mzito

Excellent question - when you're a Big, you're paired up with one "Little", which is a kid who is looking for mentorship and a positive adult relationship in their life. Basically, you meet up once a week or once every other week and hang out. You can go to a movie, help them with their homework, talk about life, and so on. The idea is that you can be a positive role model in their life even with periodic contact.

The time commitment was a challenge sometimes. My personal and work life was getting increasingly complicated, and this was a burden on the limited amount of time I had to myself.

I think also there's a naive belief that I walked in with thinking that I was going to see this kid thrive, or the white man saving the poor African American child, all of that savior garbage. The reality is that you're just there to help, and in the end, you can't work magic. You can't change the fact their home life sucks, or their school sucks, or they were abused, or their family members are in jail. All you can do is try to help them thrive as best they can in the environment they are in.

Well, I live in NYC, so I think the barrier for what attracts people's attention is much higher. I definitely would get odd looks sometimes, being a 20-something white guy at a driving range with a 13 year old African American boy, but it was usually obvious that we're having a good time and chilling without anything inappropriate going on.

I do recall getting weird looks at the movie theater once, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense.

So - no confrontation, but definitely some weird looks.

We tried to meet up every week, which after a while got to be tough with my work travel schedule. After that, we'd meet up every other week, or two weeks on, one week off, etc.

But, on the off week, we'd talk on the phone, just to stay in touch and catch up on what's going on.

The activities changed over time - when we were first meeting up, I tried to be really proactive about doing something. So we'd go to a museum or go to an interesting lunch somewhere, and so on. Over time, I realized that realistically you wanted to balance that out with "hanging out", and so we started just going to a diner and hanging out for an hour, then going to a movie or walk around.

He was really into sports, so we'd play basketball, hit golfballs, etc., I remember that very well.

You're a Big when you're a volunteer, and your Little is the kid you're paired with.

I recommend it generally for anyone who wants to contribute back in a direct and meaningful way. That being said, I don't think it necessarily has any relevance towards being a parent, unless you don't have a lot of exposure to children already. You're getting a window into the child's life for a very brief amount of time, a couple of hours a week typically. It doesn't have a lot of relevance to the day-in day-out of parenting.

And I met a couple of really amazing Bigs who themselves came from really rough upbringings in very poor areas, and hence can relate very well to the (often very depressing) background of the Littles. I initially felt a little awkward that my upbringing was vastly more functional than his, but after a while I realized that the reality is that I had a lot to offer in terms of advice and being a role model just by virtue of my being an adult.