This month’s antiracism title was Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor, by Layla F. Saad.
The chapter was “You and White Exceptionalism,” and I might be its poster child.
Between staying home and wearing masks, no one in our house has been sick since that dimly remembered time in the winter of 2019. No stomach bugs, no colds, and I haven’t missed it. Some of my most memorable parenting moments involve cleaning up after sick kids. Not this year! We were often anxious, but we were not sick.
Every once in a while over the past year, I’d take out the camera and take one or two photos of something because I felt like I needed to – a birthday, a book cover for a post, or a quick selfie with the baby because he is my last child and once he is grown there ARE NO MORE. But most of the photos weren’t very good because the apathy was just too thick and I didn’t take enough pictures to get a good one.
With everyone home together even more often than usual this past year, we have all struggled to manage our feelings. Fittingly, I’ve tuned this year’s homeschool health curriculum to focus on emotional regulation.
My favorite part of the paper has always been the advice columns. Ann Landers, Dear Amy, Dear Abby, Miss Manners, and more recently, Dear Carolyn and for crowd-sourced advice, Quora.
I enjoy the letters describing the dilemma, which unwittingly tell the reader so much about the author. The advice makes me think critically – what would I have done? Do I agree with the advice? Did it seem like the advice giver “got” it?
The situations and their responses give me a sense of what is socially appropriate, emotionally healthy, and legal.
The advice world, reflecting society at large, has a growing trend toward removing “toxic” and difficult people from your life. I put toxic in quotes not because toxic people don’t exist, but because our definition of them has grown to include not just your pathological, gaslighting uncle, but also your awkward friend who is working on her problems but still sometimes says careless or terrible things.
