What is Living? A 3 year old’s lesson plan

Back to school season and this turn around the sun coincides with yet another school shooting and the murder of 6 Hamas kidnapping victims and sharpens a sense of fear for all our children

Dear Stork’d Family

I had another newsletter planned  - one full of optimism and hope after watching the DNC and the overall positive energetic shift that has emerged in the political space from fear to hope. 

Following the news of the execution of the 6 Hamas captives this weekend, including Hersh Goldberg - Polin, as well as yesterday’s school shooting in Georgia, I just can’t bring myself to don the positivity mask.

Today is my son’s first day of preschool. The milestone was marked by difficulty returning to a tighter morning routine for both of us,  a squirmy photo outside his school steps, trepidation about going into his classroom “alone” without me holding his hand, a big happy welcome from last year’s teacher whom he adored but has now outgrown. All signs that he is growing and thriving. 

And yet, for Hersh’s parents and the families of the other murdered victims, the only similar markers of their lives are goodbye hostage videos, and haunting photos. I imagine for the parents of the school shooting victims, perhaps they have first day of school pictures taken earlier this week or a snapshot of a happy kid on summer vacation.

I see Hersch everywhere this week - in the little hugs and kisses my son gives me,  in the exuberance with which he plays, in his favorite song. Last night’s bedtime snuggles were filled with thoughts of the families in Georgia. My son is vibrantly alive while other sons are not. 

The fear creeps in too. The “what if” mental spiral of a parent imaging the worst. 

***

Yesterday, we did a meet and greet in my son’s new classroom. Delighted by all the new toys, he asked the teacher if he could please stay. 

We parents came back later for a cheery curriculum lesson (or indoctrination into the Montessori cult as I see it). As the teacher shared the various ways the kids count glass beads to learn math, my eye wandered to a section in the room with various books and objects explaining the concept of living.  While many of the books very clearly teach a basic understanding of what is alive vs. inanimate, one of the books had a white background and red lettering and was simply titled: Living

Huh, I thought, distracted by the math lesson. What a thing to teach a 3 year old: the meaning of living?

It’s possible that the toddlers will understand it more deeply than most adults.

***

This week, his pediatrician asked him what he wants to be when he grows up.

“My Mama”, he told her. 

This melts my heart and brings tears to my eyes to be that deeply loved by another.  I didn’t realize when I had a child how much I love seeing myself through his eyes. His idealized and idolizing image of me won’t last, but I will cherish it for as long as it does. 

Still, the question hangs in the air: 

“when he grows up” - for my son it is inevitable. He has a future. 

For the families of the slain captives and school shooting victims, that future was erased. 

***

I fought too hard to have him to bear the thought of losing him. I fought social expectations, my own sense for what my life “should” look like, and the complexities of fertility treatments as a single person. 

My fight is not singular. As parents we all fight for our kids in large ways (IVF) and small (wrestling an unwilling toddler so they can just look adorable for the back to school photo). We toil at work to provide what we can for them, we vote so that they may have a future, we subjugate our needs for theirs. Sacrifice and love. 

It is not an easy fight in a country where the Surgeon General’s data indicates that parenting is not just really really hard, its bad for your health.  

We work too hard to lose the most precious part of our hearts  - to senseless violence, terrorism, gun violence and sickness. 

And yet, here we are. Ten families are mourning just as those of us in the US turn a fresh page to a new school year, welcome in the milestones, and teach our children what is and is not living. 

Julia

Author’s note: this essay was initially written about the loss of the Israeli hostages which I feel very deeply as a Jewish mom. And just as I was putting the finishing touches on it, another deadly school shooting occurred. The irony that in this country we cannot mourn one loss without immediately facing another tragedy is overwhelming. The fear of sending a child to school and survivors guilt that yours has come home safe when others will not is viscerally painful. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.

Gestating Around the Internet

• Why are we putting a premium on white donor eggs?  White US egg donors are paid up to $100K for egg donation, which can be as much as eight times more than Black donors

• Something we all know but it’s nice to see confirmed in science-y news articles: Pregnancy changes your brain

• Behind the Movement to turn Back the Clock on Gender Roles

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