Reaching up in my closet for my sewing bag, I asked my then-six year old son, “Do you want me to teach you how to sew?”
“No,” he said, with an edge in his voice of “And why would I?”
But as I settled down on the couch, his attitude shifted. He wandered over, asking, “Can I see what you’re doing?”
“You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one,” I read, sobbing by the end of the line.
Honestly, I didn’t expect to cry. I didn’t expect The Velveteen Rabbit to be one of Those Books, the ones that dissolve me into a puddle of tears.
“I’m sure the mayor will respond to you – they love getting stuff from kids,” I promised my kids, crossing my fingers. In the back of my head, I thought “Damn right, she better.”
I was trying to convince them to write letters to our local city government officials about climate change. While heavy topics like climate change can seem scary for adults to talk to kids about, finding ways to empower kids can help them be much less anxiety-inspiring. When kids know that they are not helpless – that they can make a difference and that their parents want to do it with them – they can tackle hard topics much better than we would expect.
“I want to help!” my older son declared, in that way he does when he feels like life has dealt him a terribly unfair hand.
“Oh! Sure,” I said, handing him the snow shovel. We were clearing the sidewalk of snow, in one of the few times a year Washington D.C. gets it.
Both his tone of voice and demand to help surprised me. He’s a kid for whom chores are like pulling teeth. So volunteering for a hard job that meant I did less work? Excellent. I did want to give him a heads-up though. “The snow is pretty tough to shovel, as there’s a layer of ice underneath. From when we had the freezing rain last night. So try to get under the ice, if you can.”
As he managed the big shovel awkwardly, I tried to both hold my tongue and figure out what inspired this burst of enthusiasm.
A quiet stream with gurgling water, a spattering of rocks along the bottom. My young child plays nearby, the water just high enough for him to splash in without worrying about him getting hurt. I sit on a rock, my baby nestled in my arms.
I opened my eyes to a prenatal yoga class full of other heavily pregnant women. I struggled to stand up from where I was snuggled into a nest of yoga pillows and blankets.
The word ritual may evoke images of religious ceremonies with waving incense, but right now for my family, it means turning on Disney+ on Saturday mornings.
“Thank you for what you did for us, tree,” I sniffed, watching my kids hug the huge pine tree in our yard. They were probably getting sap on their shirts, but it didn’t matter. The tree was going to be gone soon. We each told it that we would miss it, calling out “Goodbye.”
To my younger son,
You’re five. How has it been five years since that chaotic day you came into our lives, three weeks early and only a few hours after I had a job interview? (Yes, really.) How could it have been so many months since they placed you – so very tiny – in my arms after so much anxiety and bated breath? When I wondered how your brother would react, how you would fit in our family, who you would be?
“The house should be so much cleaner!” I think, panicked about my parents arriving any minute. That streak of panic occurs despite the fact that they know perfectly well that they’ve been the only people in our house since last March and that we’re not exactly the tidiest people by a long shot. Expectations are already low.
And yet I think this anyway. The self-judgment weighs hard, even when I push back against it. The hardest part is that I think this way about everything: cleaning, cooking, parenting, activism, writing, even taking care of myself. Perhaps worst of all, I suspect I’m not the only one.
Do you want to talk to your kids about climate change but you don’t know how? Even young kids are hearing about climate change, from overhearing the news to learning about it in school. When kids who feel empowered to act on climate change are less anxious about it and more able to make changes for good!
I’ve worked with Raising Luminaries to develop a Climate Justice toolkit for families and teachers with elementary school children!
Be sure to check out our toolkit and pass it on to anyone you think would be interested. It’s a free and accessible resource for all.