This isn't what I ordered...

The school board sent a note out to all the parents last night. It was information about how to engage with our children about the current crisis in Europe and the invasion of Ukraine.

I’ll be honest I didn’t read the email. Not right away.

My reaction was to close my laptop and lay my head down on the kitchen counter where I was sitting with a cup of tea doing some research while Tim and Fiona had a debate over some important topic behind me … like whether to watch a new episode of Gordon Ramsay’s new cooking show.

My reaction was really one of exhaustion.

You see I was done for the day - I was wrapping up. Dinner was over and the kitchen was clean. Simon had hit the showers and was online killing bad guys with his friends. Fiona was flitting between her room where there are multiple crafts on the go and the living room where she and Tim took turns cuddling the dog and generally bantering back and forth.

With a hot cup of tea, I sat adjacent to all of this - because everything is adjacent in this little home of ours - and set about some work for an upcoming event.

And because I was scheduling interviews and generally trying to plot out my life for the next couple of weeks, calendars and emails were open and, I - without a glance to the subject line - popped it open despite the subject line (which no one reads anyway right? We just open or delete unread based on who sent it right? Everyone does this right? RIGHT?!?!?!?)

And as that email - and the reality of having to potentially coach and talk and support my children through a blooming war in Europe hit me right in my face - I felt rage.

Not anger. Rage.

Rage that this was happening. Anger that this was happening in an age of the 24-hour news cycle. Fury that in addition to non-stop news there was also non-stop disinformation and propaganda mixed in for me to sift and wade through and determine what is ‘real’. Irritation that there was yet another crisis to be on high alert for followed by immediate and overwhelming guilt at all of the above and how much worse it was for those with family and friends in Ukraine let alone the people actually living through this fucking nightmare.

So I sat with that for a little bit - partially because freaking out and screaming obscenities is less conducive in a house where everyone can hear you even with the doors closed.

And as is normally the case, as the reaction of anger and fury dissolved - melted away like the high-fructose corn syrup on a lollipop - I was left with the core of what I was really feeling. Fear. The centre of my tootsie pop is fear.

Fear of what was happening. Fear of my ability to navigate the disinformation and barrage of horrifying images and soul-destroying stories of soldiers duped into fighting a war only to find they have been sold a pack of lies and died for these lies.

I will once again point out that at no point in my parenting classes in high school or any of my pre-natal classes or any of the books I read about child-rearing was there a chapter in how to talk to your kids about things like this.

And I am once again feeling abandoned and alone and thoroughly unsatisfied and disappointed in what was advertised to me and what parenting actually is.

The label is wrong. And I suspect that if I had all the information - real information - upfront I would have opted the fuck out.

Seriously. I am hella smart, crazy competent, occasionally right and often funny and completely and totally unqualified to be a parent. And I had good parents. Parents that loved me and cared about me and set rules and boundaries. Parents who basically held me and my two girlfriends hostage over a series of days in a covert operation to uncover the web of lies we told about the party that didn’t happen the first - and only - time they left me home alone for a weekend. Don’t get me wrong - I’m full of trauma and damage as a result of what they didn’t know - but it’s the ‘regular’ amount of damage.

THAT is the amount of damage I was hoping to get away with giving my kids. The type of shit they talk about in therapy when they were my age and realize that we held them to too high a standards or let them have too much screen time or didn’t model impeccable communication skills at all times and therefore made sweeping threats we could never back up and screamed at them to put their boots on.

Normal shit.

And now this. For fuck’s sake.

So here’s what I did.

I pulled up that information and found other articles like this one that I found super helpful and I did a find and replace all.

Everywhere it says ‘child’ I replaced it with ‘person’ Every single one of these items applies. To every human being. To our colleagues and friends. To our family members. To ourselves.

Make no mistake - this shit is exhausting. All of it. And we - when we are exhausted - are never our best selves. And it is okay to rest. As this article - and many other insightful pieces advise - you need to check yourself first:

First, make sure that you are feeling calm and present enough to have the discussion. If you are feeling upset, tired or distressed, it is best to give yourself some time and space before initiating the conversation.

As my friend Lynn Davis said in her recent talk for All Women Lead - you need to put your own oxygen mask on first.

Good advice.

Imma have that puppy strapped to my face all day today…