Up Front: Treat them like your own; you’ll make the world a better place 

“He told me he gets lonely,” Massimo explained to Leonardo and me recently. “He said he doesn’t like going home — especially on the weekends — because nobody’s ever home when he gets there and he gets really lonely.”

“Jeez, Massi — that just breaks my heart,” I said.

“He’s always welcome at our house, Massi,” Leonardo told our 14-year-old son. “Remember that, OK?”

The “he” we were talking about that evening is one of Massimo’s best friends, whom I’ll call Zach.

Zach spends almost every weekend at our house: The house that’s come to be known as the “cool family house” where the music’s always playing. Where laughter is always heard and where everyone just has a good time being together.

It’s the “hip house” on the corner of Harborside and Anchor Bay where Leonardo and I share a simple philosophy about our family and all the children who enter our home: Treat them like our own.

Massimo and Zach have known each other since elementary school when they — along with scores of other youngsters — were being transferred from one school to another because of boundary changes and enrollment growth throughout the district.

Last year, they both ended up at the same middle school — they’ve been buddies ever since. But it wasn’t until last year that I learned just how closely Zach’s childhood mirrored my own.

“Good evening gentlemen — it sounds like you boys had fun tonight!”

Massimo and Zach were happy and laughing when they hopped into my minivan.

“It was hecka fun!” They both replied on cue, adrenaline still pumping.

“Everyone was dancing and acting all crazy and stuff. It was so cool, mommy!” Massimo shared with excitement.

“Yeah! We did like a conga line and a Soul -Train line and then when our line ended we’d just hop over to another dance line and danced s’more! It was so tight,” Zach added with even greater enthusiasm.

“I’m glad you boys had such a good time. Zach, did you call your mom to let her know that you’re spending the night at our house?” I asked.

This became the standard Friday night conversation that I would have with Zach in the car on the way home from school, the movies or in this case, having just picked them up from a school dance.

It’s the kind of conversation that’s become all too common in our fast-paced modern world, where working parents struggle to balance home and workplace responsibilities and where there’s little in the way of a safety net to catch the kids who slip through the cracks.

Gone are the days when several generations of the same family lived under one roof or just down the street from one another; so often we live far away from our parents, our aunties, our cousins — our family — and there’s no one around to step in for an absent parent.

More than half of all mothers with children under the age of six, work outside the home; more than a quarter of the nation’s children live with only one parent — and the numbers continue to rise.

“Um, I called my brother so he knows wassup, Mrs. Fasulo,” said Zach, whose mother, a widow, is raising her children alone and far from her own homeland.

I looked at Massimo through the rearview mirror and our eyes met. He smiled at me with warmth in his eyes — as though to let me know he understood that I, too, understood.

I understood more than he knew.

Like Zach, I grew up with a single immigrant mom, widowed at age 26, when my dad was killed in a collision with a teenage drunk driver. And just like Zach, I have no memories of my dad. I was too young.

My mom left the Philippines with all of us kids in tow to find the American Dream. When she left her homeland, she left behind the tightly knit extended family network that provides the safety net for so many Filipino families. She had to make it alone.

When I was very young, I remember spending my summer days in the employee lunchroom of the department store where my mom worked. There was no way our mom would’ve left us little ones home alone. My little brother and I would sit quietly for hours reading or coloring — we’d wait patiently for my mom to visit us on her breaks and we’d always look forward to having lunch together with her. It was a different time back then, but she was always there for us. That’s just the way it was.

“We never eat together,” Zach told me while we were all having breakfast the next morning. “And you always feed me, Mrs. Fasulo — like breakfast, lunch, dinner. I like it here. I like that you let me be part of your family.”

“Let you? We don’t let you, you are part of our family,” Massimo assured Zach. “My mom and dad always say that when you break bread together — like share a meal together — that makes you family,” Massimo said.

“Hey that’s cool, I like that — breaking bread. But I didn’t have any bread,” he said with a laugh.

“Zach, you’re silly but Massi’s right — you’re always welcome here,” I said. “When you’re in our house, you’re part of our family. You know what I’m saying?”

I thought of two recent studies: one that cites that children whose families eat together regularly are most likely to do well in school. The second confirmed that family meal times are on the way out. There’s something very alarming about that picture.

After breakfast that morning I wondered whether the similarities that Zach and I shared were more than coincidental. Maybe I had a greater purpose to pursue? Maybe?

I realize all too well that in the past, small-town America was hardly idyllic. Recent immigrants and African Americans battled racism; women were second-class citizens and people starved during the Great Depression. But this was also a time when families lived closer together and neighbors looked out for each other’s children. In my little corner of Elk Grove, perhaps the Fasulo household is playing a part in rebuilding those connections.

Modern families have a vast array of technological conveniences, but often they live in crushing isolation. And kids pay the price.

“I have an ‘A’ in honors science,” Zach bragged.

“I do too,” Massimo bragged back in jest. “I have all A’s, no B’s.”

“I don’t but I’m finally doing better in school,” Zach responded.

 Could it be that my mom was talking about Zach when — as a child — she taught me to always keep my heart and my home open to others?

Could it be that my so-called purpose, if in fact there was one, was not just to teach my own children about making the world a better place, but to teach the children who enter our home these same sorts of lessons?

Are these the lessons I need to keep in mind when I walk into the house on a Friday night after a hard week at work to find 14 kids — my own four and their friends — hungry for dinner and a little time with a caring grownup?

I wasn’t sure.

“Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Fasulo.”

“You’re very welcome, Zach — any time.”

“And um ... by the way, you know what? I have an ‘A’ in Honors Science.”

“Yes, I heard you mention that earlier when you boys were having breakfast. I’m proud of you, sweetie. That’s really something to be proud of! I’m very, very proud of you, Zach.”

“Uh, thanks — for ... you know ... for uh ... well, like taking care of me — I never feel like... lonely when I’m here — it’s nice because like, you know ...”

“Yeah, Zach ... I know. And you know something else? You’ll never be lonely as long as you have a friend like Massi in your life. OK? He’s got your back, sweetie.”

“Yeah? For real? You sure?”

“Yes Zach, trust me ... I’m very sure.”

Mina Fasulo is editor in chief of California Schools.