How to parent when the world is on fire
The world may be burning, but someone still has to make sure the kids bring their snowpants to school.
I keep writing draft posts and abandoning them. Not because I don’t have ideas, but because everything feels too inconsequential compared to global events. Where do you even start when the world is quite literally on fire?
Trump is back on the scene, stirring up chaos from day one, further polarizing an already divided society. Wildfires are spreading through LA, destroying homes and businesses, wiping out complete neighbourhoods. A ceasefire and hostage deal has finally been reached, but at what cost?
It feels like every day there is a new crisis, a new sad story, a new thing to panic about.
And don’t even get me started on Elon Musk.
All this on top of inflation, a housing crisis, climate change, the collapsing of our healthcare system, a mental health epidemic, social media ruining pretty much everything, etc.
It’s a tough time to be a human.
The collective vibe feels pretty bleak. It’s like we’re all just going about our lives with this dark cloud hovering above us as we wait for the sky to open up and unleash the next storm.
We’re all one doomscroll away from complete despair. And it’s making it really hard to focus, to write, to dream, to hope.
And then there’s the “regular” stuff, like juggling the everyday demands of being a mom, trying to stay sane while my kids fight over who gets to sit next to me on the couch, schlepping them to swimming lessons, figuring out what to make for dinner, wiping noses and emptying barf bowls, middle-of-the-night rescue missions from bad dreams and scary monsters.
And that barely scratches the surface of the daily grind of raising my kids (insert obligatory but I swear I love them more than anything and I know one day I’ll miss it all, etc.).
How totally bizarre to live in a time where it feels like we’re one minor catastrophe away from a full-blown apocalypse, yet our lives are still full of these mundane tasks and obligations.
How am I supposed to hold the enormity of the world crumbling in one hand and a meltdown over who gets the last red freezie in the other?
But maybe that’s the paradox and—dare I say—blessing of being a parent right now.
The weight of the world is unrelenting, but so is the urgent need of my kids to have me untangle their headphones, fill up their water bottles, and referee their wrestling match.
Life may be a massive dumpster fire, but those bento lunch boxes aren’t going to fill themselves.
I have no choice but to shut off the news and the noise, because someone needs a hug, or a snack, or an answer to a question followed by more questions.
I have to be present—because while the world spins out of control, I still have to cut off the itchy tag from the neck of a t-shirt and track down the missing library books before we’re put on the borrowing blacklist.
And maybe it’s these small acts, as trivial as they may seem, that keep us grounded when it all just feels like too much to bear.
Related reading
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You put words on the vague feelings that have been haunting me the past two months. I’m so grateful I have a newborn right now, because it is so distracting. But I’m also scared shitless every time I open the news. I don’t know how I’m going to explain to my adult kids how we got to the place we are heading to right now. I also feel that the state of the world puts so much pressure on us parents. We can’t count on anyone or anything but ourselves to raise decent human being. I’m scared of how to handle raising another white male in a world that screams at them that they have all the rights to take away other people’s rights. Scared to raise my baby girl in a world that screams that her opinions don’t matter, and that harm to her body will likely go unpunished and unnoticed.
Sorry for the long comment, it kind of got away from me. But thank you for creating a space in which we can talk about this ❤️
This was very necessary, thank you for writing.
Today I got so angry/overwhelmed that I stepped away from my husband and toddler, into another room and screamed into a pillow.
My 3.5 year old son came to me and asked me why I was doing it. I told him I was angry. He said, “oh I get angry too sometimes”. He went away and then came back with a pillow and sat next to me and we both did it.
It’s ok to bring our children along on those difficult journey as long as we let them know we will try our best to keep them safe ♥️