The original plan was to do a multi-part series of posts unpacking how I became a feminist and how this paradigm informed my parenting, but that’s going to have to wait…
It all happened so fast.
I saw it coming. My brother, his family and my parents are in Seattle, so I’ve been following the news, and my school has been making plans for the possibility of closing. The feeling in the air went from this being a possibility earlier in the week to becoming a feeling that this would happen any day.
And then it did.
Thursday night my school and my son’s school called off school. A couple days the later the whole state followed suit. This was quickly followed by closing restaurants to dining in and limiting gatherings.
Even though I still don’t have a solid sense on how I’m going to do “distance learning,” (my school gave us a week to prep, basically making this week break), I didn’t conceptualize until late last week what was really upon me as a parent.
Parents across the world are entering a sudden and dramatic change in their role as parents. We are dealing with children not attending school in person, activities and clubs no longer meeting, libraries, movies theaters, and museums closing, and an important recommendation to limit play-dates. We have to embrace what we have avoided, putting our children in front of screens more than we would like, and many of us have to figure out how to work from home, how to help our children learn remotely, and do these things all at the same time.
We are also doing all of this right now, with little acknowledgement, and hustling to make all of this work. We don’t have any guidebooks, or models on how to do this. Our parents never faced anything like this. We are truly in uncharted territory.
I told my 8th graders that however they are processes these events is okay. If you are angry that’s fine, if you are scared that’s okay, and if you are feeling nothing, that’s also okay. Right now intellectually I get why this is a scary situation, but right now I’m feeling pretty calm about this whole crisis. I’m not trying to gaslight y’all and tell you that you shouldn’t be feeling scared, I’m honestly just not in that head space. I most likely will be at some point but right now, I’m pretty calm.
The last couple days, I’ve done a lot of cooking, and of course playing with and hanging out with my children. Ethan, Ollie, Lucas, and Buffy demand to be taken care of in different ways. We can’t not actively work to care for them, so they’ve been keeping busy and focused and for that I’m really grateful. One of the best ways to feel better about your day is to do things for others, and it’s very satisfying going to bed at night and knowing that I did my job and that my children were fed, cared for, and loved throughout the day.
The coming weeks are going to be hard, and there were definitely things about the past couple days that were very challenging. However, there were many moments of peace, and happiness: Ollie beating me at chess (when I was really trying to win), Ethan falling asleep in my arms, and Lucas giggling as I talked to him.
Kant wrote, that there are three rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. My children are all three of these things.
There’s a ton more to unpack about all that has happened, and all that will happen for us as parents. There will be time enough for that. For now, it's time to wind down and get ready for a new, but not quite normal.
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