On Fear, Terror & the State of the World: What I Tell my Children
The sun came over the horizon this morning in a hot pink flamenco dress spangled with gold sequins, pounding the rhythm of life into the cold hard surface of the lake and whirling back the indigo hem of her ruffled skirt so all the world could see her knees. The robin in my apple tree and a grackle on the deck railing whistled for her as a crowd of black flies in the cheap seats, on the leeward side of my red table umbrella, cowered from the breeze her whirling blew across the lake.
The steely grey surface of the bay is rippled with her boot prints and the smiling yellow dandelion faces dotting the unenthusiastic brown of the thirsty lawn are cheering loudly for her. The tiny apples, hard and green, opened just one eye each, as if peering out to see if it really is morning yet. My grumpy old hickory and oak trees are skeptical, like the old guard should be, and they’ve yet to place their bets on the table, ancient arms crossed against what sunrise is revealing to be an ominous morning sky. They are hoping for rain. And yet the sun dances on, sweat running down the crease of her back and all the world’s eyes turned toward her as she begins her arc across the sky.
A large fish jumped off of the end of my dock, sending a shower of rainbow sparkles into the air and silent concentric rings rippling across the surface of the water. I watched the show over my steaming cup of tea, as I often do, greeting the sunrise before the rest of my world wakes.
There is a comfort, for me, in knowing that this place has been here, waiting for me, for millions of years. Fish have jumped. Trees have come and gone. Fox and deer have sneaked across the open spaces and the people I’m descended from, the ones who blessed me with olive skin and straight black hair watched the sunrise long before anyone came along to name this place after a British general; to honor conquering and subduing of a people and a place that had always been here. A place that will always be here, long after the steam from my teacup has faded, and I with it.
From where I sit and greet the sun, and the dock where I watch the lady moon rise to take her place each evening, the world looks like an idyllic thing. There is stability and continuity, in the community and the geography. Little changes, and when it does, it’s at a sensible evolutionary pace. It stands in stark contrast to so much of the world’s swirling chaos at the moment.
Often, as my tea cools, I grapple with the difference in how I live and where I live. I live traveling. In the past two months, alone, I’ve crossed the continent three times, been in 5 countries on two continents, hiked 100 kilometers, slept on my sailboat, and “done life” in four languages. Daily, I speak with people scattered across the globe for work. I follow the news and my heart breaks for all of the places I love and consider home.
- America breaks my heart twice a week, with killings and politics
- Terror attacks in places I’ve walked, and called home
- Violence against the kinds of people I consider the dearest and best
- The way people speak to each other online; people I know to be better than that
- Rampant racism
- Misused privilege
- Abuse justified by gender
- Shortsighted hatred that echoes a history we, evidently, have not learned from
And Then: There Are My Children
Four teenagers, growing up in a world that feels, on some Thursday evenings, as if it’s Rome burning around us as we fiddle.
Kids who have grown up, not on this idyllic island that we now call home, but walking the world:
- Kindergarten included Buchenwald
- First grade included the Eiffel Tower for a boy who’d waited, “his whole life for this”
- Second Grade celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans
- Third grade included the Vatican and the L’Ouvre
- Fourth grade was a 10,000 mile bike ride across 3 continents
- Fifth grade was the pyramids of Central America
- Sixth grade was colosseums on two continents
- Seventh grade included a winter of intensive Spanish lessons in Guatemala
- Eighth grade was eight countries across Southeast Asia
- Ninth grade saw the last of the fifty states checked off the list
- Tenth grade was capped off with Angkor Wat
- Eleventh grade was ten months or so through Australia and New Zealand, the hard way
- Twelfth grade included solo train hopping across Europe
- University books were shipped to Borneo and another child crossed the Med and Atlantic under sail his first semester after he graduated
My kids aren’t sheltered.
They know their world, more intimately than most. When it all goes to hell in a hand basket in pick-a-place, we are glued to our screens together. Worrying about our friends, biting our nails for the communities we’ve lived in, and wringing our hands over the harsh reactions of the folks who can’t see past the us-vs.-them to recognize that these people, “those people,” they’re our people; they’re us.
With each sunrise, I worry about the world we’re handing them. I worry about climate change and the places that are disappearing right before our very eyes. I worry about the hate. I worry about the violence. I worry about the ways that raging fear is consuming the population of the planet in ways that are laying waste to much that is right and good in the soul of humanity.
My son walked the wharf in Nice, alone, less than a year ago, as he set out on his voyage of discovery.
My daughter and her Love lay on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower, and wandered the streets of Paris hand in hand two summers ago, free of fear.
My 15 year old made a month long journey to one of the world’s “dangerous” places, solo, to feed kids that he loves.
In the cool of early morning, I wonder what to tell young people, such as these, about the world as it appears to descend into chaos in this generation.
Is it the right thing to hunker down on our island and live in our quiet way, safe from harm?
Or, is it the right thing to lead by example and walk into the fray, holding a flower instead of a gun? Feeding children instead of bombing them, walking the world in search of truth, beauty, and the good of humanity. Shining a light on that, instead of the thunderclouds looming on the horizon all around us.
To do the former guarantees (as much as anything guarantees) their safety and the status quo. Safety, security, and happiness, for our family at least. To do the latter risks everything and perhaps yields nothing. Perhaps it leads to death, or destruction, and heartbreak of the kind that every mother fears in every breath as her children spin in larger orbits.
What do I tell my children? Kids raised in the world… about the world they’re inheriting?
This morning I sat on the deck listening to a song that my friend Dave sent to me. It’s one he wrote recently. It’s about how the church has gotten it all wrong. It’s about Galileo, who was right about the world and who was persecuted for the truth he discovered, thus changing the world. It’s about Jesus, who ate with the most disreputable, who was right about so many things, and who was killed for his commitment to that truth… by the political and religious establishment.
The chorus says: “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’m full of love and wrong.”
This is one of the things I love about this man. In addition to being a giant fan of his music, I’m a giant fan of his heart. That message: That it’s okay to be wrong about things, but we should err on the side of love if we’re going to err on any side at all.
That’s what the world has taught me, and I hope my children as well: That love is always the right response, even when we get it wrong. Hate solves nothing. Fear leads to nothing beautiful. Violence only makes everything worse. Everything.
I have a few friends who call me an idealistic hippie who doesn’t live in the real world.
They think that I’m the queen of oversimplification and unrealistic optimism. But I’m not all rose coloured glasses and, “Make love not war, Man,” over here. I’m well aware that there’s work to be done and I’m rolling up my sleeves to do it every chance I get. I’m raising my kids to do it too. It makes me a proud mama that they are not afraid to get knee deep in the real world mess and put boots to their convictions. That’s not idealism, that’s ownership.
So What Do I Tell My Kids?
I tell them that rule number one is always rule number one, and that is, “Don’t be a dick.” That covers most things: from violence, to sending thank you notes for your birthday presents.
I tell them that they can. That they are strong. That they are capable. That they ought to dream big, and then push the bar just a little bit higher. Take a running jump; you’ll make it if you keep at it.
I tell them that the world is a good and beautiful place, filled with good and beautiful people. They know this to be true, because they’ve been there themselves. I don’t have to tell them.
I remind them that there are lions in the wild, and sometimes, those lions tear your head off; and it’s possible that life will end in blood and screaming. This is the real world. And if it ends in blood and screaming, how do you want to have lived your days? Think about that, children.
I tell them that I will do anything to protect them, and that I cannot protect them. I raise them to be warriors and the heroes of their own stories. Especially my daughter, but also my sons. Girls need a little more help in developing their badassery, perhaps in my granddaughter’s day it will not be so. This is my hope.
I remind them that they are caretakers, first and foremost. Caretakers of themselves, of those they love, of the communities they build, of the human family in general. Caretakers of their bedrooms and the back yard, as well as the failing fish populations and the wild spaces that are precariously teetering on the edge of destruction.
I tell them that their time is now. I’m not a believer in, “What will you do when you grow up?” As if life begins at some magical point. I’m a believer in get off your ass and do your part now. Whether you’re two or twenty, nine or ninety, we are all here, now, together, and we must do our work. Together.
I tell them that life will be hard, and beautiful, breathtaking, and devastating. That there are epic highs and bone crushing lows. I tell them that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, or what it looks like, so long as they are doing their best.
I tell them that their best will vary, wildly, throughout their lives.
I tell them to love, and I hope that I’ve showed them how. I hope they will love wildly, unconventionally, radically, and without fear. I know it will break their hearts, but that brokenness is where love becomes life and world changing, isn’t it?
I tell them to fear, but to flip it the bird and do it anyway. We all fear. They know fear, the real kind. The kind that comes at gunpoint. The kind that is a lump in your throat that makes it hard to swallow tea offered by what turned out to be a terrorist group in a back water corner of Indonesia. They know the fear of dark and discomfort, and of being the only one of their kind in a place that isn’t necessarily welcoming. And they know that very often, love conquers that fear, every time, in our experience. And if it ever doesn’t, well, love is still the right response, and fear is still a terrible point from which to make decisions.
I tell them to use the gifts they have to amplify voices. To make art that speaks loudly. To write songs and stories. To take voyages and stand with the side of right, even when it’s wildly unpopular.
And I worry, like every other mother, that all of my best efforts will not be enough, for my kids, or for the world.
And then, my daughter posts this on Instagram:
- And my youngest son remembers to cover his dad up on a particularly cold, wet night of miserable sailing.
- And I hear through the grapevine that my oldest boy has given of himself to lighten the load of a single mother and her child.
- And my quiet hearted one gives all he has, literally, to feed children who are hungry.
And I realize that compassion is alive and well; not just in their hearts, but in the hearts of many of their generation.
When I look at the world through the wide lens and I’m afraid for them. For my children, and for yours, for all of the children. But then, I narrow the lens, and I look at the children themselves and I realize just how much hope there is, yet, in the world.
And, So, I Tell Them to Keep Going
To live from their hearts, and make data-driven decisions with their heads. To walk into the world and claim it for their own, in big and small ways. To live with courage and determination. To face the fear and walk through it, towards truth, and what is right.
From where I sit, this is the only path forward, for all of us.
