Saturday, August 19, 2017

Sharing Uncertainty with Kids: a Parent's Journey

I keep thinking there will be a day when I will look at my phone or the TV screen or drive home and put on the radio and tragedies will stop. Recently, it seems like every other day there is a terrorist event of some sort or another-- and I wince thinking of a parent talking with his or her kids about what we're hearing and seeing in the news.

Yes, life is precarious-- and we tend to forget that in our day to day lives, especially if we have good jobs and mostly safe neighborhoods, which is a great privilege, whether or not we realize it. Explaining tragedy and terrorism to kids though doesn't start (or end) with a grief counselor. And grief and fear have a way of growing the older we get, whether we want them to or not.

This is a really huge chunk of stuff to get our arms around and to tell the truth, I don't feel equipped for it. One thing I have been thinking of in these uncertain times is how to live with uncertainty, which we all do every day, and every moment. Maybe that's the place to start?

The only way to live uncertainly, I think, is to be alert to the moment and aware of our lives in every breath and step we take. Tall order, especially for someone who likes to imagine other worlds and scenes in her head most of the time. (aka Writer's Disease).

But trying to stay in the present may help us live with uncertain futures better than we would if we were trying to anticipate the future (as if anyone could). That doesn't mean we can't try to prepare, say, by having an emergency stash of water or staying away from texting while we drive or not getting drunk with a guy we don't know well in the back seat of someone's car.

But we also need to take in the moments, and stay in them, because without them life is even more uncertain. Maybe that's how we talk to our kids about what's around the bend--and how to be brave in accepting that we aren't able to see down the road too far in advance--and maybe wouldn't want to, even if we could.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Please be courteous and please do not post ads for your business on this blog.