Of course parents are not okay. No one has ever been okay when their children live in constant danger, because of war for example—or in our case, state-sanctioned domestic terrorism that kills our children every day.
It’s not okay. We are not okay. We are heartbroken. We are anxious. We are traumatized.
And yet, this week spring has arrived with reckless abandon in New York City.
Trees have erupted into blossoms of pink clouds. After a long day of teaching my uni classes on Wednesday, I went outside and got myself a lemonade. Suddenly New Yorkers—all of them—are outside and smiling.
Someone drove by on a motorized scooter with bat wings attached so that it appeared Bat Girl was flying down 6th Ave. An exuberant crowd had formed by the street ball courts on the corner and cheered on strangers as they dunked on each other.
I went home and met my daughter and partner and we walked along the river at sunset with something like contentment and gratitude for this moment with these people in this place.
What was this feeling…could it be joy?
Sometimes I feel foolish in this uniquely awful and American cycle of grief and anxiety; when another school shooting happens I’m washed by grief and anger again— followed by ordinary life—followed by moments of piercing joy—followed by more tragedy. But this is how it is to be raising kids, or just be a person, in the U.S. right now, isn’t it?
MATRIARCHY REPORT is written by Lane Anderson and Allison Lichter.
Lane Anderson is a writer, journalist, and Clinical Associate Professor at NYU, who has won several awards for her writing on inequality and family social issues. She has an MFA from Columbia University. She was raised in Utah and is based in New York City with her partner and young daughter.
Allison Lichter is a journalism professor at The New School and worked for many years at New York Public Radio and at the Wall Street Journal as a producer and editor. She was born and raised in Queens, and lives in Brooklyn with her partner and daughter.
With respect and gratitude for this thread and the piece I just read and with a little intentional humor, I question the question of "How to balance?" ;)
It lands in me as there is a "right" amount to grieve and a "right" amount to experience joy. My preference is to let them blossom and bubble as they surface. Last week, I grieved. And grieved and grieved. There was so much mourning in me that I hadn't been able to express the previous week due to guests and children and school etc, and instead it surfaced when I was alone and I found some rocks in my compost. I sobbed and sobbed over it for literally hours, knowing it was not about the rocks in the compost. Then it was done.
Yesterday joy bubbled because the blossoms on our cherry trees are just coming out and for the first time I will have pink trees in my yard.
I prefer the freedom of feeling the feels when I can and when it works. To me all of it honors life - the lives we're still living, those that have been lost, those that will be lost.
Does that make sense?
All that being said, I do have other ways I could think of balancing. I'm balancing the likelihood of my child being shot at school, or not, with my desire to do some work and have some space and heal while they are at school. That's a tough thing to feel I'm "balancing".
That was more than you asked for. Curious how it's received.
What you describe here feels familiar to me, and it bet it does to a lot of other people, too. Perhaps "balance" insinuates something that we have control over (i.e "work-life balance), but of course this is a situation where we don't have any control. Of course, many of us don't really have control over "work-life balance" either, but the phrase has a handy way of making it sound like we should be able to manage it ourselves.
As the original post I wrote on this argues, American grown-ups are suffering because there are so many big, systemic problems that are out of control. But we are made to feel like we should be able to do something about them somehow as individuals. Your last graph here strikes me the most--what a gut punch that American parents might be made to feel "guilty" for sending their kids to school. School is childcare for many, sure, but it's also where they learn, where they play, make friends. To live in a country where we question providing all those good things to our kids is really backwards. Thanks for sharing.
With respect and gratitude for this thread and the piece I just read and with a little intentional humor, I question the question of "How to balance?" ;)
It lands in me as there is a "right" amount to grieve and a "right" amount to experience joy. My preference is to let them blossom and bubble as they surface. Last week, I grieved. And grieved and grieved. There was so much mourning in me that I hadn't been able to express the previous week due to guests and children and school etc, and instead it surfaced when I was alone and I found some rocks in my compost. I sobbed and sobbed over it for literally hours, knowing it was not about the rocks in the compost. Then it was done.
Yesterday joy bubbled because the blossoms on our cherry trees are just coming out and for the first time I will have pink trees in my yard.
I prefer the freedom of feeling the feels when I can and when it works. To me all of it honors life - the lives we're still living, those that have been lost, those that will be lost.
Does that make sense?
All that being said, I do have other ways I could think of balancing. I'm balancing the likelihood of my child being shot at school, or not, with my desire to do some work and have some space and heal while they are at school. That's a tough thing to feel I'm "balancing".
That was more than you asked for. Curious how it's received.
What you describe here feels familiar to me, and it bet it does to a lot of other people, too. Perhaps "balance" insinuates something that we have control over (i.e "work-life balance), but of course this is a situation where we don't have any control. Of course, many of us don't really have control over "work-life balance" either, but the phrase has a handy way of making it sound like we should be able to manage it ourselves.
As the original post I wrote on this argues, American grown-ups are suffering because there are so many big, systemic problems that are out of control. But we are made to feel like we should be able to do something about them somehow as individuals. Your last graph here strikes me the most--what a gut punch that American parents might be made to feel "guilty" for sending their kids to school. School is childcare for many, sure, but it's also where they learn, where they play, make friends. To live in a country where we question providing all those good things to our kids is really backwards. Thanks for sharing.