The Role of Parent
January 6, 2021, was a day of confusion and all the emotions for me. As I reflected at the end of the night, I wrote the words below to process how to move forward. Exactly one year later, I still have all the emotions, sometimes all in one day. And. I still have hope. Hope for our country. Hope for equity. Hope that grace and love will win.
January 6, 2021
Today I received news that my children are returning to in-person school. This came on the same day our country was under attack from within.
I learned this news from my friend and fellow mom warrior. She wrote, “Check your email, babies are going back jack!!!!! Back to school!!!” I could feel her excitement and I replied with genuine excitement. This was a Wednesday and I don’t think my sixth grader had started online school on time once that week and getting her to turn in her assignments was like some kind of 21st Century parental torture inflicted by the online school gods. My 9- and 12-year-olds going back to school is a good thing, I told myself.
Then I read the official email. In two weeks, my third grader would be riding the bus to attend in-person school two days a week, and two weeks after that, my sixth grader would return. As I read the email, I could feel anxiety and worry in my stomach - where I feel most emotions - and I felt tears start to form in my eyes. I immediately recognized this mix of emotions - fear, anxiety, loss. It was the beginning of life hitting the play button. Over the last 10 months, life has been at the pace of a raging river in many areas, but in the areas where it really matters, it’s been on pause. It has felt a bit like the spell cast by Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. Time has been frozen in so many ways, while uncertainty has grown up around us. I have come to enjoy my new morning routine of running, feeding the dogs, waking up the kids, all three of us starting our day together in virtual meetings, laughing over a late morning breakfast, sneaking in a quick game of Connect Four during lunch, transitioning from school and work into dinner and Impractical Jokers with ease. No driving. No rushing. No manic calls between parents trying to figure who’s picking up the kid and who’s making dinner.
I’ve also read this email in the middle of a historic attack on democracy. Just five hours before I received the news about school, I had turned on the news to find Americans scaling walls and breaking windows at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. How can I possibly send my children into a world that has become this? Are they even safe as young Americans in America today? Can I trust their teachers? What if they had been at school when this happened and they weren’t able to witness it in real-time the way they had today? What if they did see it in real-time and I wasn’t there to answer their questions? What kind of world am I sending my children into? Panic ensues in my mind. Let me stay in the safety of my home where Maleficent has frozen everything around us and is protecting us from the evil “out there.”
Protecting Our Kids. Or Not.
I quickly remember my job is not to protect my children from hard things, even though that’s what my instincts tell me to do. My job is to expose them to all the pain and hurt I can while they are in the safety of my home so I can wipe their tears and answer their questions and show them grace as they process their pain. My job is to send them into a horrifying and turbulent world as children so they can build empathy, wisdom, and context as adults. My job is to show them they cannot take their freedom and democracy for granted, it is up to them to seek information and education to develop their own opinions and then fight like hell to stand up for their rights and for those who can’t stand up for themselves. My job is to teach them how to use a broken heart to change the world. As I recognize my role in their lives, I realize that what’s been good for me - being at home with them and witnessing every moment of their lives for 10 months - is not what’s best for them.
After the tears pass and I process my reaction, I identify I am in mourning. I am mourning the loss of what has been a uniquely special season with my daughters. I am mourning the loss of being able to protect them. I am mourning the loss of their safety and innocence. I am mourning the loss of living exactly how I want to live without regard for anyone else.
The truth is, I have been walking through the steps of grief for months preparing for the day I would receive the news they would be returning to school, which is more symbolic of a return to reality. Months ago when I first began to realize the bubble of remote work, distance learning, staying home all day, and wearing pajamas 24-7 would eventually burst, I simply said, “no.” I refused to consider returning to the life I led pre-COVID. At some point I realized quitting my job and homeschooling my children wasn’t the answer (probably on the day I slammed my sixth grader’s computer shut and then proceeded to drop it on the floor in the exact manner I had previously threatened her not to do) and I vacillated between anger and depression for a period. Neither of those emotions suit me, so I moved on to bargaining pretty quickly and took up residence there for a while. If I can find a job that allows for two-thirds remote work and maintains my salary, this will work. If I can make a career change that accommodates my desired lifestyle of prioritizing my family while still serving with purpose and passion, this will work. If I can hire a driver so I never have to waste time driving again, this will work. If I can hire a chef who will make my 11am smoothie and bring it to me at work and then go back to my home and prepare a healthful dinner for my family, this will work. Of course, the bargaining ended at some point, and here I was sitting in mourning because I had accepted our future.
Acceptance and Hope
With acceptance, I also found hope. Hope that my little learners would fall in love with school again. Hope that their teachers would feel reprieve being in their familiar classrooms teaching small humans instead of faces on a screen. Hope that a vaccine will save lives at a rate faster than COVID-19 stole them. Hope that having a smart, compassionate, fierce, and loving woman at the White House will help our nation heal, and show my daughters how to painfully and joyfully shatter the glass ceilings built over top of them.
