Community Tuesdays: The F@#$s We're No Longer Giving
Because bounce-back culture is everywhere, and it is B.S.
Last week, I entered my 40s. Somewhat synchronistically, I published a recent conversation I had with Meredith Rodriguez, my ride-or-die collaborator here at In Tending, about embracing our present selves, rather than constantly casting glances backward to the people we were before this current era of our caregiving. This part of that conversation has stayed with me since:
Meredith: In America, we have bounce-back culture. There’s a sense that you'll get back to what you were doing [before becoming a parent], and you'll just do this, too. That is false. You do not just do this too.
…You almost have this idea that you can—or you have to—remove yourself from the whole parenting gig and like, put it on autopilot, so you can go back to what you were doing before. But that's not life.
Ryan: Yes. It's a whole new way of living. It’s not possible to go back. So really where your agency lies is in deciding to support the person that you’re becoming, or to not support her.
As we approach the second monthly installation of The F@#$s We’re No Longer Giving in our subscriber chat, I’d like to invite us to consider which aspects of this “bounce-back” mindset we’re ready to leave behind.
Meaning:
Can we stop giving so many f@#s about the fact that our bodies look different now than the way they looked before we assumed our current caregiving role and responsibilities? Bodies change.
Can we stop unfavorably comparing our relationships with our friends and family now to the way they looked before? People change.
Can we stop unfavorably comparing our careers now to the way they looked before? Careers change.
Can we stop unfavorably comparing our actions as activists to the way they looked before? Social conditions change, and so do we.
Conversely:
Can we give more f@#$s about how we feel in our bodies now, vs. the way they look to others who haven’t yet unlearned their misogyny and fatphobia?
Can we give more f@#$s about the way we want to work now, vs. the way our careers look to others who still equate net worth with self worth?
Can we give more f@#$s about the way we want to experience pleasure and connection in this season of caregiving vs. the ways in which we are not living up to other adults’ unrealistic expectations of us?
Can we accept the fact that there is grief and sadness involved in releasing our attachment to our past selves, but there is also grief and sadness in store for us if we continue to reject and devalue our present selves?
If you’re ready to share your thoughts already, feel free to jump into the chat now. If you’d like to further unpack this with me, you can read on below.
I’ll offer my own experience here as a case study in releasing my attachment to past selves. My intention this month was to figure out how to better integrate my activist self and my caregiver self, and this led me to an important realization: as I attempted to integrate all the activist selves that had come before this version of myself, I was unwittingly trying to “bounce back” to the activist I’d been before I became a parent. I harassed my reps the way I had learned to do during my years as a citizen activist in D.C. I checked and re-checked local activist websites for upcoming protests the way I had when I was a child-free twenty-something living in NYC. It took me a while to realize that these are excellent activities for people in their twenties because anyone can do them. Even those with very little experience in doing anything else.
People in their forties like me may have less time than we did in earlier years, and less time than we will when (if?) we’re retired. But we have much more experience, and an unparalleled opportunity to use that experience to mentor and mediate between generations. We can raise our young children to love the earth, to feel empathy and compassion for animals and other people, to look for ways to be upstanders instead of bystanders or bullies. We can share our best practices and hard-earned equanimity with budding Gen Z activists who are just learning the ropes. We can help our Boomer parents find their way to 50501 protests and Indivisible meet-ups online.
Other activists may have more energy or time, but they can’t do all of this as well as we can. Which is how we know it is ours to do.
I am indebted to other politically-engaged caregivers for helping me to arrive in this place. I have written before here about how my dad involved me in his own activism when I was just a kid, integrating the volunteer work he did for a nonprofit org into our usual camping trips. More recently, I had the opportunity to join a salon with
, who reminds us here that “Authoritarian governments always are afraid of artists, because our work has power. If we didn’t have power, they wouldn’t bother censoring us.” And I am grateful to for recommending that I read The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs, who draws on her seven decades as an advocate for civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights to offer suggestions for future organizeres. Boggs makes it clear that imagining and then building a better future for our children is an essential form of activism, as well as its ultimate aim.As Boggs writes:
“Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society. Going beyond protest organizing, visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system… A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.”
In sum: caregivers do not have to see ourselves as surrendering to a life of lesser value than the one we “used to have,” or that others have. Instead, we can view ourselves as actively creating a world of expanded possibilities — for ourselves, and for all humanity. We are imagining a kinder future and raising our children to help us make it a reality. This work is often unpaid and yet we give our time to it, showing our children by example that within an oppressive capitalistic system, not all paid work is worthwhile and not all worthwhile work is paid. This creative work is often done against the backdrop of local and global devastation, from which we cannot turn away, but nor can we crumble. By continuing to give our hearts and attention consistently and bravely in an ever-changing, scary world, we show by example that it is possible to feel our sadness, grief and anger fully, while also being able to act with mindfulness and integrity.
I don’t know about you, but I think that if we can do all of that in this moment, in the middle of our lives, in the middle of this apocalypse, that is more than adequate. I think it is sacred work. Work I am proud to do.
As a mother. As an activist. As both.
How about you?
I feel humbled to appear briefly in this post as you integrate your many selves 💙
Your post and our conversation over Notes reminds me of how crucial our work as caregivers is, and how often I’ve felt to the need to publicly decenter my work as a mother in order to feel respected and seen as a “contributing member of society,” and as a writer. Thank you for helping me name this, Ryan.