Person 1 — that’s me.
After reading the form that arrived this week from the U.S. Census Bureau, I’m feeling a little lonely. I also know that my just-the-facts census sheet is a deceiving picture of life in my busy house.
My old home has the feel of a place still populated by more than Person 1 and Person 2. Yet that’s the small cast of characters listed on my properly filled-out form. Our census descriptions remind me of those zany, blue-haired creatures Thing 1 and Thing 2 in “The Cat in the Hat.”
The Dr. Seuss classic hasn’t been read at my house for awhile, but it’s on my boy’s bookshelf, which is actually his big sister’s bookshelf, built long ago by their dad. Really, he ought to be Person 1, but my husband died in 1998, two years before the last census.
I’m sure I filled out the 2000 form, but can’t recall it. By then, my household would have included this hard-working Person 1, two teenagers and a toddler.
It’s odd that marking an X on a simple form would stir a warm stew of family memories. I suppose it makes sense. Each decade, as our nation takes a demographic snapshot, we who fill out the forms — we who are Person 1 — are compelled to examine, in 10-year increments, huge changes in our lives.
Singles become couples. Couples become singles. People become parents. Children grow and go.
I followed the instructions, despite a sense that I’m still living in a house full of kids. The fine print says “Do not count anyone living away either at college or in the armed forces.” You’re also supposed to exclude those living in nursing homes, or anyone in jail or prison — and thankfully I don’t have that issue.
So I left out Person 3, my 23-year-old son, still a student at Central Washington University. He lives in an Ellensburg apartment near campus with two other guys. I know he’s around my house not only in spirit, but in all his music and movie treasures, old clothes and forgotten books and projects from high school. Clearly, I’m not the sort of person who’ll tell a kid, “I’m taking your room for an office. Come and get rid of all this stuff.”
Filling out the census form, there was no question that Person 4, who celebrated her 27th birthday Thursday, is out of the house for sure. She was married last May and lives in Seattle — although she has a few American Girl dolls sitting on a shelf in her old room. Last weekend, when she and my son-in-law came north to watch Person 2 play lacrosse, I sent her high school yearbooks home with her. I also asked if I could donate the old prom dresses still in her closet in Everett. She said yes, with a comment that it’s her wedding dress that matters.
When grown children go, there’s still an illusion of their presence. It’s not just their stuff. It’s family history. It’s the framed photograph of the smiling baby. It’s love.
None of that matters to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Snohomish County Executive’s Office sent out a press release this week urging people to complete and return the forms. “The information the census collects helps determine how more than $400 billion of federal funding is spent nationally on infrastructure and services each year, including hospitals, job training centers, schools, senior centers, road projects and human services,” the release said.
It’s population that matters, not the relationships of people targeted in mailings addressed “TO RESIDENT AT.”
So while my college son votes in Snohomish County and was once called for jury duty here, he’ll be counted as an Ellensburg resident — if he and his housemates find the form and get around to marking and sending it.
“That’s probably our hardest to reach population, males 18 to 24. Half of them couch surf,” said Leland Dart, manager of the census office in Everett. “We count people where they live most of the time,” Dart said. That includes college students, even if parents pay their bills and find their Guitar Center catalogs in the mailbox.
“Snowbirds, too,” Dart said. “If November to April they live in Phoenix, that’s five months. But they’re here seven months. We get you.”
The census gets you, but it doesn’t really get you. The form doesn’t ask who shows up for Christmas.
Ten more years? I’ll be 66 in 2020. Snowbird? With one last kid in college, not likely.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
