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Refinery29
How parenting my locked black kids changed my relationship with motherhood
Refinery29 is proud to partner with organic vitamin supplier Garden of Life to amplify mothers’ voices as they navigate the complicated nuances of quarantine parenting. Nine out of ten friends of mine would definitely describe my parenting style as “overprotective”. As a young mother, I have never left my children with a babysitter. I even accompanied them during playdates (to their chagrin and to the chagrin of their confused hosts). I was almost the only parent in the history of my daughter’s elementary school to ban their child from attending the fourth grade camping trip (I reluctantly agreed at the 11th hour). But naturally, despite my parenting instincts, I had no choice but to start loosening my grip as my kids got older. And to their delight, in the last year alone, I’ve made real progress in moving away from my helicopter-parent mode of operation. In February, I allowed my 14-year-old daughter, Meazi, to go on a trip with a family other than ours. Soon after, I allowed her to apply for a program to study Mandarin in Shanghai during the summer. Then I gave her the freedom to move herself and her most valuable possessions from our little Los Angeles home in the west and into our converted garage in the back. I took a similar approach with my 11 year old son, Melese, who was enjoying his last semester in elementary school. I stood back while he did his homework (yes, not hovering over him), unexpectedly practiced his trumpet, and even sometimes made breakfast – for the whole family. He was close to graduating last June, before moving to college in September, and it seemed like my time of over-involved parenting intensity was reaching its expiration date. To my surprise, I did not fully mourn the change in mothering responsibilities. In fact, the whole impending change, while tinged with an underlying sadness, was exciting. As my kids became more independent, I discovered that I could free up brain space for efforts beyond parenting – like finishing my children’s book and taking on more chores. of photography and freelance writing. The whiteboard organizer we kept in the kitchen was gradually filling in my chores and updates, not just my kids’. Then the pandemic struck and Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville cops in her own home. Quickly, I felt myself taking two steps back. Instead of opening the door to the big world for my two children, I slammed it, locked it, and sanitized the doorknob with bleach. Schools were closed, my husband, Steven – our main source of household income – lost his job, and we were all there. Just as I got better and better as I came to terms with my kids growing up, I was immediately overwhelmed by the urge to hug them tighter than ever. The last time the four of us were home like this was 11 years ago, when my husband and I first brought four-year-old Meazi and eight-month-old Melese (who are brothers organic) to Los Angeles from Ethiopia. All the adoption literature had said that the best thing to do in those first few weeks was to get together and avoid all other people. This was supposed to establish that we were the sole guardians of our children. So that’s what we did. We slept together and carried the children on their backs and chests in cloth clothes racks. Back then, we only had the luxury of taking a week or two off, but the pandemic sent us back to that cocoon setting for seven whole, numbered months – and the kids were no longer small enough to be. carried on our chests. The first two weeks of the shutdown in California were tough. Full of anxiety, I rushed into the house shouting to everyone, “Wash your hands and stop touching your face! I taped the mail slot on our front door, thinking that somehow it would keep the virus at bay. I remember pouring myself a glass of tequila, a giant bowl of peanut M & Ms, and retiring to my bed, as a parade of questions ran through my head: Do we have a will? When I’m on a ventilator, how will they know I don’t have a thyroid? Does Steven want to be buried or cremated? How many mortgage payments can we miss before they take the house? Fortunately, as someone who had been struggling with clinical depression for decades, I already had a good therapist on call. I knew that to combat this kind of cyclical thinking, I had to keep talking to him once a week. Our health insurance, directly tied to Steven’s working hours, was secure for at least the next few months, and I was extremely grateful for this privileged access to support. Steven began to receive unemployment and we began to dip into our retirement savings to temporarily cover our mortgage. It was not an ideal situation, and we knew it would only bother us temporarily, but we felt incredibly lucky that we were able to afford to continue living comfortably and spending time together as a family. Cooking and eating food has provided a calming scaffolding for our days. The four of us harvested fruit in our garden, my husband made breads and even spent an entire day baking bolognese. We knew we had it right in the grand scheme of things. Before the shutdown went into effect, my husband would usually see Melese for about twenty minutes before going to bed after he came home from work. Now he could read to her for an hour and a half every night. In mid-May, we had a little bit of rhythm. We have rejected our standard and stricter parenting rules and temporarily became YES parents. “Can I have a root beer float?” YES. “Can I watch this kind of show that’s too mature for me?” YES. “Can we celebrate my half birthday for the very first time?” YOU BET, KIDDO! Then on May 25, my black children and I, their white mother, watched a white policeman kneel on a black man’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds until his life elapsed from him. . I was furious and distressed to watch and read about the outrageous act of brutality, but I also recognized that everything I was feeling could not be compared to what my children were going through, fear and anger. that they must have felt. Having enjoyed the privilege of white people all my life, I constantly tried to speed up my education on racism, especially by raising two black children. I’ve been on diversity, equity and inclusion committees in my children’s schools and an anti-racist book club. I have worked to instill in my children a sense of pride and love for their Ethiopian heritage. Living so close to Little Ethiopia of Los Angeles, they were fortunate enough to be able to participate in cultural activities like Amharic classes and traditional dance classes. They celebrated holidays like Enkutatash and Genna. But despite my best efforts to understand, I knew that I would never be subjected to the hostilities they would face, and despite having raised them in a supposedly liberal, progressive and diverse community, I could not protect them from the realities of racism. in this domain. countries and the world in general. I didn’t know if I wanted to protect them from the world or prepare them to face it. So when Meazi told us that she wanted to protest George Floyd’s death with her classmates – that she had to go alone with her peers – despite the fact that she had not yet broken quarantine, we said yes. Masked, wearing hand sanitizer, her phone’s “find my location” enabled, she walked with her friends from a nearby park to our local police station. I looked at her little cursor icon on my phone, follow her way around the corner, and when her movement stopped outside the police station, I shouted nervously, “Why is she arrested at the station?” police for so long? Has she been arrested ?? But I waited and watched the slider finally move around the corner, and breathed out as she and her friends wearily dropped into our yard and begged for hot food and water. cold. Less than a month later, in June, we broke quarantine once again: a friend texted me letting me know that Meazi’s friend Summer had been rushed to the hospital. ‘hospital. Diagnosed in grade four with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, she had suffered a heart attack and was on life support. A large group of us gathered in the outer courtyard of the hospital. Neither of us were allowed to see her due to the COVID restrictions, but we wanted to be there to support the family. Masked, bent instead of hugging, we remained vigilant, hoping and praying for the summer to improve. We applauded and cheered the exhausted healthcare workers at seven o’clock each evening as their shifts changed. A neighbor of Summer’s walked up, scanned the groups of worried teenagers and asked, “Which of these groups of friends is Summer in?” “All,” replied a child. Five days later, Summer passed away. The kids and I spent the next day in bed. Our grief, although tiny compared to that of our friends who had just lost their daughter, was still deep. The death of a beloved friend, a global pandemic, police brutality, racial injustice; this was the year of my children. No amount of fresh sourdough buns, nor enchanting bedtime stories can help. The losses are enormous and grief continues to resonate. Every day I do my best to comfort them. In some ways, I feel like I’m doing a bit of parenting right now: as I love my kids and feed them, I can also watch with pride as they act like adults. . I can watch my daughter kneel in the asphalt and ask the police to see and hear her. I can watch her thank and celebrate the nurses who took care of her friend at the end of her life. I can see my son reaching out and comforting a friend who has just lost his sister. So when the pandemic is over, and we inevitably open the doors again, we all disperse, I would like to hang on to a few things: I would like to take the time to continue playing Gin Rummy with my son, and to continue to listen to the albums in their entirety with my daughter. I would like my husband to maintain his Sunday bread-making ritual and I have officially requested a Bolognese Sauce Day once a month. But above all, I hope that when my children return, whether to Shanghai or Santa Monica, they will still allow me a small measure of nurturing motherhood, even as I watch them gracefully navigate this world on their own. Like what you see? How about a little more R29 goodness, here?
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