Not a Wasted Word

One of the takeaways from Glennon Doyle’s Untamed was the difficult-to-distinguish line we walk as parents between sheltering our kids from difficulties they can’t yet manage and allowing them to develop resilience through disappointment and struggle. A mantra in her house has become, we can do hard things.

I have been using it a lot with my kids these past couple of months. I said it to them when we were riding bikes at the Great Highway and the wind was whipping sand into our faces, assaulting our eyes and mouths. I said it when we were hiking up a very steep, long hill, and my kids wanted desperately to just turn around and head back. I said it when my daughter was crying that Typing Club was too hard because she never felt like she was getting better. I said it when my son complained that he couldn’t practice handwriting because it made his fingers hurt. I’ve said it a lot lately.

I said it to myself on Sunday night when I scheduled Monday’s post to publish. I repeated it over and over as the day wore on and I wondered what kind of response the post would get. I said it Monday night when I thought about what kind of follow up I would post.

I know it might not seem like much to put up a post like that, but it felt scary at the time. I used to entangle myself in all kinds of unnecessary blog drama, but I am not in the business of writing intentionally controversial posts anymore. At least I haven’t been for a while. So putting that up felt scary; I have been berated by a great many privileged parents who have no interest in recognizing their part in perpetuating inequality. But as I said at the end of that post, if white people aren’t doing things that make them deeply uncomfortable they probably aren’t doing anything meaningful to confront their privilege and combat white supremacy and systematic racism. But there is good news.

We can do hard things.

I appreciate the conversation we had in the comment section below that post. These are hard topics and I certainly don’t have all the answers (or any answers?). I did a lot more reading on the topic of school integration, and specifically if white parents should send their white kids to struggling schools, as a way to promote equality. Here are some of the articles I found, which look at this topic through different lenses, focusing on different data and experiences. Some of the articles seem to assert contradictory conclusions, but that is the nature of most research that attempts to parse out the myriad variables that can affect something as nebulous as “academic achievement.”

Thank you for reading, and asking yourself these hard questions. If, as you read through these articles, you find immediate relief or disbelief in an idea or assertion, I hope you’ll think hard about what possible bias is being supported and or challenged. All humans cling to data and arguments that support our beliefs, while easily discarding that challenges our assumptions. Now, more than ever, we need to do better. We mustn’t squander the momentum of this movement to thrust us into uncomfortable spaces. If not now, when?

We can do hard things.

My White, Northern liberal friends who like to compare themselves favorably to White conservatives may be surprised by a new report from brightbeam (the parent organization that sponsors Chicago Unheard), which shows that the 12 most politically progressive cities in the U.S. have significantly larger achievement gaps in reading, math and high school graduation than the 12 most politically conservative cities. Many of those conservative, gap-closing cities are located in the southern part of the U.S., while the high-gap cities are concentrated in the North.

White People: Here’s Why Moving to a “Good School” in a “Good Neighborhood” Is Racist

Overall, white, advantaged parents appear to be measuring school quality by how many other white, advantaged parents send their children to a given school, said the Harvard report. Integrated schools are seen as educationally inferior, even as, paradoxically, parents recognize their value in the abstract, said Richard Weissbourd, a senior lecturer at the Harvard graduate education school and a study co-author.

White Parents Say They Value Integrated Schools. Their Actions Speak Differently

No one says “I don’t want to send my kid to a Black and Latino school.” They don’t have to. Although the data on test scores, race, and class is endlessly complex, the district — and GreatSchools.com, the site that appears at the top of every online search about every school in the nation — has boiled it down to a simple set of numbers. The school I visited that day is ranked at the very bottom of the scale; another school six blocks away is ranked 8 out of 10, and has won multiple prestigious awards. Its student body is 60 percent white.

The Truth About ‘Underperforming Schools’ That Parents Don’t Want To Admit

It turns out that the kindergarten teacher who advised me was probably right. Several decades of research studies have examined the impact when higher-performing students attend class with much lower-performing students. The bottom line is that the test scores of higher-performing children do indeed suffer in this kind of scenario.² ¶ Interestingly, however, the same impact is not observed when the ability difference between children is modest. The test scores of higher-performing students grow with nearly the same trajectory regardless of whether they’re in class with other higher-performing students or with students whose performance is middling.

Do High-Performing Kids Suffer When They’re in Low-Performing Schools?

And then let’s get one thing straight: White families are not doing families of color a favor by deigning to attend—and helpfully “improve”—their quaint, struggling schools, and Black and Latino families are not doing you a favor by adding a splash of color to Junior’s classroom.

White Families You’re Not Doing My Kids Any Favors By Sending Your Kids to Our School

For instance, Malcolm Gladwell’s recent Revisionist History podcast discussing the damage done to African-American children by Brown v. Board of Education, made me think of my African-American father-in-law. ¶ He grew up in Virginia under Jim Crow and, to this day, laments desegregation. “It ruined our Black schools,” he tells me. “They took the best Black teachers away.” Gladwell addresses the decimation of the Black teacher corps in his podcast, and the value of teachers of color is covered here.

Do Dual Language Programs Keep The Language of Privilege From Kids Who Need It Most?

For one thing, policymakers and scholars across the political spectrum are beginning to realize that ignoring the social science research on the negative effects of concentrated school poverty is not working to close large achievement gaps between races and economic groups. Diane Ravitch and Michelle Rhee—who represent opposite ends of our polarized debates over education reform—have both recently advocated new measures to promote school integration to raise the achievement of disadvantaged students.

How Racially Diverse Schools and Classrooms Can Benefit All Students

But here’s the thing: The academic and social advantages white kids gain in integrated schools have been consistently documented by a rich body of peer-reviewed research over the last 15 years. And as strange as it may sound, many social scientists—and, increasingly, leaders in the business world—argue that diverse schools actually benefit white kids the most.

3 Ways White Kids Benefit Most From Racially Diverse Schools

On average, students in socioeconomically and racially diverse schools—regardless of a student’s own economic status—have stronger academic outcomes than students in schools with concentrated poverty.

The Benefits of Socioeconomically and Racially Integrated Schools and Classrooms

Over the last 40 years, efforts to desegregate schools have largely been undone and intra-district programs have limited scope to stem the resulting rise in segregation. This is thefirst paper to study the short-run and long-run impacts of aninter-districtdesegregationprogram on the minority students given an opportunity to transfer to majority-white schooldistricts. Students who are given the opportunity to transfer districts attend schools thatare 73 percentage points more white than schools they would have attended. Transferringstudents have higher test scores, and, over the longer run, an increase in college enrollmentby 8 percentage points. At the same time, there is an increase in special education classifi-cation and arrests, which are largely for non-violent offenses. Both the benefits and the risksof the desegregation program accrue to male students.

The Risks and Benefits of School Integration for ParticipatingStudents: Evidence from a Randomized Desegregation Program

Sixty-five is the typical age of retirement in this country, and on this 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, segregation desperately needs to retire. Retire the myth that we tried integration for a long time. Retire the misconception that it just didn’t work. Retire the fallacy that desegregation is no longer relevant. Today, America’s schoolchildren are more racially and ethnically diverse than ever, yet half attend schools in which more than three-quarters of their peers are of the same race. Indeed, classrooms around the country are as segregated now as they were before Brown.

Why school integration works

Thank you for reading. Please include links in the comments if you find more to contribute to this conversation!

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of the current Black Lives Matters movement is the distinction “anti-racist.” For too long white people, like me, have been able to vehemently assure ourselves, and others, that we are not racist, while doing nothing meaningful to dismantle the systematic racism that lifts us up while keeping black people down.

As Ibram X. Kendi so articulately explains in How to be an Antiracist there is no such thing as passive anti-racism. Racism does not stop at the vocal, hate mongerer who supports policy that perpetuates the exploitation of black and brown people. Racism is ALSO the refusal of white people to tear down the systems that we benefit from so that we might promote equality for all.

The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.”

Ibram X. Kendi, How to be an Antiracist

White people are generally quite enthusiastic to enumerate all the ways they are not racist, but when it comes to recognizing their privilege and actively giving up some of that privilege, they are generally much less likely to support antiracist policies.

The arena in which this is most evident is education.

A lot of parents right now are talking about how they are going to talk to their kids more about racism, and make sure their kids read books by people of color. They pledge that antiracist ideas will be shared and discussed regularly. But I wonder if those same parents are ready to embrace antiracist ideals at the most important of places, their children’s schools.

So far they have not been. Quite the opposite in fact. Brown vs. Board of Education determined that school segregation was unconstitutional in 1954, and yet schools are more segregated now than they have been in decades. White parents have been flexing their privilege to ensure that their kids get the best education possible, while allowing children of color to languish in underfunded public schools that white parents would never let their children attend. Finding ways to effectively segregate public schools, even though research shows that integration is the most effective way to close the achievement gap and promote equality, is one of the ways white parents – even the ones who believe they are not racist – are perpetuating systematic racism.

{This is especially prevalent in San Francisco, where the upper middle class families that don’t forgo the public school system entirely, cluster at a few well-regarded schools where they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide technology the school otherwise couldn’t afford, and even hire teachers to run enrichment programs. Meanwhile the vast majority of schools in the city are Title 1, and struggle to raise enough money for teacher appreciation efforts.}

If you are a parent and you believe you are antiracist, I encourage you to answer these questions for yourself:

• Do you send your kid(s) to a private or public school?
• Do most of your kid(s)’classmates look like them?
• Do most of their classmates come from the same socioeconomic background?
• Do you send your kid(s) to school with a significant population of black and brown children?
• Do you send your kid(s) to school with a significant population of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch?
• Do you send your kid(s) to a school that is better funded, has more experienced and qualified teachers, and offers more electives and enrichment programs than the schools the vast majority of students of color attend?

How do your answers inform your understanding of yourself as an antiracist?

If you are realizing that your children are getting a higher quality education than most children of color, ask yourself if you’d be willing to send your kids to a school with a significant number of black and brown students, or a significant percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced lunch. Would you be willing to do either of those things if it were clear your child were getting an inferior education than is offered elsewhere?

This is where most white people absolutely refuse to cede their privilege. We always have really good reasons for why we make the choices we do, and how it doesn’t mean we are racist, but now that we understand that perpetuating systematic racism is a form of racism, we need to be more honest with ourselves about the choices we make for our own children, and the way those choices affect children of color.

If you have made a series of decisions (that you were only able to make because of your privilege) that ensure your child has access to a superior education, but you want to do more to ensure that ALL children have access to the same quality of education, I encourage you to answer these questions honestly for yourself:

• Would you support programs that incentivize teachers with more experience to teach at schools with under served populations?
• Would you support programs that incentive teacher retention at schools with under served populations?
• Would you support sharing PTA funds raised at your school with nearby school(s) that serve primarily students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds?
• Would you support pooling all PTA funds in your district to be distributed evenly between all the schools and/or shared with schools in a neighboring district?
• Would you be willing to abolish PTAs and EdFoundations so that wealthier parents are not able to subsidize their child’s public education while the students in lower income neighborhoods are left to make do with what is actually provided by the state and federal governments?
• Would you support policy that takes into account PTA and EdFoundation funding when distributing state and federal funds?
• Would you be willing to share a post that asks questions like this one with your family and friends?
• Would you be willing to have difficult conversations about how the systems that benefit you and your child(ren), simultaneously disadvantage students of color?
• Would you be willing for your child to have less so that other children who need more, could have more?

How do your answers to these questions inform your understanding of yourself as antiracist?

If you would answer no to many of these questions, I’m sure you have a good reason. We all do. But we have to recognize that our good reasons have been crafted and refined by decades of systematic racism that allow us, and our children, to benefit from structures of inequality. If we really are antiracist, and we really want to break down those systems, we have to start asking ourselves what we’re willing to give up so that all children have equal opportunities (even if that means it looks like socioeconomically disadvantaged kids are getting MORE, because initially they will need more to counteract the damage wrought by generations of oppression, white supremacy, and systematic racism).

All white people have a lot of work to do to start dismantling the systems that have bolstered our success by denying opportunities to others. White parents probably have the most work to do, and I worry we aren’t ready to do it. In the current culture of scarcity, when so many upper middle class parents already perceive the opportunities their children have to be dwindling, I doubt white, upper-middle class parents are willing to cede even small amounts of their privilege if they perceive it to mean their child(ren) might have fewer opportunities to succeed.

I think we’ll start to see if white parents really are embracing their new antiracist ideals in the fall, when districts have to make hard choices about how to bring students and teachers back safely while the coronavirus still rages. Some districts are already talking about prioritizing classroom time for students who were unable to effectively access distance learning because they lack adequate technology or internet service, and/or are in desperate need of other services the school provides. This might mean that students who can adequately access distance learning (and are not facing food scarcity, or homeless, or domestic abuse) will not be in the classroom as much, if at all.

Will middle and upper middle class parents support these decisions, understanding that lower income students really should be prioritized for classroom teaching so they can access services, make up lost learning, and not fall even farther behind? Or will they try to flex their privilege under the guise of “equality for all?”

Governor Newsom is already distributing more emergency funds to districts with higher percentages of lower income students, and privileged parents are already fighting to get those funds distributed evenly to all districts, regardless of the real needs of different student populations.

If you’re white, upper middle class, (and you haven’t previously been deeply engaged in the BLM movement), and you’re not doing something that makes you uncomfortable right now, you’re probably not supporting anti-racism in any kind of meaningful way. Reading books is not enough. Talking to your children is not enough. If what you’re doing doesn’t feel hard, or unfair, or scary, you’re not even approaching your privilege, let alone attempting to dismantling it. I know I’m not doing enough,* and I’m trying to think of ways I can do more.

Asking these questions is a first step. I hope you’ll take it with me.

*I am not trying to portray myself as some woke white woman who is making all the sacrifices when it comes to my kids’ education. Yes, I send them to a school where they are the in minority in being white (5%) and not qualifying for free and reduced lunch (15% – though our combined household income probably puts us at <3% at our school). I am also a teacher and I am probably more confident determining the quality of education my kids are receiving than most parents. Furthermore, I don’t plan to send my daughter to that school for 6th grade, because I don’t think she’ll receive an adequate education there. When I transfer my daughter to a different school where I think she’ll get a better education, I’ll be flexing my privilege ( I’m now considering schools I would not have, because of the BLM movement).

I also teach in a district that serves primarily upper-middle class families, and while I could paint a pretty picture about how I ended up there and why I stayed, the reality is that I don’t want to teach at a struggling school because (a) I make more money where I’m at and (b) it’s a lot harder to teach at schools with primarily under-served students. So while I’m trying hard to flex my privilege for all students, I could absolutely being doing more, both as a parents and teacher. I haven’t made all the right choices and I still benefit from my privilege in ways I recognize, and in ways I’m ignorant of, every day.

I know there are those who are not interested in reading about everyday life right now, when the world is on fire. I recognize my incredible privilege in being able to focus on my day to day existence without fear of the police or other authorities, without fear of losing my job or house, or food security. I am going to continue writing here about my life, trusting that those who do not want to engage in my white, upper middle class, white privilege will step away when they want to.

My daughter turned 10 yesterday. It was a long weekend, full of complicated emotions, but she did feel celebrated by family and friends. I feel very lucky that we are part of a community of women that showed up for her. I tried hard to make showing up something that even those who are most concerned about the virus would feel comfortable doing, and I think that helped.

My husband and I are working through some hard things as a couple right now. We feel differently about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate during this time of tentatively opening up. I respect his feelings and always run my plans by him, and change them when necessary. Where I struggle is in his inability (or unwillingness) to recognize that his mindset relies heavily on his privilege as a man who has a separate space in his own home to work uninterrupted, and a wife who cares for his children so that his time there remains uninterrupted. I think he takes for granted the reality of what must happen so that he can come upstairs to two children who have received the attention, care, and outside time required to be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. I think he also doesn’t recognize that what he needs to manage this time (as an introvert who doesn’t crave human interaction most days), is different from what others need (including his extroverted wife and daughter). I understand his feelings are also based on a complicated set of circumstances, and I want very much to support him, but I feel like my efforts, and their positive consequences, are taken for granted. It’s easy to judge the “choices” of others when your own “choices” are steeped in privilege (says the woman with extraordinary privilege).

Right now I’m in a nearby park, at the site of a popular summer camp, hanging out while my kids play with three close friends. Since I have more flexibility in when I actually get work done during this last week of school, I’m providing supervised outside time to the kids of some friends who feel comfortable with their kids being near other kids in an outside space (not surprisingly, these women all are essential workers – and single moms – who would have their kids in city-run essential child care programs right now if they weren’t out with us). I feel I’m providing a real opportunity for these kids to learn how to pass the time outside, without toys or screens. They have to work things out among themselves and learn how to amuse themselves with (very) limited adult intervention. We get to be in this spot for one more week, then the city’s Rec and Park program will be here and two of the girls are starting at another Rec and Park program so we will be figuring something else out. For now it works and I think the time outside with others is worth the risk.

These are hard times and I’m just trying to keep my head above water, without making choices that I will totally regret in the future. And honestly, right now my kids’ mental and emotional health feels more at risk being stuck at home all summer than their physical health is at risk by being outside with others. I may be wrong and I might have to face those consequences. Only time will tell. But without any hope for a safer tomorrow (at least not in the next year or longer), I’m figuring out what risks I’m willing to take today. I suppose we all are. Right now we are following all the guidelines that the city has put in place for summer camp programs, which will be opening on June 15th (groups of 12 or less, same group over an extended period (at least three weeks), meeting outside). I feel confident that we aren’t putting anyone at risk who isn’t making the same choices that we are making. Weighing the rewards while attempting to mitigate the risks is the name of the game right now – and it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. This is the new normal.

I recently read Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and while I really liked the book and a lot of parts spoke to me, one part that really started unraveling things in my brain was about the patriarchal mindfuckery that women perpetuate against themselves and others. She introduces the concept by talking about how a girl who was playing soccer against her daughter was really rubbing her the wrong way.

I sat with my feelings and I realized: The knee-jerk reaction I’m having to this girl is a direct result of my training. I have been conditioned to mistrust and dislike strong, confident, happy girls and women. We all have. Studies prove that the more powerful, successful, and happy a man becomes, the more people trust and like him. But the more powerful and happy a woman becomes, the less people like and trust her. So we proclaim: Women are entitled to take their rightful place! Then, when a woman does take her rightful place, our first reaction is: She’s so… entitled. We become people who say of confident women, “I don’t know, I can’t explain it–it’s just something about her. I just don’t like her. I can’t put my finger on why.”

Glennon Doyle, Untamed, pg 285

If you had asked me before I read the book if I disliked or mistrusted strong, confident, happy girls and women I would have said, unequivocally, absolutely not. But after reading that paragraph, I immediately recognized myself in those words. There have been so many times that I’ve read a blog post and thought, that woman is so… entitled. Or, I can’t believe she’s not even mentioning her privilege. Or, whoa, humble brag much?

I really didn’t like those bloggers, but I couldn’t quite put my fingers on why.

And yet I kept reading them. I thought maybe I was hate reading them. I think the reality was a subtler distinction. Maybe I knew, subconsciously, that they actually had something of value to say, even if I didn’t like the way they said it. Maybe I recognized that my judgement was about something else, something deeper. What I definitely didn’t consciously understand was this:

I can put my finger on why: It’s because our training is kicking in through our subconscious. Strong, happy, confident girls and women are breaking our culture’s implicit rule that girls should be self-doubting, reserved, timid, apologetic. Girls who are bold enough to break those rules irk us. Their brazen defiance and refusal to follow directions make us want to put them back into their cage.

Glennon Doyle, Untamed, pg 285

That was me. I didn’t realize it, but that was me. It still is me, even though I don’t want it to be. I don’t know where I learned it – maybe if was from a childhood of being so loud and boisterous and energetic that I constantly got messages about being “too much.” Maybe I’m just especially sensitive to the beliefs that are conveyed in the words that are not said. Maybe it was just the implicit (and explicit) messages all girls get, and the messages they keep getting even into adulthood. Maybe it’s a lack of self confidence. I can’t point to a specific source, but I definitely internalized that message at some point. I still internalize it today. And when I come across a woman who is brazenly being herself, announcing her beliefs, opinions, and accomplishments without apology, she irks me. I recognize that she is breaking the rules, even if I can’t articulate them, and I think, well why do you get to do that?

Girls and women sense this. We want to be liked. We want to be trusted. So we downplay our strengths to avoid threatening anyone and invoking disdain. We do not mention our accomplishments. We do not accept compliments. We temper, qualify, and discount our opinions. We walk without swagger, and we yield incessantly. We step out of the way. We say, “I feel like” instead of “I know.” We ask if our ideas make sense instead of assuming they do. We apologize for… everything. Conversations among brilliant woman often devolve into competitions for who wins the trophy for hottest mess. We want to be respected but we want to be loved and accepted even more.

Glennon Doyle, Untamed, pg 285

Amen to that.

I do these things. Without question. I devalue my strengths. I moderate my opinions. I express things I know to be true as mere possibilities. I apologize constantly (something I wrote about trying to stop). I see my friends and I downplaying our accomplishments on our text chains, but proudly announcing the disasters that are our lives. I don’t feel comfortable talking about what is working well in my life without tempering it with recognition of my privilege, or couching it among other things I’m failing at (and much prefer the bloggers who do this as well). I experience it around me all the time, and it’s so normal that I don’t even recognize it for what it is – a patriarchal mindfuck meant to keep women down. I have been conditioned. I exist in this system. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

I’ve been reading the bloggers that used to rub me the wrong way with new eyes since I read those paragraphs. I’m much better at recognizing when a post bothers me because I subconsciously feel like the woman is breaking the rules, and when I genuinely disagree with their opinion. It’s hard for me to figure out sometimes, and there are many instances when I’m just not sure. I’m working through it. I’m in patriarchal mindfuckery recovery. I don’t necessarily trust myself yet, but I thought I was getting better.

I finished Untamed over a month ago. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a long time, but I kept putting it off. I’m writing it now because I just recently fell into this trap again. A woman wrote a strongly worded post expressing her opinion without apology. I read the post, and even though I knew it had nothing to do with me, it irked me. It rubbed me the wrong way. I wrote a comment, confident I was coming from a place of objectivity, and then wrote a response to her response, even more confident of my objectivity. And then I sat with what I wrote, and the response. And slowly but surely, I recognized that I had fallen prey to the patriarchal mindfuckery yet again. I didn’t like the post because I didn’t like how brazenly she stated her opinion, without tempering any of it with any statements of “not being sure what to say” or “being open to learning more.” She just said it. Full stop. And it irked me. And instead of stopping to think about it, I ruffled my own feathers and wrote a comment. And then I wrote another (but she very kindly posted it herself under Anon like I asked because I accidentally submitted it with my IRL email and I requested she not post it that way.)

So here I am, writing this post, after being reminded yet again of my tendency to judge women by a set of beliefs I have no interest in perpetuating. I have to say, the patriarchal mindfuckery is insidious and effective and it will require constant vigilance for me to see the world clearly when its messages are part of the software of my brain and color how I interpret everything.

I have been silent here about what is happening in our country. I can be silent – I can wait and try to figure out the right thing to say – because of my privilege. I recognize that. I also recognize that hiding behind my privilege, and staying silent, is not what I want to do, or who I want to be. So here I am, saying something, even though it’s probably not the right thing.

Yes I will be reading more black authors. Yes I will be support Black Rights organizations with donations. Yes I will be spending my money at black businesses in my city and elsewhere. Yes I will be talking to my kids more about racism. Yes, I believe these are all important steps and yes, I recognize none of this is enough.

I care deeply about creating equality in my community, and the world. I send my kids to a very underperforming school where they, as white upper middle class students, are the minority. I could easily send them to another school in San Francisco, with more middle and upper middle class students, where I don’t need to be so involved in the school because other parents are willing and able to do it. I could even send them to schools in my own district, where the student population is even whiter and wealthier. I don’t. I keep my kids in the diverse, and struggling school in our neighborhood, so they will grow up in the diversity I want to see everywhere in the world. Where they will have friends that look differently than they do, and who grow up in homes very different than ours. (And they do). I also send them to that school so that I am motivated to work at the ground level to create change in the schools in our district that really need it.

I like to think that I am “walking the walk” by sending my kids to that school. I’ve seen first hand, and read in comments on my blog, that most upper middle class parents are not willing to make that choice. And yet I know it’s not enough.

I want to volunteer for an organization that supports and advocates for black students in SFUSD, where they performing at alarmingly low rates. SFUSD fails a large portion of its student population, but it fails no group as profoundly as it fails black children. I am a teacher and I understand education reform better than most things. This feels like a place where I can make a difference, or at least try to.

So that is what I will be doing. I will let you know more about my efforts as I move forward with this.

{This post was written last week, before everything went to hell in a hand basket. It feels important that I mention that.}

Mali recently wrote a post about experience, and she mentioned that once she read an infertility blogger say that after the birth of her second child she was all done with major positive milestones in her life, and that all she has to look forward to were the negative ones (like divorces and deaths).

I’m pretty sure that blogger was me.

If it wasn’t me, I’m sure I wrote a post about that after my son was born, at least once. I can’t remember when or even where (it is probably on my old, old blog and I am not taking the time to comb through those posts – what a rabbit hole). And the thing is I remember having those thoughts and feelings and I think I have a decent recollections of what I said in the post, so I thought I’d do a bit of a follow up.

I absolutely do remember writing something like that. I remember feeling something like that. My mid twenties to my mid thirties felt like such a monuments time. I was checking off all the boxes I had been worried would be left unchecked, and I was incredibly relieved that I was married with two children in my mid thirties. This was literally all I wanted for my life, at least it was at the time.

Perhaps that is why I felt I had passed up all my milestones. But it was probably other things as well, like the fact that I was earlier to do all that stuff than my close friends (because I was afraid of being infertile before I even had sex thanks to my mom’s history and my own amenorrhea), and I knew they all still had that to anticipate.

{And let’s not forget that I am someone who struggles enough with comparing myself with others that I left ALL FORMS of social media except for blogging around this time and NEVER WENT BACK. Clearly, I am someone who looks externally for validation that should be coming from within.}

Maybe it was because I chose my profession mostly as a “thing to do so I could still be with my kids a lot,” and not because I was necessarily passionate about it (which, by the way, is a horrible reason to choose a profession – I don’t recommend it) . I’ve never felt a big pull to any professional calling and that has always felt like a fault, or character flaw of mine (I can’t tell you how many messages my generation got about following our bliss and living our passion), so I didn’t readily value the work I would do moving forward. This is something I still struggle with to some degree.

I believe at the time my marriage wasn’t super strong. It wasn’t bad, but my husband and I had a lot of work to do. It’s sad to say, but I don’t think, at that point, I really looked forward to a lifetime with my husband. We felt like co-parents more than even partners or friends. Emotionally, we were too exhausted to work on our relationship.

At that point I had no big goals to work toward or accomplish. I felt stuck in a lot of areas of my life. Work felt like something I had to do to make money, not because it was meaningful to me. I had flirted with ramping up my writing but realized that wasn’t something I really loved either, and I was letting that dream go. I had a few close friends, but I could sense those friendships were floundering. (They imploded not long after.) I guess I just felt like I didn’t have any big life events to anticipate.

I think really, I wasn’t that happy at that point of my life, and I was realizing that there wasn’t any big life event left to make me happy. I thought getting married and having kids would give my life ULTIMATE MEANING, and that after I had those things I would be FOREVER CONTENT. I’ve spent a lot of the last six years (decade really) coming to terms with the fact that contentment has to be something I find inside myself, not in my family or anything else.

That is not to say that my family doesn’t make me happy. They do. They absolutely do. There is not a day that goes by (at least not many) where I don’t actively feel grateful for what I have. Because I really do have everything I ever wanted.

But I appreciate it all now, much more than I did back then, because I’ve done some soul searching about a lot of things, and I’ve learned that once you hit a certain point in your life (like, the point where you have everything you thought you wanted) contentment is choice you haven’t to actively, not a guaranteed outcome.

I’ve spent the last few years thinking a lot about my job, about whether or not I’m happy there and whether or not I feel fulfilled. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m as happy and fulfilled there as I would be anywhere. I can skate by when that is what I need and I can challenge myself when I need something more. I am proud of what I do at my job and I know there are ways I could expand my professional repertoire if I really want to.

Things are happier at home too. My husband and I have done A LOT of work to get to a place where things feel equitable enough that resentment is not a third party in our marriage. My husband and I are partners and friends now, and I genuinely look forward to spending the rest of my life with him (if we are lucky enough to have that).

I don’t think much about milestones anymore. I’m lucky that the women I “talk” to every day (mostly on a text chain) are in basically the same place as me in life, and we’re all just trying to make it work. I haven’t been on social media in ages so I’m not seeing the happy shots of the smiling kids, or the perfectly framed meal someone made, or the beautiful garden they landscaped. Basically I’m not comparing someone’s brightest moment to my lackluster every day existence, which makes me appreciate my every day existence more. My kids are older and don’t require EVERY MOMENT of my time. I can make the space in my schedule to practice martial arts, or take a time-intensive professional development class, or go out with my friends (back when that was a thing we could do). And I have good friends to go out with. My life is full and I am, for the most part, happy. The idea that I only have sad milestones left feels absurd.

Well, maybe not that absurd. I mean I am turning 40, and my parents are looking so much older than I ever imagined they would be. Two girl friends of mine are getting divorces, and another one lost a parent last year. I do feel like I’m entering a different phase of my life, one that will look a lot different than my 20s and 30s did. But I don’t believe it will be defined by loss and losing. I know a lot of other happy, positive things, are waiting for me too.

I appreciated reading Mali’s post, and being reminded of who I was back when I wrote those words about milestones (if it really was me she was referring to!) It’s nice to take the time to recognize where I was and how far I’ve come. (And less nice, but important, to reflect on how my words about my own experience made other people feel about their lives.) I really am a more content person than I was when I wrote that, and I hope I’m more sensitive when I write about my life. It’s nice to know people can change. I hope I keep changing in these kinds of ways.

I purposely didn’t reas the news today. Yesterday it was so awful, and I felt so hopeless reading it, that today I decided I was going to step away.

And I did. For the whole day. And then I clicked into the NYT and then into TPM and then into WaPo and holy shit.

I’m glad I got a day away. It really did make me happier. I wrote that post I just published about how things felt okay. So I know it does work, stepping away. I think I’m going to do it more often because I really does feel like America is unraveling.

It’s a fitting end to this President’s first term.

I’m almost tempted to go back to posts from the last few years at this time (weeks before my school year comes to a close) to remind myself just how stressful and hectic they are. I think I’m usually pretty miserable right around now, if I let myself be honest about it. This is the time when I’m trying to cram in way more content than the academic calendar (and my students’ attention spans) will allow, when I’m planning for my daughter’ birthday, when I’m trying to keep track of all the parties and events and what I signed up to bring to them. It’s a brutal time of year, one I’m always just trying to get through.

It’s not like that this year, and I can’t decide if it’s horrible of me to enjoy the relative calm I’m feeling right now, two weeks before our school year ends.

I was thinking the other day that I haven’t even looked at July on a calendar. Normally I would have a doc with every week scheduled – flights, camps, parties, events. I don’t even know what day my 40th birthday falls on (that’s not true – I remember being excited that 2020 was a leap year because it pushed my birthday to a Friday when it’s easier to celebrate – but I haven’t thought about that once since this started). My daughter is going to one camp – a sailing camp on Treasure Island – during the last three weeks of summer, and that is literally all I have on the calendar. I wonder, in three or four years, when things look a lot more like they used to, what summers will be like for us. Crazy to to think by then my daughter will be turning 13 or 14! Eek! Things will probably look then very different than they did last year, even if they are back to “normal.”

Things aren’t all hunky dory around here. My husband is very busy helping various officials at City Hall write policy to guide business as they get ready for various stages of reopening on June 15th. It’s incredibly stressful and since we’re around each other all day, it’s hard not to get into his overwhelmed and depressed headspace.

Things in the Bay Area are still very locked down and there will still be tight restrictions on everything even as we enter our first stage of reopening. In fact, tonight an order requiring adults to wear masks outside at all times, even during recreation, will go into effect (before we only had to wear them accessing essential services). It’s crazy for me to think that some states are pretty much back to business as usual. Our current shelter in place order, which was set to expire on June 1st, has been extended indefinitely. I don’t really know what that means in the context of our reopening. All I do know is that nothing is going back to “normal” here anytime soon.

The uncertainty surrounding the next school year is stressful as a teacher and a parent, but there is nothing I can do about it so I’m trying to let it go. I’m able to manage that more than I would have expected months ago.

I do have plans to be in outdoor spaces, where a few friends can drop their kids off for social distancing play dates. I think being outside every day will help give some structure to our days. I’m even thinking about painting a couple rooms in my house… which means maybe I’m handling things so well because I’ve finally just lost my mind. (I HATE painting.)

The sink was installed today without a hitch. We’re pretty much done buying things for the new space. I look forward to purging and organizing this summer so that we’re ready for more time at home this fall. I’m no longer dreading the summer, and I know I’m incredibly lucky to be in the situation I’m in. I’ve always wanted to give my kids more unstructured time, but it was always so easy to sign them up for camps they were interested in. I hope to make the best of this forced summer of nothing. Maybe we’ll even enjoy it.

My kids actually finished their school year officially today. I still have one week of work, but it will be much more low key than the last ten. It’s weird not to have a hard end date, but it’s nice to ease into a less stressful schedule. Next week will be weird with me working and my kids not doing distance learning, but we’ll figure it out.

How are you feeling about the summer?

We attended our son’s Kindergarten promotion on Wednesday via Zoom. Both sets of grandparents were also “in attendance,” but since you can’t change the tiles in gallery mode, we couldn’t see either of them while we watched the proceedings.

It was a fine little celebration. And honestly, my son hates stuff like that so he was probably relieved to do it that way. I was a little sad because I missed his TK promotion last year and now I feel like I missed this one too. Having said that, I’m glad I didn’t have to take off work to be there (which is why I missed the TK one, because I just couldn’t take another day off to be at his school!)

Want to know what I’m really happy not to be doing right now? Managing all the end of year festivities that usually make this month so manic. I don’t have to buy/make/deliver treats to class parties. I don’t have to take off time to attend end of year events. I don’t have to do a lot of things I don’t particularly love, and I’m trying to appreciate that because it is a silver lining.

I’m finally seeing articles about the budget crisis that public schools will be facing next year. It’s going to be REALLY, REALLY BAD. This article from WaPo sums it up in an effective, if totally depressing, way.

One thing that the articles mentions is the very real possibility that schools will return to distance learning in the fall because they simply can’t afford to return students and teachers to the classrooms.

“We know that it will cost more to return to school,” said Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country. “It will cost more because we need to invest in protective equipment. It will cost more because schools need to not just be cleaned but sanitized. The mental health crisis in the communities will come to the schools when we reopen. We need more nurses and counselors to support students.”

But like most states, California is facing massive budget shortfalls. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has already proposed a 10 percent cut to the state’s main K-12 school fund, with additional reductions elsewhere. In Los Angeles, that would translate to a $500 million loss and “irreparable harm,” Beutner said. In San Diego, officials said it might mean something even worse. Given the costs associated with safely reopening, the district might be forced to conduct school remotely as a cost-savings move.

“The math simply will not work,” said district spokesman Andrew Sharp. “We cannot ask schools to do more at the same time as their funding is being slashed.”

The San Francisco Chronicle had a similar article but it’s behind a paywall so I can’t even grab a paragraph boo.

It’s really going to suck when we don’t go back at all because of budge cuts. Blerg. The poor kids of this country.

I got a lot done today, and I’m feeling pretty productive right now. I also feel that I legitimately leveled up in my handy-woman-around-the-house role. Which feels… good.

I have always been the handyman of our house. I am the one who fixes the things. Early in my relationship with my husband, my FIL got me a power drill and it was one of the first time I realized he really saw me. His son has never used it once, but I’ve completed many a project with that power drill.

When something needs to be built, or hung, or tinkered with, I’m the one to do it. Just last month I replaced the dishwasher waste tube that was leaking under the sink. I’ve built all the IKEA furniture in this house (most of the furniture in this house is from IKEA). I’ve hung both my kids swings from their ceilings. I recently jury rigged a hanging projector set up on the ceiling of our new space downstairs. I am proud of my handiness around the house. I like to get things done, and to feel confident that I can do them myself.

Over a month ago I ordered a sink from IKEA. It will go in our downstairs bathroom, where the current sink is very small and very low quality. I have been very excited to switch out the sink, because the one down there barely functions.

The sink finally came (ordering from IKEA online is not nearly the positive experience that I find purchasing stuff from their warehouses to be). I started putting together the cabinet this weekend. Finally, I got to the bamboo top, which was the whole reason I bought it. Imagine my surprise when I took a solid piece of bamboo out of the box, with no hole for the plumbing of a sink.

I opened the sink next, and found the directions for installing it on the cabinet. Here they are.

Um, is that a jigsaw? This is a piece of IKEA furniture – the whole idea is that they give you everything you need and you easily put it together. WHAT THE ACTUAL F***!

To be clear I didn’t even know what that thing was when I first glanced at the directions. I had to send a picture to my dad and he informed me that it was a jigsaw and that he had one. So evidently I was going to cut a hole into the beautiful piece of bamboo with a jigsaw. It feels like a lot of things can go wrong when cutting a hole into a piece of bamboo with a jigsaw. WHY?!

The answer to that question is that because the sink sits on top of the bamboo, it can be at any angle you want. You can turn it sideways a bit and make it more artsy. I was not interested in this, and I wish IKEA offered the option of buying the beautiful piece of bamboo with the hole already cut it in for boring, straight down the middle, placement of the sink.

I immediately decided that I couldn’t handle any of this and emailed my plumber to ask him to do it. But after a couple communications back and forth I realized I’d rather figure it out myself than hope he was actually understating what I was saying (and showing him via that photo above). Also, I didn’t want to pay for an hour more of plumbers’ fee (I guessed it would actually be longer than that and cost even more).

I figured out (from some google inquiries) that the adhesive shown in the directions was silicone, so I bought some of that before driving down to my parents’ house to get the jigsaw.

This morning I traced the cutout and drilled the initial hole and used the jigsaw to cut out the hole. The jigsaw was hard to wield and I’m still surprised I was able to follow my guidelines, but I did it. Then I sealed the cut wood with silicone and let it dry.

• 

Later today I used silicone to glue the sink down. I feel confident that the seal is complete around the entire sink.

• 

The plumber comes Friday to take out the old sink, and install the new sink cabinet and faucet and connect it to the plumbing.

I am quite proud of how it turned out. I didn’t think I could do it – and even asked a professional to do it for me – but in the end I did it myself. I definitely feel like, with the sawing and the silicone, I leveled up in my handyman credentials with this project.

I also cleaned the playhouse that has been growing mold in the backyard for half a decade (the water conservation Californian in me just couldn’t dump all the water from that inflatable pool, so I was finally inspired to clean the playhouse before I emptied the pool). It looks nice enough now that I think someone will quickly pick it up when I post it on free craigslist. I have been dreading cleaning that because it really was a gross, disgusting mess.

Sure I didn’t get any “work” done and I’ll be up late tonight, but I got a lot of personal goals checked off today and I feel pretty darn good about it. I promise I’ll send pictures of the sink once the plumbers install it (I really hope there aren’t any issues and it goes in without a hitch – with my house there is usually a hitch).

How has your week been?