She said, “Okay, Glennon, here is what I see happening: Your family is together on an airplane right now. You are the flight attendant, and the kids are passengers on their first flight. The plane just hit some serious turbulence, and the airplane is bouncing.”
“Yes,” I said. “That sounds about right.”
“Okay. What do passengers do when turbulence hits? They look at the flight attendant. If the flight attendant appears to be panicked, the passengers panic. If the attendants are calm and steady, the passengers feel safe and follow suit.
“Glennon, you’ve been flying and living long enough to know that while turbulence feels scary, it won’t take the plane down. Turbulence isn’t deadly, and neither is divorce. We survive these things. The kids don’t know this yet, so they are afraid. They are going to keep looking at your face for information. Your job right now is to smile at them, stay calm, and keep serving the freaking peanuts.”
This is what I told myself every single day during the divorce, and a million times since: Keep serving the freaking peanuts, Glennon.
I was talking to a friend about this parenting mantra and she said, “Yes, turbulence doesn’t take planes down. But planes do crash. What if the thing that’s shaking your family’s plane is real? What if your family actually is going down?”
A friend of a friend found out a year ago that her teenage daughter was dying of cancer. That’s not turbulence. That’s the crash we all fear. That’s a family going down with the full knowledge that they won’t all make it out alive.
This woman started drinking and drugging, and she didn’t stop, so her daughter died while she was high. Her other two daughters watched their sister die without their mama present, because she had jumped ship. I think about this mother every day. I feel deep empathy for her. I also feel afraid for her. I fear that one day she will finally get still and that stillness will be so full of scalding regret that it will be impossible to stay.
We don’t control the turbulence or tragedy that happens to our families. The plot of our lives is largely out of our control. We decide only the response of the main character. We decide whether we will be the one who jumps ship or the one who stays and leads.
Parenthood is serving the peanuts amid turbulence. Then when real trouble hits—when life brings our family death, divorce, bankruptcy, illness—parenthood is looking at little faces and knowing that we are as afraid as they are. Parenthood is thinking: This is too much. I cannot lead them. But I will do the thing I cannot do.
So we sit down next to our babies. We turn their faces toward ours until they are looking away from the chaos and directly into our eyes. We take their hands in ours. We say to them, “Look at me. It’s you and me. I am here. This is more real than anything out there. You and me. We will hold hands and breathe and love each other. Even if we are falling from the sky.”
Family is: Whether we’re falling or flying, we’re going to take care of each other through the whole damn ride.
Every generation of parents receives a memo when they leave the hospital with their baby.
My grandmothers’ memo: Here is the baby. Take it home and let it grow. Let it speak when spoken to. Carry on with your lives.
My mother’s memo: Here is your baby. Take her home and then get together each day with your friends who also have these things. Drink Tab before four o’clock and wine coolers after. Smoke cigarettes and play cards. Lock the kids out of the house and let them in only to eat and sleep.
Lucky bastards.
Our memo: Here is your baby. This is the moment you have been waiting for your entire life: when the hole in your heart is filled and you finally become complete. If, after I put this child in your arms, you sense anything other than utter fulfillment, seek counseling immediately. After you hang up with the counselor, call a tutor. Since we have been speaking for three minutes, your child is already behind. Have you registered her for Mandarin classes yet? I see. Poor child. Listen closely: Parent is no longer a noun—those days are done. Parent is now a verb, something you do ceaselessly. Think of the verb parent as synonymous with protect, shield, hover, deflect, fix, plan, and obsess. Parenting will require all of you; please parent with your mind, body, and soul. Parenting is your new religion, within which you will find salvation. This child is your savior. Convert or be damned. We will wait while you cancel all other life endeavors. Thank you.
Now the goal of parenting is: Never allow anything difficult to happen to your child.
To that end, she must win every competition she enters. (Here are your four hundred participation trophies, distribute accordingly.) She must feel that everyone likes and loves her and wants to be with her at all times. She must be constantly entertained and amused; every one of her days on Earth must be like Disneyland, but better. (If you go to actual Disneyland, get a fast pass because she should never be forced to wait. For anything, ever.) If other kids don’t want to play with her, call those kids’ parents, find out why, and insist they fix it. In public, walk in front of your child and shield her from any unhappy faces that might make her sad, and any happy faces that might make her feel left out. When she gets into trouble at school, call her teacher and explain loudly that your child does not make mistakes. Insist that the teacher apologize for her mistake. Do not ever, ever let a drop of rain fall upon your child’s fragile head. Raise this human without ever allowing her to feel a single uncomfortable human emotion. Give her a life without allowing life to happen to her. In short: Your life is over, and your new existence is about ensuring that her life never begins. Godspeed.
We got a terrible memo.
Our terrible memo is why we feel exhausted, neurotic, and guilty.
Our terrible memo is also why our kids suck.
They do, they just suck.
Because people who do not suck are people who have failed, dusted themselves off, and tried again. People who do not suck are people who have been hurt, so they have empathy for others who are hurt. People who do not suck are those who have learned from their own mistakes by dealing with the consequences. People who do not suck are people who have learned how to win with humility and how to lose with dignity.
Our memo has led us to steal from our children the one thing that will allow them to become strong people: struggle.
Our terrible memo is also why we stay busy with the trivial while the world our children will inherit crumbles. We obsess over our children’s snacks while they rehearse their own deaths in active-shooter drills at school. We agonize over their college prep while the earth melts around them. I cannot imagine that there has ever been a more overparented and underprotected generation.
New memo:
Here is your baby.
Love her at home, at the polls, in the streets.
Let everything happen to her.
Be near.