similar that Antoinette tells people, "If you've met me you've pretty much met my mom." Indeed, they have a uniquely close bond. "We are each other's best friends," she says. "The older I get, the more the relationship grows toward sisterhood."

After graduating from high school, Antoinette's mother, Stacy Anderson, dreamt of starting a family. "It seems like that was my whole world," she says. "There was a time when all I wanted was a husband and a kid." One of the two wishes was granted when she was 21: Antoinette. The other half of the equation was what Antoinette describes as an "11-month sketchy marriage." Her father dropped out of the picture shortly after Antoinette was born, and she hasn't seen him since.

Antoinette attributes the bond between her and her mother to the fact that for a long time, it was just the two of them. For Stacy Anderson, the years alone formed the most challenging period in her experience as a parent. As a single mother, Stacy depended on welfare for assistance, and she and her daughter moved from place to place, living with family members and friends for short periods of time. "We had to rely on friends and relatives a lot. I kind of learned as I went," Stacy Anderson says.

Although they didn't have much, both recognize the way that their hardships brought them closer together. "For the longest time we were the only constants in each other's lives," Antoinette recalls. "I admire my mom's ability to deal with the situation she finds herself in."

Six years ago, Stacy remarried. Antoinette describes her relationship with her stepfather, Edward Anderson, as "a very murky, undefined area of my life." Their relationship hasn't always been easy, but they have come to appreciate one another.

Antoinette's mother explains her husband's relationship to her daughter with a reference to the Bible, saying "Iron sharpeneth iron." She feels that her husband's presence has had a positive impact on her daughter. "Her stepdad has really filled in by teaching her how to have a father authority in her life," she says.

Edward Anderson hasn't been the only addition to the family. Antoinette also has three younger siblings, Christiana, 11, Jonathan, 7, and Annastasia, 4. Antoinette and her mom agree that Antoinette learned from having significantly younger siblings. Her mother acknowledges that at times, her oldest has filled in for her, and Antoinette characterizes herself as "a second mom." Because of this, Stacy Anderson feels that her relationship with her eldest is not only maternal but also a kind of partnership.

"When she gets fed up, my mom always announces to the kids, `I'm not your mother right now, I'm going off-duty,'" Antoinette says, laughing. And so, one fills in for the other and the two women have grown closer through the give-and-take involved in raising young children.

As much as Stacy has had to depend on her daughter for support, she has also reciprocated. Antoinette credits her mother with giving her self-confidence and a moral grounding. Stacy Anderson has tried to teach her daughter some of the lessons that she herself learned through experience. "I've tried to point out some of my earlier mistakes as a teenager," she says. She has tried to help her daughter avoid "falling into social pigeonholes."

"When I've talked to my mom about her teenage years she always felt that she had to ditch class and hang out with the `cool' kids," Antoinette says. But social pressure has never been a problem for Antoinette. "I've always had a very independent way about me, a very independent nature. It seems silly that just because a whole group of people is doing drugs, having sex, or whatever, that I would do it."

Antoinette's mother admires her daughter's independence, including her willingness to attend college on the other side of the country. "I guess I just didn't have the mindset for it at Antoinette's age. When I was her age, I had all the ideas she did, but I was afraid to leave home. She's just gone out and ventured out of the nest. I'm just so proud of her for that. She is different in that she wanted the adventure more than me."

Now that she is away from home, Stacy says that "Antoinette has the challenge of not letting her Christian standards go down," and she adds that "that's a big challenge when you're away from everyone and your home church."

Antoinette was raised a Baptist and at home, the family attends church together. Her mother considers faith to be the most important gift she has given her daughter. Although Antoinette has not yet settled on a local church to attend, she still considers her religion important to her lifestyle. Community service has also been a part of her religious upbringing--she was a community service worker through her Los Angeles church and now co-directs a Phillips Brooks House Association program.

As mother and daughter look back on Antoinette's childhood, each woman admires the strength of the other. "Sure, we were going through hard times," Antoinette says, but the hard times didn't change their strong relationship. "My mom didn't place her own limitations--her lack of education and her economic status--on me. She taught me that if I wanted anything, it was within my reach."

"I give her all the credit for wanting to go to Harvard," Stacy Anderson says simply. "She worked hard for it."

But Antoinette sees her ambition "as coming from how I was raised. My mom just sees it as this really great thing--she doesn't know where it comes from. She barely graduated high school and I'm at Harvard. It's like night and day."

"In her eyes she's not directly responsible for my going to Harvard," Antoinette reflects. "But she is...I know she is."

"I WAS TWELVE THE FIRST TIME I HEARD A DOCTOR TELL my mom that she was going to die."

In 1990 Ryan G. Schaffer '00 traveled with his mother, Jan, from their home in Cleveland to Philadelphia to see a specialist who might be able to treat his mom's rare form of cancer. Jan Schaffer had first been diagnosed in 1982, and after a brief period of radiation treatment, a doctor declared her cured. She returned to normal life for a while--if you can call being the single mother of three energetic sons normal. But eight years later the cancer returned. When Ryan and his mother spoke with the Philadelphia doctor, he told her she had six months, a year maybe.

"But my mom wouldn't give up," he says, "and there was no way that she wasn't going to be there for me and my brothers. She was the most determined person I've ever met." The next six years brought many more doctors, and many more treatments. "We called everyone in the country...everyone in the world who we thought might help."

Through Ryan's high school years his mom struggled, balancing work, her son's sports schedule and trips around the country for treatment. In the summer of 1996, before his freshman year at Harvard, the cancer returned and doctors told her that treatment methods had been exhausted. Ryan thought of postponing Harvard for a year, but his mom wouldn't hear of it and so he left reluctantly to start school. But one morning in late October, his brother called and asked him to come home. On November 4, 1996, Ryan held his mother's hand as she passed away.

From the way Ryan tells it, most of Cleveland was at the funeral. "The cemetery was packed," he says. "There were so many people who loved her--I wish she could have seen it."

Jan Schaffer hadn't always been surrounded by friends. When his parents divorced in 1982, Ryan's mom knew that her teaching career couldn't support her three boys. She went to work in advertising and eventually successfully started her own company. Without support from her ex-husband, she put each of her three sons through a top-notch private school and managed to somehow keep the family home.

Ryan recalls his mother's selflessness and says "she channeled all of her efforts into making sure that we had every opportunity that our friends with two full time parents and a lot more money had." Even today, as he ponders his mother's ability to overcome emotional, financial and physical hardship, he shakes his head in awe.

"My mom was a fighter," Ryan comments. And fight she did--with loan officers, little league umpires, and with a prognosis that she refused to believe. "When, inevitably, the cancer would come back, months, or even weeks later, my mom refused to give up. She was determined to beat the disease, and she showed more strength and courage during her battles than anyone I have ever met."

First Ryan's older brother Andy left for Yale, then his brother Eric left for the University of Michigan. Although he missed having his older brothers around, Ryan treasured the years he spent alone at home with his Mom. When she wasn't working or getting cancer treatment, she would pick him up after school and take him to the movies. "She wasn't the same as other mothers," Ryan says. "I mean, we went to see Lambada together!"

Ryan was a three-sport athlete in high school, and somehow Jan found a way to cheer her son on at every game. "When I looked up, she was always there. She may not have known what was going on, but she was always there."

According to his brother, Eric, the relationship between Ryan and his mom was one of mutual support. "Even when he was young, he did everything he possibly could for my mom," Eric remembers.

In December of 1995, Ryan came home from school one day to find the "good envelope" from Harvard. Jan was back in Philadelphia for several weeks of radiation treatment. She knew that the letter was going to come that day, and when she called that evening she tried to mask anticipation by starting a casual conversation about school. "I said, `Mom, I got into Harvard,' and then I heard the phone drop and she just started screaming. My aunt said that she went around the hotel and told everyone in the lobby that her son was going to Harvard. I was as happy for her as I was for myself."

In June 1996, a group of parents watched as their sons took part in the commencement exercises at the University School in Cleveland. Jan Schaffer wasn't supposed to be there that day, but she was. She defied the odds by living to see her youngest son graduate. After the ceremony, Ryan went to his mother and hugged her. "We made it, Mom," he told her.

"My brothers and I have always been close ," Ryan says. "That was really important to mom. She wanted us to be able to rely upon the fact that no matter what happened, we had each other."

The boys' father was not a part of their lives after the divorce, and because of this, Ryan's older brothers have had to play two roles. Ryan recalls that when he was in elementary school his oldest brother, Andy, now a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, would come home from high school after sports practice and Ryan would ask him to go outside and throw a baseball. "He was exhausted, he had tons of work, but not once did he say `no' to me."

Eric Schaffer, who works for IMG, a sports marketing firm, and is a part-time law student in Cleveland, remarks that the three brothers are "all kind of best friends." Athletics have always been important to all the boys--they all were the quarterbacks of their high school's football team--and as Eric says, "when we were younger, we really bonded over sports."

Since their mother's passing, the brothers' relationship has remained a close and supportive one. "Ryan knows that he could come to Andy and I about anything--about girls, about school--we understand. It's a nice thing, but it's also something for us to live up to," Eric says. He says he sees a lot of his mother in Ryan. "They were both very smart and determined, but they also had a way about them that everybody likes them and is attracted to them."

Ryan's mom filled many different roles in his life. Losing his mother, Ryan says he lost "my mother, my father, my sister, my coach and my adviser, but most importantly, my best friend." Two and a half years later, "I have good days and I have bad days," he says. When difficult days like Mother's Day and Jan's birthday come around, he and his brothers share memories with each other.

Last summer the boys sold their family home and Ryan moved in with his brother, Eric. Andy got married last year and he and his wife are expecting a baby in March. "I can't wait to tell my nephew what a wonderful lady his grandmother was," Ryan beams.

Jan Schaffer was an optimist, in spite of it all, and her sons recall the inspirational posters that she would hang on the refrigerator door when they were younger. "My mom encouraged me to `reach for the stars' and taught me the importance of believing in myself. She got me to believe in myself because she truly believed in me, in everything that I ever tried to do," Ryan says.

The lessons of Jan Schaffer's life are powerful and enduring ones, and even after her death, Ryan feels her influence in everything he does. Above all, he looks to her as an example of selfless determination and courage. He remarks that "every goal she ever had was put aside for us, she lived for us...she lived through us."

And in many ways, she still does.