Being Reflected in History

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
A shiny reflective object with a photo of the People's Climate Movement march with people of various races and ages holding signs in front of the U.S. Capital. A woman taking a photo and a child are reflected in the surface.

I stared at my face being reflected back at me from a shining silver surface. Beyond my reflection, there was a photograph laser-etched in black that felt very familiar. Activists of all ages and races yelled and held signs declaring the “People’s Climate Movement” in front of the U.S. Capital.

“I was at this event! Heck, you were at this event!” I exclaimed to my seven year old. We were at an exhibit called “Look Here” at the National Building Museum (shush, it’s much cooler than it sounds). The piece of art combined giant kaleioscopic sculptures with huge metal versions of childhood fortune tellers. Some of the fortune tellers had surfaces printed with photos of historic events in Washington D.C. Other ones featured the 1964 March on Washington and the AIDS quilt.

But to see this one – a photo my kids and I could have been in – was startling. It put us in the company of other people marching on Washington who made history. We were part of that group. We were part of history.

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Why posts about shallow inclusivity make me cringe

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A photo of me (a white woman with brown hair and glasses) in a Wonder Woman dress standing in front of a bookshelf with books and a plant on it

I know what it’s like to be the kid sitting alone in the cafeteria. I also know what it’s like to be the kid who befriends a kid sitting alone in the cafeteria.

In eighth grade, I was having a very rough year. At the beginning of the year, I was kicked off the swim team for the simple fact that I wasn’t very good, the one place I had a semblance of a social life. I had befriended a few folks at the beginning of the year, but wasn’t very close to them yet and didn’t have the same lunch as them. Most of the time, I ate lunch in the cafeteria alone and then moved on to the library to read or music room to practice my saxophone. I never got particularly good at the saxophone, but it was a heck of a lot better than sitting around by myself in the cafeteria.

Around that time, an advisor for a club I was in (who was also a guidance counselor) suggested that I befriend a classmate. I knew I was nowhere near popular. I was barely tolerated in class among the “smart popular” kids who were in honors classes but weren’t as weird.

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Battling Climate Grief and Anxiety as a Parent

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A photo of an oak tree with bright red leaves against a bright blue sky

As I tend to tell it, my environmentalism started with grief and anger, at the young age of 10. I visited Homasassa Springs State Park and saw manatees for the first time. Their huge size and gentle nature enchanted me. As I watched them, my parents had to nudge me insistently to get me to leave. The same day, reading the informational signs, I learned that they were terribly endangered. I signed up for the Save the Manatees club that day and told everyone I could get to listen to me about it.

But in reality, my environmentalism started years before that.

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Punishments, Consequences, Alternatives and Putting It All Together

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
A photo of my husband and older son (who are both white males) walking in an apple orchard on a bright, sunny fall day

“If you have to think about what the consequence should be, that’s a punishment,” said the parenting meme. And of course, the unstated assumption is that punishments are wrong, wrong, wrong. They’ll ruin your relationship with your child and you’ll be a *bad* parent.

Now, this one did go on to say in the caption that “safety boundaries” are acceptable with the goal of protecting people or property. In contrast, punishments are meant to scare kids into it happening again. I’ve certainly seen plenty of similar statements without that caveat though. I expressed my frustration over a very similar one on Facebook and heard an outpouring of similar sentiments from fellow parents.

Simply, it’s more complicated than that.

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Using “Yes and…” as a Parenting Tool

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My husband and two kids (all white men) hiking on a path of large rocks with trees on both sides

It’s really easy to say “no” as a parent. No, you can’t have candy at bedtime. No, you can’t play video games for another 20 minutes. No, you need to stop kicking your brother. Not saying “no” can end up with having no boundaries and no limits on your kids. Not good.  

But as a parent, I’ve also discovered the power of saying “Yes, and…” 

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Not Letting Expectations Box In Our Kids

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A humpback whale sticking its face out of the water with seagulls flying around

“These whales are very good at what they do,” said the naturalist on our whale watch. She was talking about humpback whales’ ability to open their giant, baleen-filled mouths and eat huge amounts of tiny crustaceans and fish. Of course, the crowd oohed and awwwed at such amazing creatures as they gulped up gallons upon gallons of water.

But I’ve said almost that exact same phrase about ants and other insects as well, who are just as amazing in their own way. When my kids say something about how smart an animal is or isn’t, I tend to say something along the lines of, “Well, they’re very good at being an ant” – or an earthworm or a bee or whatever.

So if we can think that about animals, why can’t we think that about people too? Not that the person is very good at being a person, but they’re very good at being *themselves.* But so often, we judge people – namely kids – on how well they match arbitrary standards.

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On the little failures in parenting

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Photo of a bookshelf at our local library, filled with books, with a stuffed giraffe and a cardboard cutout of Madeline on top

I just realized that once again, I didn’t have my kids participate in the library’s summer reading program.

It’s not because I’m morally against it. Far from it! Sure, external motivation can overwhelm internal motivation if you overdo it. But my kids love reading on its own accord and a few prizes won’t change that. I was a voracious reader in elementary school and still enjoyed the Book-It prize pizzas and buttons. At least back when Pizza Hut still had the fake Tiffany lamps at each table and good pizza.

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Cultivating Kid-Friendly Neighborhoods and Cities

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My older son from a couple of years ago in a blue sweatshirt, crossing the monkey bars as part of a larger playground at our local park

Kids fly down my street on their skateboards and bikes to the nearby community center and I smile and shake my head. “I do wish they’d be safer on their bikes,” I mutter to myself, but am glad that they can do so. I think back to my mom talking about how she’d walk around her town as a kid and take the bus to the movies in the next town over.

Sadly, I know my neighborhood is a relative rarity in American society. 

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Looking Closely at What Surrounds Us

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A snail partly buried in the sand with a gray and peach shell

Skittering across the mud, a tiny hermit crab lunged at invisible-to-me prey. A few inches away, a crab with its shell covered in algae started digging. Caddisfly tubes made of rocks and shell bits poked up all around.

As I was observing this tiny tableau, I felt something on my foot. Something very much alive, moving, and animal-like.

“Ah, ah, ah!” I yelped, reaching down and trying to get it off. I spotted a long translucent creature and flicked it, only to have it hop up and land elsewhere on my leg. I finally got it off, much to my relief. As it turned out, it was an itty bitty shrimp and the shallow water extending to the horizon was full of them. I ended up with them in my shoes a couple more times that afternoon.

Despite my panic about having shrimp in my shoes, the low tide flats of Breakwater Beach in Cape Cod offered an awesome opportunity to look at nature up-close – really close. It was easy to miss the vast, wriggling diversity of life in the shallow water and sand unless you looked carefully. Once you did start looking, it was everywhere.

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The Anxiety of Screwing Up as a Parent

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My kids (two white boys, one in a blue t-shirt and one in a black sweatshirt) walking on a maze printed on a giant carpet-like mat

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” As a parent, that line from poet Philip Larkin strikes a lot differently than it used to.

Lived experience doesn’t help much on this front. With a “what are you going to do?” shrug, my mother-in-law informed me that you’ll do your best as a parent but there will still be things that your kids will disagree with your parenting or think are hurtful as an adult. Similarly, I hear people talk about how adults said small things to them – for both good and bad – that the adult probably doesn’t remember, but the person has carried with them their whole lives.

The fact is, doing something to screw up my kids is one of my biggest fears as a parent. Not that I’m perfect – far from it. I know I mess up and genuinely apologize to my kids to make up for it.

What I’m scared of is messing up in some major way and having no idea I did so.

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