“Back in my day, kids roamed the neighborhood without supervision and nobody had these fancy birthday parties,” says yet another article about how childhood was different “back then.” While the world has changed for the good and the bad, I feel like my children’s experience isn’t all that different in some ways than mine or even my mom’s. Looking forward, it’s different in so many good ways as well.
No matter how much I want the photo, I’m never going to make my kids sit on Santa’s lap.
“My kids are notorious for not wanting to take pictures with Santa,” I commented to the person waiting at the mall kiosk. She had just pointed out that we could have made reservations to see Santa instead of waiting in line. But there was no way I was having my mother-in-law pay $40 ahead of time for my two sons to then refuse to be in the picture.
I wasn’t exaggerating. The only photos we had of our kids with Santa were from when they were too young to care. They’re each less than a year old in their respective photos. But once they hit two? Nope, nada, absolutely not. They wouldn’t even go near him. At Sesame Place’s Christmas celebration, my then four-year-old wanted a photo with Elmo, but he was only posing with Santa. So my son planted himself solidly on the other side of Elmo, as far away from the big guy as possible.
But did I try to force them to do it anyway? Nope. I never tried to force them to sit on Santa’s lap. It’s for similar reasons I’ll never make them hug or kiss a relative – or anyone, really.
Passing by the neon sign reading “Guns” displayed in a Main Street store, a shudder of fear ran through me. “No, I’m safe,” I thought. I thought that in part because a gun store doesn’t automatically equal danger. But mainly I realized it because I became starkly aware of my family’s privilege while traveling.
Traveling with little kids is always A Thing. There’s car sickness, whines of “I’m bored!” and the world’s longest bathroom breaks. On our recent three-hour drive, we stopped no fewer than six times. When traveling, there’s always worries about kids wandering off or touching something dangerous, like a campfire.
But one thing that I never have to worry about is our family being discriminated against.
If my grandmother had come to America today, she might be in a cage right now.
My grandmother immigrated to America when she was just three years old. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather has come over to the United States from Poland a few years before. When they started running out of money, my great-grandmother returned to Poland to get help. But she didn’t realize something very important – she was pregnant. Because America didn’t allow babies into the country, the two of them had to wait three long years before returning to America. Passing through Ellis Island, they finally reunited with my great-grandfather. My grandmother’s first memories are of seeing the Statue of Liberty as they came into the harbor and meeting her father for the first time. She said he was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
Now imagine if they were immigrants today.
The headlines never end. More school shootings. White people putting people of color in danger for merely living. The gap between rich and poor growing ever wider. America having the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world. The 400th straight month of higher-than-normal temperatures from climate change.
There is so much wrong with the world. I am so damn tired from it all. It’s so easy to be.
Unfortunately, no one’s going to come around and fix it. Change starts with us. It’s about radical kindness in your daily life. It’s about standing up and demanding justice and fairness from our policy makers. The political is personal and the personal is political.
When it feels like the world is awful, here are some ways you can make a difference:
TW: Racism
Reading the text from my husband, Chris, I frowned. “We left the park because [our older son] said something very racist to the girls there.” Furrowing my eyebrows, I typed back, “What did he say??” “That black people look like poop.”
My first thought was, “What the hell was he thinking?” My second was, “How the hell did this happen?”
Two weeks ago, I was finally able to call my husband a chef. Looking at him in his white culinary school jacket with his name on it, I realized this situation wasn’t quite what I imagined when I watched him walk across that stage. Because instead of him being the head of a high-end fancy restaurant, he was teaching a bunch of preschoolers how to cook.
It’s been a full year since Donald Trump became president. A full year since he stood on the National Mall and swore to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” just as Barack Obama had done eight years before. Attending President Obama’s inauguration was one of the most patriotic moments of my life. Instead of attending Trump’s inauguration, I joined with half a million other women in the next day to raise our voices in protest.
Needless to say, I entered Trump’s administration ready to fight. In my Instagram photo from that day, I’m wearing my Wonder Woman shirt, my smirk and stance challenging the camera.
But despite my attitude, I was worried. In fact, I had been worried since I blearily read the results the morning after the election. I was worried for you and even moreso for the many families less privileged than ours. As we’ve seen since then, my worries about the treatment of immigrants, LGBT folks, black people, and poor families were justified. Everything has been as bad as we expected. In some cases, it’s been worse.
And yet.
“They’re not dressing up as Native Americans, are they?” I said, wrinkling my nose. After reading about how cultures aren’t costumes around Halloween and how the whitewashed version of the Thanksgiving story is painfully inaccurate, I hope that my son’s preschool isn’t re-enacting the famous version of the Thanksgiving narrative. Regardless of their curriculum, I know we won’t be repeating it in our household. So we have to come up with an alternative.
Do you want to do what you can to help the environment but can’t find the time? Here are eight ways you can do both!
“I don’t have enough time!” I lament to my husband, as I stay up too late washing the dishes yet again. I’m certainly not alone in this cry, as anyone who raises small children knows. The days may be long, but it still feels as if there are never enough hours. But despite all that, our family still lives in as environmentally-friendly a manner as we can. As many “green” activities take more time than conventional ones – I’m looking at you, dish rags that we need to wash – how do we find the time to help the environment?
Some of it is reorganizing our priorities. But in many cases, I’ve found some shortcuts to save time and still help the environment.