Stories in the Air

September 10, 2020

"What did you do when this happened to YOU?"

That's what my friend Kristie's son Nate, who is in 6th grade, asked her last week as they were preparing for the upcoming school year. What was YOUR pandemic like, Mom? 

Kristie, who, as a radio DJ, is never at a loss for words, was speechless for a minute. Because, of course, growing up, we never had our own pandemic.

We tell kids stories about our own childhoods as naturally as we breathe. We do this partly just because we're human, and humans are storytellers. We do it also to connect with our kids as they learn what was the same back then, and what was different from now. And equally important, we do it to help ourselves become better parents: Writing these stories in the air for our kids gives us the opportunity to review our own experiences through a mature lens, to think hard about whether our own parents managed situations well or poorly, and to reaffirm or change our own principles. 

Our job is to make our kids feel secure in their parents' ability to take care of them, to help them navigate around the natural obstacles that life tosses in front of everyone as we grow. But the hardships caused by the pandemics are unprecedented in modern memory. We've never been here ourselves, so we don't have the stories of previous generations to guide us. This is a crazy time, and we bear the weight of our kids' uncertain future.

So are there any stories that will help now? Sure there are. Your own family might have passed down stories of survival, like my family's story from after my great-grandfather died during the Flu Epidemic of 1918. And as a culture, we can tap into endurance stories from our shared history during the Great Depression and times of war. The message to our kids needs to be that even though we can't draw on specific examples from our past, the human creative spirit will figure out how to transcend these times and thrive again.

Kristie and Nate are writing their family's story right now, making it up as they go along, day by day. We're all doing this in our own way, and our stories about the lessons we learn will be our gift to the future. Someday, Nate's kids will ask him to tell them his story of 2020. Right now, of course, the ending of that story is still up in the air. But if Nate grows up to be anything like his mom, it will have the perfect punch line.