26 | November 2020
appreciate any transparency about what
a mess this all is, and clues to how other
parents are getting through the struggle.
I'm stuck. As hard as I try, I can't quite
figure out how to help my kids manage
their stress and anxiety over this loss of
childhood (pandemic) and an uncertain
future (climate); I can't manage it myself!
I try to take cues from a solid article on
parents' pandemic anxiety in The New York
Times. It's an ode to worry — and what
it means now. But it doesn't offer any
survival tips. Or maybe there aren't any? A
potential upside is that the very real stuff
we're worrying about now could mean we
won't go back to worrying about dumb
stuff in the future. "Maybe that's how prog-
ress happens sometimes: You trade old
worries for new ones, and one day you
can't even remember why Sally's skirt had
to go past her knees," the article states.
Maybe.
Still seeking tips, I read every word
of psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb's Q&A
column in The Atlantic on how to help
kids deal in a pandemic. (I loved her book,
'Maybe You Should Talk to Someone?') We
already do a lot of what she suggests is
helpful: We have structure. We spend time
outside. My big takeaway here is parents
have to take care of their own emotion-
al health and try not to run themselves
ragged. I could do more on this front for
sure, though the amount of online yoga
I'm doing currently borders on obsessive.
How parents respond emotionally to a
challenge "greatly influences how their
kids do," she writes. This makes me think
of the many empty wine bottles in the
recycling bin. Also, thanks to Gottlieb,
I'm now keenly aware that falling to the
floor in front of my kids screaming when
I found out Ruth Bader Ginsberg died
was probably not the greatest move.
As I wrestle with my stress — im-
mediate and long term — in an effort
to model behavior, or as Gottlieb calls it,
"setting an emotional tone," I'm haunted
by the fact that I've always imagined —
feared, really — that my kids' future in
a climate-changed world might look a
lot like this semi-quarantined, truncated
existence we're sharing now. I just never
expected to live through it with them.
Here, too, I'm not alone. Climate
Twitter has been sharing an article by
an Australian climate scientist detailing
how she never thought she'd live to see
the horror of planetary collapse. Want
to know the weirdest thing? I found it
uplifting! The morning I read it (in full), I
bounced out of bed. Something about a
scientist being depressingly honest and sad
helped me regulate. It perked me right
up. I set the emotional tone: this family
is going to find normal in the abnormal.
First, I helped one kid collect leaves for
Zoom art class, then the other pick out a
cute shirt for a distance visit with her best
friend. Then I went to my office and took
care of my emotional health by writing. I'd
been thinking modeling behavior needed
to be all or nothing. And that was keeping
me from managing. But now I see it can be
hour by hour, and hopefully it adds up. A
less-stressful morning is an emotional win.
Life is a mess, but it goes on. Well,
sor t of.
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE:
IT'S BEYOND TIME
FOR CLIMATE SAFETY
MOMS Clean Air Force
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