This Week: Floored Again

Dear fam,

I'm on the floor again, waiting for my little chatterboxes to settle down and give themselves to rest. Smart money says we still have a ways to go before that happens — Big Kid is an endless fount of questions and stories from summer camp. Earlier, when we asked what she did at camp, we got a perfunctory, “I don't know,” followed by an equally fascinating “stuff.” Now, in the cozy dark of the room, she’s gushing about beatboxing pandas and Pokemon cards. I have learned that Steve’s Lava Chicken is a real song. Thanks, Jack Black.

Toddler, for her part, is finally done trying to escape her bed, having accepted she must at least stay on the mattress. This followed approximately 40,356 attempts to climb over, under, and around my wife and I — all foiled by our patient dexterity.

And me? I'm trying to make sense of the thoughts in my head. If I close my eyes, I see flashes of color, a swirl of images from the past. My chest is tight with anxious worry about… everything?

The dissonance of inhabiting my day-to-day while news from both of my homelands gets worse and worse and worse (surely we've hit rock bottom? No?) is a cacophony I’m having trouble metabolizing.

Probably, if I didn’t do so much activism — raising money for peace orgs1, helping parents of trans kids get their stories published, advising on organizing projects, etc — I’d be more insulated. Thus, I’d be more calm. Because, despite a crescendo of panic in my chest, things are pretty good at the Chaos Palace lately.

Both kids love summer camp. Toddler is learning to ride a balance bike. Big Kid is learning to do skateboard tricks. My wife and I have decent jobs — she got a song placement in an AT&T ad for the first time! We’re respected, and feel a sense of achievement. My garden is blooming.

In so many ways, my cup runneth over. I can see that.

Still, in my mind’s ear, a howl won't stop. A keening wail echoing across the desolate expanse.

It's the sound of parents singing their children to sleep, offering songs in lieu of food. Of children’s fingers, scraping flour from the dirt to bring to their hungry parents. Of buildings crumbling. Of toddlers whimpering under rubble.

I can't hear them, but I can't not hear them.

I've written these words (or words like them) many times in the past two years. Too many times. A couple times folks have asked me, “Is your blog still about parenting?” Which it is. This is about parenting.

I'm parenting in a world where reckless leaders choose personal gain over people's safety. Over their own humanity, and the humanity of others. Who's to say our little family will stay safe?

I'm parenting in a world that demands I reconcile my understanding of humanity (naturally good and divinely inspired) with a polarized view of zero-sumness. How can I square that circle and explain my values to my children?

I'm parenting in a world in which my love of my Israeli culture, of the Hebrew language, of Israeli poetry and music and art and food is perceived by so many once-allies as criminal. I’m parenting in a world where I am asked “Whose side are you on, anyway?” by fellow Israeli-Americans when I weep furious tears at the idea of desperate, starving Gazan mothers. How can I teach my children to love my language, my home, the flavors and smells of my youth, but understand the complexity of the place I come from?

I wanted to sit down tonight and write about how proud I am that I finally managed to start asking my girls to speak to me one at a time. I am actually pretty proud of that – asking for what I need doesn't come naturally to me, and I feel powerful, in control, every time I request they speak in turn.

I also considering writing about how we're taking the girls camping this weekend. How we went on a special supermarket trip yesterday to get marshmallows, and chocolate, and graham crackers, and hotdogs to cook on a fire. The girls got matching sleeping bags, decorated with unicorns. We borrowed a tent. Big Kid has said about a million times that she can't wait, and wants to pack everything up RIGHT NOW.

Another idea? The night-chats I’ve been having with girls, in which we murmur our love and I assure them that, no, monsters are not real. Even if that kid from camp said they are totally real. How I cherish the sweet night-time smell of their room, the hushed air that still reverberates with their raucous energy.

I know a lot of people might prefer for me to choose one of those topics. Honestly? Me, too. I almost did!

But then I read the open letter Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg sent out on her excellent blog, Life Is a Sacred Text. In it, she lays out the rabbinical basis for saving the people of Gaza, relying on a variety of sources from the Talmud through to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Ruttenberg write:

“This cannot be our moment for silence. It. Cannot. Please let us rise to meet this moment and see the shattered Temple around us, right now, and our responsibility to it.”

That, and the essay by Rabbi Jill Jacobs in the Forward, in which she demands Jews in the diaspora (and, despite being Israeli, I am indeed a Jew in the diaspora) show up for our values.

“But our own fear must not distract us from the reality that the biggest threat to Israel, and indeed to Judaism itself, is coming from Israel’s governing coalition. Israel is increasingly becoming an autocratic and theocratic state. This is the moment for American Jews — including both leaders and ordinary Jewish community members — to raise their voice.”

One day, my children will be big. They will learn about this time. And they will ask me what I was doing while babies starved to death and corrupt leaders plotted ways to monetize their demise. I want to be able to say, “Baby, it was awful to be able to do so little. But I did what I could. It wasn’t enough, because nothing can be enough. But I tried.”

When I decided to become a mother, I vowed to live by my values insofar as I was able. If I want to impart those values to my children, the least I can do is live up to them, right? That's been a terrifically difficult vow to maintain. There are opportunities to not live a values-based life basically every minute of every day. I stumble. Like, a lot.

But I can't, in good faith, take my kids on a camping trip to sleep in a tent without reckoning with the fact that hundreds of thousands of families are living in tents because their homes have been collapsed by bombs. That the government of my current home paid for and the military of my homeland dropped.

So, I am writing. I wish I wasn’t. I wish all this was different. That I could just write about bicycles and sunflowers and our very silly cats. But I can’t. This is the world I’m parenting in, and this is the parent I am becoming every day. I hope you’re able to find a way to show up for your values. Here are a few that are great to support:

Gaza Soup Kitchen

Staning Together | עומדים ביחד

Sending so much love to you and yours.

Shabbat shalom, a sabbath of peace and wholeness,

Mikhal

Welcome to the Chaos Palace is where I write about being a parent with ADHD to a kid with ADHD. I also write about queerness, Judaism, otherness, creativity, and how they intersect. Oh, and poems sometimes. If you want to tap the little heart or share this with a pal, I'd be honored. Thanks!