Trust

This is a funny time. For most of my 43 years, I have kept time by the rhythms of the school year: the new beginning that comes at the end of a Summer of rest and recreation, getting to know the students in my classes, looking forward to Halloween carnivals and Winter Break. This year, at home with my family, all of us teaching and learning from home, ostensibly those structures should still be there. We still have class, we still have schoolwork. We each still have a time when we have to show up and a time when we are done for the day.  Instead I am finding this augmented reality where we all get up every day and just stay here, not chatting people up at drop off or pickup, not parting and then coming back together, not asking about each other’s day because we witnessed all of it. It’s disconcerting, with things mostly the same but yet profoundly different. 

The experience of living through this time has called my attention to how we can’t always trust what seems to be real. Some days it seems like there must be some mistake, and that if I go outside, I will see that everything is just as it was, and maybe I can just go sit in a diner, listen to the oldies playing on the loudspeakers, and order my usual. Nothing could be more simple or familiar. But I know that if I do, I will see outside seating only, or signs for takeout, and my favorite waiter will have a mask on, and I’ll remember that this whole pandemic thing is real, and I won’t be hungry anymore. I can understand how some people out there are having a hard time accepting this reality. It’s hard to assimilate. And that doesn’t make it any less real. 

When I’m calm enough to think clearly, which isn’t everyday like it used to be, I view this time as a chance for me to learn and grow in a way that had not presented itself quite so clearly before. I want to use this time to really learn to trust my kids. And I don’t mean that I will just start trusting them to keep their rooms clean, because that would be silly (they are totally not about to start keeping their rooms clean by themselves). I mean I want to trust them that they will learn, and they will grow and thrive, even if I mess everything up. Even if we spend the whole year at home. Even if they watch so much tv and eat so much junk food that I’m afraid they’ll get rickets and scurvy. Even if they refuse to do their Distance Learning lessons all year. Because what I know to be true is that kids are resilient. Kids learn and grow and thrive under all kinds of conditions, even some that seem like impossibilities to us first-world folks. 

In case you have not asked your pediatrician about this when you were a new parent and worried about literally everything, it’s really unlikely that your child will get rickets from an extreme lack of vitamin d from sunlight, or scurvy from an extreme lack of vitamin c. Even if we feel like we’ve stayed inside all year, even if our food choices are sometimes not as rich in variety as they might once have been. Kids really aren’t that fragile. One of my most educational parenting moments came at a talk I attended as a second-year Cottage parent, with the great Ruth Beaglehole. She gave her talk, and it was kinda in the vein of this blog post right here, and in the Q & A, I raised my hand and gave a “but what if…” question. At the time, my son, a picky eater then and now, was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches three times a day. I must have thought, well, surely, this is not okay. I need help because I am failing my child. I asked my question, and Ruth looked at me with what I would describe as a mix of pity and annoyance. She shook her head and paced. She said to me, in front of a crowded room of parents I really wanted to like me, something like, “I suppose you always buy really healthy wheat bread, right? You probably buy no-sugar-added peanut butter and all-fruit jam, right?” She stopped pacing and turned to face me. “What exactly are you worried about? Do you really think he’s going to die of malnutrition?” It was preposterous, of course. Her answer to me made crystal clear the absurdity of my worries, that I was somehow going to accidentally ruin my kid while trying my hardest to be a good parent. I will say the same to you, in case you are harboring a “but what if...”, like I was:  Your kids are going to be fine. 

Our kids are going to be fine. Even if our school-age kids refuse Distance Learning and won’t participate in anything that even smells educational. Even if we have to work so we sit them in front of a screen for hours against our better judgement, and it causes sleep disturbance and emotional upset. Even if we read the parenting books that say that kids thrive outside, barefoot, taking risks, playing in nature, and with other kids, but we don’t feel safe to go anywhere where they could do that for fear of getting sick, so we have to make do with them jumping on the couch and trying to get us to play like a friend would. Our kids are going to be fine, because kids learn whether you mean for them to learn or not. Learning is not contingent on our intentions, as anyone who accidentally taught their toddler to swear can tell you. Learning happens because our brains are made for it. One of the phrases I say all the time at school is, we are all teaching and learning all the time, whether we mean to or not. Kids will learn. They will conduct experiments with gravity, volume, and velocity. They will notice text in their environment and begin to decode letter sounds. They will make marks, first randomly and then gradually with more intention. They will observe us and others around them. They will be taught social and emotional skills by the people they trust, by us. Learning thrives where there is connection, where it can be hands-on, and where there is room for play. Learning thrives when we can back off and trust our kids with their work, their learning. 

As with so many parenting challenges, the difficulty comes not from anything about our kids, but rather, in our response. We don’t know how to trust, because so many of us don’t trust ourselves. We think we are going to mess something up. We might think of the world as a fundamentally dangerous place, or a place where maybe there is no one out there who will hear us, who will understand. We have learned not to listen to our own inner voice, or hear our own feelings. Our work, then, is learning to trust ourselves, so we can trust our kids. We must listen to our own feelings, even if we have an urge to dismiss them as irrational or somehow incorrect. We have to hear them, even though our feelings are not a test for reality.  Just because we feel worried does not mean that something is actually wrong. I might tune in to my inner monologue and hear myself say, “I’m worried because I’m afraid that my kids aren’t getting what they need and they will be scarred for life by this experience”. What I hear myself saying is that I’m afraid. I am feeling fear. That’s just what’s so. It’s okay for me to feel my feelings. 

We can hear the voice in our head that worries about everything and simply thank it for sharing. Some of what it says will be useful, and some of it will be baseless. It helps me to sort out the real concerns from the everflowing fountain of anxieties by acknowledging my feelings. That’s because I know that when I feel scared or angry, I may not be thinking clearly. And in this case, where I’m worried my kids aren’t getting what they need and they’ll be scarred for life, I can hear and call out my fear, and when I’m calm, I can reflect on what I know, which is that kids are resilient, and they will learn and grow and thrive under almost any conditions. If I’m able to let them play, let them try things themselves, secure in our loving relationship, I am giving them everything they need. The reality is that our kids are going to be just fine, and maybe better than fine. They are whole and complete and wonderful exactly as they are. Let this year teach us so that we will always remember: Trust ourselves. Trust kids.