Putting ourselves in check...mate. Part 2

Continued from part 1.........................................

I am confident most days in the strengths I offer my children as both their respective birth and bonus mama. While admittedly the patience and sainthood of their teacher seemed to "pass go" in front of me- I remind myself I am trying my best nearly 98.9% of the time-which is all I can ask of them as well. Only thing I can say with 100% certainty is I won’t always make the right decisions. I am bound to mess up, but I will let them see me make mistakes as well as my trophies- and how I grew equally from both as a result. I won’t back down from my dedication to both their emotional and physical well-being, but at the same time I am not afraid to allow them to learn hard life lessons along the way.

So given the present state of our world, why can't we give the same support to our fellow parents (who are likely just trying to do the same) just because it isn't always the obvious move we would make?

Back to the current school sitch we are in...no matter what your view is, united we stand being forced to make a decision in which there seems to be no right answer that fits all. Swirl around enough "what-ifs" in your Tito's with a lime and any outcome you play out in your head seems crappier than the next. It's like anticipating your opponent's next move in Chess-there is so much to consider. On one side of the board you have the obvious concern of the physical health and safety of our youth and also their teachers-who are undoubtedly a bit uneasy too. Speaking of these earth angels, how many times have they witnessed a child with fluorescent green snot slow drip down the cavity of their nasty crusted nose like lava from a volcano?

Knowing as soon as it hits the desk or their sleeve she is screwed, and therefore is silently cursing the mom who woke this monster up two hours before the bus came to shove Tylenol down the hatch in order to avoid the dreaded call from the nurses office. And that is just a regular flu season and not the sequel to Sars from Mars.

However, one conversation we are not engaging in nearly as much as we should be is the one on the other side of the board that encompasses the mental health aspects that many of our kids are facing for the first time as a result from the limited social interaction and increased feelings of isolation that comes with all of this. These signs and symptoms are not as easily identified from the outside and a dose of meds and a trip to Nurse Nance isn't always the answer.

As adults, we have racked up enough life experience and acquired a tool kit of coping mechanisms we utilize during stressful periods of our life. Some are healthy and others are not. And while we do not always choose the same tool someone else might reach for to address the immediate problem, we at least have gained enough of them to assess which one we personally need to manage the emergent emotional pipe leak in the interim. We are “adult enough” to understand that although pain, suffering, and loss may seem like it will last forever-we know that in time it will lessen, if not pass. We have lived long enough to know that while we may feel like our souls are drowning in the moment-that the gushes don’t last forever. The pipe can be fixed. If we can't fix it, we know we can ask for help.

As adults, we have racked up enough life experience and acquired a tool kit of coping mechanisms we utilize during stressful periods of our life. Some are healthy and others are not. And while we do not always choose the same tool someone else might reach for to address the immediate problem, we at least have gained enough of them to assess which one we personally need to manage the emergent emotional pipe leak in the interim. We are “adult enough” to understand that although pain, suffering, and loss may seem like it will last forever-we know that in time it will lessen, if not pass. We have lived long enough to know that while we may feel like our souls are drowning in the moment-that the gushes don’t last forever. The pipe can be fixed. If we can't fix it, we know we can ask for help.

For example, pandemic unknowns aside, as a 41-year-old woman I have the wherewithal as I go into my 42nd trip around the sun (god willing) to rest assured my life will likely look similar to where I am today a year from now. I can expect to wake up in the same bed, next to the same handsome man, laughing with the same friends- if they continue to put up with my crazy life and schedule that is-and continue my mission to impact others through my career. I have enough life experience and understanding that although I’ve never been through this exact crisis before, I have been through enough hard times filled with uncertainty and eventually lived to see the other side. I have waded through waters of deep despair and unsure of what the next day would bring-and somehow managed to climb to shore. I’ve been hit with some pretty hard news on a Tuesday night that would change my every Wednesday going forward.

However, if on that same Tuesday my 10 year old self was told it was the last day I would see my friends and my teachers, and that last ride home on the bus was perhaps a one way for the inevitable future, I am not sure I would have handled it as gracefully as our kids have. If, as a senior in high school, I went from excitedly trying on my prom dress one day to hearing my graduation ceremony was now likely going to be on a computer screen the next oh and ps my social life was cancelled indefinitely, it may have looked like a scene from Stephen King’s Carrie.

Having all of those special memories I was entitled to in the last months before college ripped away before I had the chance to make them would seem like a really sick joke. Overnight we went from full classrooms to picking up locker belongings and empty paged yearbooks. In a world where just days before many kids couldn’t seem to get enough screen time-suddenly now they finally had it at their fingertips but all they truly ended up craving was time with their peers. Over the course of 4 months they have witnessed their parents drain all of their parent powers to adjust to a new normal and not cower to fear of the unknown. Needless to say, it proves exhausting trying to work from home, juggle both an existing career-hoping you even have one- and brand new unpaid one as a teacher (never mind that of a full time chef, housekeeper, therapist and cruise ship entertainment director).

Sadly the idea of spending the summer with friends slipped away as did the innocent entitlement to be 10 years old and care-free or18 and excited for the future of college as they envisioned it for so long. All kids should be devoid of the stresses we are faced with as adults. They need to be able to still feel like they are safe in a world which presents new uncertainties every single day. Instead, many find themselves absorbing the anxiety of overstressed parents who are putting on their own brave face as they in turn feel the concerns for their own mom and dad. Anxiety affects us at every stage in our life whether we are aware of it or not. At this point we just have a lot more games played or bases run around mental awareness due to the inevitable strike outs and homers we have experienced to get to the World Series of Adulting.

For Jared and I, our kids don’t just have one home team bench-they have two. Two sets of parents= two home bases. That’s ultimately four different sets of individual parenting game plans that don’t always add up to a win for anyone. Jared and I still don’t see eye to eye 100% of the time about many things as it relates to our family dynamics even after almost 5 years of practice. And as much as we do love and respect one another, it doesn’t take a pandemic to bring that to the surface. Three rounds of competitive family board games and 14 unwashed cups in 4 bedrooms on a normal Thursday can bring out the bats swinging.

Furthermore, in a ground breaking earth shattering revelation, often times my ex-husband and I have had very different views on how to handle resuming activities for the kids when they left each respective home. I’m sure the bite marks on the left side of his tongue match the ones on the right side of mine because parenting is hard and we all win and lose at it. Even if we aim to be on the same team, many times you are smacked in the face with the hard truth that if it was hard enough to work together while married on a normal day, it can definitely feel like being in left and right field in the present ones. We want to believe we know what decisions are right for our kids. I try every day to make the choice not to judge his. But to say it is always easy or possible to do so would be a lie. I have to remind myself (sometimes daily) that WE are their coach and number one fan all in one-even if we often have differing viewpoints on how to be either one. However, unless every child you have is an exact replica of the other… they will all have different needs as they grow up. They have differing time tables for both emotional and physical developments as well as individual strengths and weaknesses. One might hit a grand slam while the other simultaneously hits a wall. Maybe having 4 sets of eyes on them isn't a negative thing-we just have to choose to trust we all have our kids' best interests first and foremost. If not...score for our kids: Zero.

So just as every kid and their home field is different…as a result so are we as far as how we as families, friends and strangers.t. Your line up may not look like mine and that’s ok. In today’s world we need to accept that just because I may wear a different color jersey than you-we are still on the same big team fighting for the big W for us all as we try to beat this. Unless you are in the ongoing Cubs vs. Cardinals debate over here.

Friends-It’s time to stop taking a swing at one another for the game time decisions that we make. I trust you are doing the best you can with the playbook you have in front of you-and you have to trust me too..

At the end of the day, one thing I hope that we can all agree on is that we need to teach our kids the everlasting lessons of empathy, compassion, and understanding for another human being-for our friends and for our friend's friends. It doesn’t matter whether or not they learn this in the physical classroom or at your kitchen table while you slave over a hot stove and a cool martini. It doesn’t matter if they got an A+ on the calculus test behind the desk at school or in front of the screen at home. I mean in the end does calculus ever freaking matter anyway?! How many things do we sweat over that will not have true significance in 5 years? The real questions are: can you add up what it means to be a good person and subtract what does not? Can you separate and divide your feelings and beliefs on sensitive subject matters we all bring to the equation and leave the remainder you don’t agree with respectfully aside? Can you do long division passed fourth grade? Wait…please don’t answer that question because, remember, I already feel like a loser!

Quit keeping score of what others are doing-or not doing as we head into the next inning. Help one another as we make the tough calls. Be a decent teammate to one another. We are all in this together. #hometeam

That's it...that's all I got.

Cheers.

C