Rehearsing for Summer
...still
A year ago, just before the school year ended, I served as a chaperone for my daughter’s field trip. I took this picture as a way of congratulating myself for recognizing what scaffolds I would need to support me showing up aligned with my intention—to be in the moment with my daughter as she experienced her first ever field trip. I was quite clear that a 1-hour-each-way ride on a school bus with 100 first-time-school-bus-riding third graders was not going to support me in showing up my best self. I opted to drive myself.
One week later, the school break began and I realized that I had entered into another potentially fallback-inducing experience—summer. Summer offers the promise of less structure, fewer commitments, more adventure. It also brings with it a different schedule every week to navigate, more meals to prepare and clean up, more opportunities for my kids to bicker, more pronouncements of boredom, less control over my physical environment as I share it more hours than not with two kids who seem to lose their observational capacities and sense of agency when it comes to picking up after themselves.
In short, nine weeks of summer is a heck of a lot harder to scaffold myself for than a 4-hour field trip.
I had been noticing how, in the couple of months prior, even when we were not in each other’s faces more hours of the day than not, I had been quick to respond to my children without thinking, without listening into the desire underlying the question being posed, or the sense being made of the story being told. This noticing helped me identify which characters within my ensemble of self were likely to storm the scenes of our summertime madness (Action Jackson, Nope!, The Demanding Teacher, The Curator, Punitive One) and to connect to what they’re coming on the stage of our family life in protection of (productivity, ease, control, perfection).
As I reflected on my intentions for how I show up for me, and in relationship to my children and my husband in this fleeting season of our lives, I thought about which characters may need to be positioned in the wings, at the ready to accompany some of the aforementioned usual suspects (Pete the Cat, The Muse, Wild, The Disruptor). And I identified the props, the scaffolds, that would help cue these supporting actors on the scene—taking a breath, the garden, a more spacious calendar, keeping my office off-limits, pilates, walks, my therapist!
A year has passed. We are now two-thirds of the way through another summer break. This one has a different flavor; is beckoning new characters on the scene.
It should be no surprise that the rehearsal I did for last summer doesn’t fit the play, the set, and the actors that populate this year’s stage. We are human, and as such we have changed.
My son, now 14, has transformed into a man-child before my eyes. While his physicality now more closely depicts the man he is becoming than the boy he was, his cognitive and emotional capacities are still in the process of catching up…and will be for some time. My daughter, now 10, teeters daily between independence and a longing to be enmeshed with me.
I observe myself, wistful for the humans my children were and also grateful for their courageous explorations into the humans they are becoming. I watch myself and my husband as we reimagine what the timely action is now for the way we show up to the changing nature and needs of the humans we are growing and the changing (and sometimes static) nature and needs of ourselves. Lately, we are not in lockstep with each other. And it is hard.
Rehearsing for summer this year has entailed much more attention to the things within me that are shifting. It’s not that my values have changed, but the way that I hold them and bring myself to them has, as these values, too, have matured. (Thank you for this insight,
.)Rehearsing for summer has also entailed a greater awareness of the contexts that hold each of us, sometimes in ways that allow us to expand, and at others in ways that seem to trap us into old storylines or on the cusp of new ones that we can’t yet imagine…both as children and as ‘grown-ups’ forever in the process of growing.
The Snowplow has emerged as what seems to be a new character in my ensemble, clearing the obstacles that threaten the long-term relationships in our family system. She’s a noble, wise, martyr-like character, that desperately wants to preserve our ability to live into our intentions rather than stand on the sidelines watching the ensuing pile-up of spun-out relationships. But, as I’ve observed her (with the help of others in my community of truth-tellers), I can see that instead of street clearing, Snowplow may just be kicking the can down the road by not trusting others to cultivate their own capacity to navigate the conditions safely.
Then this question from my therapist, “How are you taking care of you, in all of this?” And the answer is, I’m not. So, I wonder who this self-Care-Taker part of me is, and this nugget I offer regularly to my kids plays in my head: “You are only in charge of you.” Perhaps I need to heed my own wisdom.
Rehearsing for summer this year feels a hell of a lot more complex than opting out of two hours on the road with a bus-load of 9-year-olds. It’s a daily practice, a regular conversation, an invitation to parts of me to share their wisdom about how my own shaping informs how I bring myself to the job of raising humans…as I also raise myself.
Dive deeper
Join our in-depth, self-led developmental course for adults who raise and educate children - Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us. As a paid subscriber to this substack, you will receive a 50% discount on the price of the program (you will receive the code when you activate your paid subscription).
Head on to the program page to learn more.
Spread the word…
If you’d like to see this community grow, we hope you share this article with other parents, grandparents or educators who could benefit from the reflection.
and, if you haven’t done it yet, Subscribe!
Join the ‘Growing Humans’ community and let’s keep supporting each other to keep on growing up, as we raise the kids in our care!
As a paid subscriber, we’ll welcome you into a smaller, closer-knit community where we regularly meet, share, and learn together. You will have access to the chat and comments on every article, as well as dedicated, facilitated fireside chats for the community.
You will also receive a 50% discount on our self-led program for parents and educators: Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us.
Growing Humans is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.