Parenting in the Summer is a Hot Mess

...and other thoughts on balancing your individual needs with your people's

Photo by Josephina Kolpachnikof on Unsplash

I just read this beautiful quote from an interview with David Korten, who wrote Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth. Given Korten’s work, I suspect he’s applying the quote to ecology, but I couldn’t help reading it in the context of family:

“For the body to work, each cell needs to maintain its integrity as an independent being, yet be devoted to the health of the whole. So it’s constantly balancing the individual interest with the collective interest.”

How beautiful is that? Each and every freaking cell in our bodies must “maintain its integrity as an independent being”… and also… “be devoted to the health of the whole”!

Also, I can’t imagine a clearer expression of why summer parenting is so complicated. (Or family life in general.)

Occasionally, a summer day is beautifully orchestrated in my house. I get up early enough to meditate and do some work. The kids sleep in. My spouse takes breakfast. I swap, he works. I take the kids to the pool or some-such summer fun. For dinner, taco ingredients are miraculously in the fridge! Alleluia!

Other days, it’s a hot mess. Everyone’s needs seem to compete, and we can’t figure out what to prioritize or when to schedule what. Also, what are we having for dinner? Or, damn, the next dinner we planned is the labor-intensive chicken parm and why did we do this to ourselves?!

I’ve written before about the limits of the nuclear family. Pandemic lockdown underscored just how much of a burden this country places on the relatively fragile, small social unit of the nuclear family. Case in point: For three months of the year, all children just…. stop going to school. Working parents are left to figure it out. (This burden only grows if/when disability is at play—a child’s, of course, but also a parent’s.)

I suspect very smart people have already analyzed how America’s overreliance on the nuclear family is related to our myth of “rugged individualism.” You know, the belief in the fully independent self. Absolutely self-made, self-reliant, etc. (And yes, I totally played that Simon and Garfunkel song unironically in my room as a 90s teen. I am a rock. I am an iiiisland.)

So it’s helpful to remember that even at the cellular level, we are made from interdependence. A living community of give and take happens inside us all the time!

As the social safety nets get ripped and repaired, get made and get ripped, maybe our individual cells can provide us a way forward, at least on the familial level. Our cells can be our models.

If the cell doesn’t tune into the greater whole, the body will be in trouble—and thus the cell. But if the cell doesn’t also maintain its own health, the cell will be in trouble—and thus the body. Each cell needs to be both individually-oriented and community-minded. That seems very hard!

Photo by Yair Mejía on Unsplash

But I think it means asking, again and again, What do I need? What do my people need? How might we meet those needs together?

If I need quiet time to think, for instance, can I take the kids to the library while I also bring a book? (Full disclosure: This was an utter flop the other day when we inadvertently ventured out during toddler story hour. Man, south Jersey has a lot of toddlers!) Or if I need to move my body, can I hit “play” on a workout video that my daughter and I can do together? (Fiona prefers high-intensity cardio.)

Yesterday, we all needed connection—and I needed less Taylor Swift. The 10-year-old Swifty (Swiftie?) asked me to name celebrity musicians who come from Philly. “The Roots,” I said. “Who are the Roots?” she asked. “Who are the Roots?!” I said.

And thus began a tour of the musical artists from her mom’s first concert. (1996, Philly, The Roots opening for Tribe Called Quest. [This makes me seem far cooler than I am. See above re: Simon and Garfunkel.]) My kids were mildly interested, and I danced around the room singing, “Can I kick it?” Fiona was a quick learner: “Yes you can!” she said.

Can I give you the quote again? Yes I can!

“For the body to work, each cell needs to maintain its integrity as an independent being, yet be devoted to the health of the whole. So it’s constantly balancing the individual interest with the collective interest.”

Note the last part. Korten adds that it’s a balancing act, and I think of my wobbly body in a hard yoga pose. Like the one where we stand on a leg, stretch the other leg out in front of us, hook our fingers around that leg’s big toe, and then… breathe. Or try to. I wobble. I even fall. The balancing act is not seamless or smooth.

When I’m leaning too much towards one or the other—the individual or the collective—I try to adjust. Is my introverted self too wiped out from long conversations about Taylor Swift lyrics? Let’s all have independent screen time! Are my 10-year-old’s eyes now glazed over from hours with her favorite iPad game, Sneaky Sasquatch? Let’s get outside together. In my adjustments, I inevitably lean too far to the other side, and I adjust again. It’s never quite right, but not too far off.

Here's to the hot mess of summer, and all our efforts at balance.