I must tell you that it’s hard to write these days. I’ve so wanted to share things parents should be doing to enhance the education children are receiving during the “new normal.” Tools, techniques and strategies parents can employ nowadays to take over their children’s education independently. Methods and processes that genuinely prepare parents to be what society proclaims we are – our children’s first teacher, but I can’t. You see, I’m tired.
I’m exhausted today. I’m mother expletive tired. Truthfully, I’m mother expletive tired just about every day these days.
I’M TIRED
Worn out, am I from a lifetime of attempting to pretend that I don’t live in anything other than an alternative universe. I’m tired of living in my world, this unenchanted realm where folks like me are born with and live with PTSD all the days of our lives.
I’m sick and tired of having to put on the ‘good face,’ a happy go lucky countenance to paraphrase my late grandmother’s faith, which expresses that somehow “We will understand it better by and by.” The word ‘it’ being a means for comprehending why this nation remains unwilling to value without exception through the expression of both words and deed the humanity of every American, all the time.
As a parent, I’m tired of having to perpetually check on my son, feeling the need to schedule a daily Zoom call so that I can see his face in real-time every day. I’m exhausted from not being able to get a good night’s sleep whenever he’s away from home, worrying about his safety. I’m tired of appearing publicly like an overbearing helicopter father who seems on the surface to be a man unwilling to accept that his son is his male equal and no longer only his male child, but I can’t.
In this alternative Universe, I’m not allowed to behave differently. I’m not allowed to rest because, in this reality of which I exist, there are fellow citizens who don’t think people like my son matters much. Even worse, other fellow citizens believe children like my son don’t matter at all.
Still, in all realities, he means the world to me. In either Universe, he’s all I got, and I’m scared. And I’m sick and tired of worrying and not being able to rest adequately.
But it appears, as it was when my ancestors arrived here in what could only have been an alternative universe for them a brutal, inhumane, and deadly reality for sure, I too can only hope to rest when I’m dead. It seems any expectations of peace for parents of children who look like mine remains that awaited day when the Creator designates the time and place of my final resting place.
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE
For anyone else living in this alternative Universe that I try to reside in unsuccessfully, you know full well that dwelling in fear that your child’s unavoidable hue may preempt them from making it home or that today could be the last time you see your child is exhausting. I told you, I’m tired! I’m so expletive tired.
I would love nothing more than to be like non-historically marginalized parents, citizens whose children do not wear the exclusive and official flesh uniform of America’s formerly enslaved, moms and dads confronted merely with having to worry about COVID-19. It would be awesome to enjoy the luxuries of my privileged friends and oblivious colleagues able to trust that my son will grow up and reach his unlimited God-given potential if he only wears a mask and social distances. Oh, how giddy my disposition would be if I believed my son could exist as a Ph.D. candidate, electrical engineer, author, polyglot, and humanitarian absent any inhumane contrived societal obstacles or atrocious bigoted economic obstructions placed in his way.
Yet, those desirable creature comforts are not part of my world. I can’t count on any guarantees of physical ease and well-being for my child in this reality. Compelled to do what my ancestors did to try to ease their burden so that they could get some rest, I have to pray that if I can’t get rest in this life, I’ll be able to do so in the next.
A LITTLE REST, PLEASE!
I pace the floor when my son’s away, and fear and trepidation run through my heart and mind even when he’s home sleeping in the room across the hall. What an exhausting way to experience life, but I repeat it is my reality, the incredibly sad state of existence for millions of parents like me.
I’m tired! I imagine we are all tired because this nation won’t let any of us get a good night’s rest. How could anyone rest when their country refuses to live up to its Declaration that my child’s life is also equally endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
If you’ve been reading this blog since its infancy, you know I’ve been trying to rest well. Since before Trayvon Martin’s murder in 2012, I’ve been trying to in the words of Jesse Jackson to “keep hope alive” to convince you and mostly myself that things would get better. I’ve been trying to believe a better and brighter day was forthcoming.
After each horrific incident, as my ancestors did like a newborn baby, I try to sing myself to sleep crooning for the Universe the melodic words of the late Donny Hathaway, “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” During the so-called thoughts and prayers, healing part of each heinous murder, I try again like my ancestors to comfort myself in the harmonious sounds of the late Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
But daily, I continuously awake to the unfortunate reality that we are not yet free of unjustified homicides, and there is not, however a positive change in the level of humanity offered the descendants of America’s first unpaid essential workers. Instead, each day is the same old same old day as yesterday with no change in sight.
And it must be noted that today will most likely be no different yet another day with an absence of freedom without any hope for change. Again, today I’m sure we’ll repeat our shameful history and ignore the truth that depriving anyone of their civil rights shackles us all that when we rob even one person of their humanity, no citizen’s human rights are guaranteed.
Are you starting to understand the words coming out of my mouth? Is it yet crystal clear to you why I’m tired, why I’m mother expletive tired? Can’t you see how the inane way we approach each day is a recipe for exhaustion?
MY SMALL GREEN MENTOR
I’m a disciple of the great 20th Century philosopher Yoda who once said, “do or do not, there is no try.” Right now, there’s no doubt; I’m not doing as Yoda instructs.
As you now know, I’m certainly not doing well because I’m too exhausted to sing a hopeful song. I’m too tired even to try to sing or think about the possibility of change. Today, I can’t try or do because all hope seems lost.
Hope feels more than merely lost; hope seems dead to me like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Matiana Jefferson, Aura Rosser, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Michelle Cusseaux, Freddie Gray, Janisha Fonville, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Gabriella Nevarez, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and sadly several others. Hope is lying on the coroner’s slab as has been the disastrous case for all the sons and daughters above who look just like my son, children of parents who also hoped and prayed their children could live a long life in a world where change would arrive quickly, were all could live free.
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE MORE
Still, on Sunday, August 23rd, one more African American child was gunned down mercilessly, senselessly, unjustifiably in front of his children by those entrusted to protect and serve. Seven bullets fired at the back of Jacob Blake. Each gunshot reflective of one more additional time that I must have that expletive damn talk with my son.
“Son, please be careful. Son, please don’t go out alone. Son, if you see a police officer, don’t make any sudden movements. Son, I’m begging you, please only reply to law enforcement with yes officer, or no officer. Son, text me when you get into your apartment. Son, call me when you arrive at your destination. Yes, son, I know nobody’s perfect, but you must at all times be as close to perfection as possible. Son, I know you grow tired of hearing me say I love you, but tomorrow’s not promised, and tomorrow seems even less likely for those who look like you. Son, son, son, son!”
Unnecessary pleas for my son to do what he’s always done what we raised him to do explicitly to unconsciously give respect to everyone, even those who may not respect his humanity. Intergenerational devotions, instinctive prayers from me that he does whatever is necessary not only to get home safely but that I’m allowed to see him another day: each a tiresome ancestral activity, all inherited proactive hope-filled life-saving measures.
THE OTHER PARENTHOOD
It’s all so exhausting being an African American father, and I am sure millions of other parents like me are feeling precisely the same these days. Today we are all dead tired. All of us, I suspect, are mother expletive tired.
And yet if I had the opportunity to live in the Universe of the parents whose children struck down the children of African American parents, I’d muster up the energy to watch them step up to a press conference to ask and answer questions. You know those heartwrenching interviews and public interrogations I’ve grown tired of hearing parents like me be forced to endure.
It would be a tremendous change of pace, an alternative reality for sure if I could watch and listen as the parents of those public servant children who took a life stood at a podium to respond to queries about their children. If only other moms and dads bore the responsibility for having to answer questions such as:
- Those men and women, you raised who took the oath of a peace officer, are they living as you imagined?
- What if any talk did you have with your children about humanity before they swore to protect and serve the community?
- Did you ever talk to your children about what the words ‘community’, ‘protect,’ and ‘serve’ genuinely mean?
- What words do you have for the parents who, unlike you, shall never see their children again?
- How do you explain your homebred trusted public servants’ actions, willfully and wantonly choosing to deprive another American of their declared Creator endowed rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
- What are your thoughts about having every layer of your child’s life, each second that they were under your guidance, now being under a fine-tooth comb cross-examination with microscopic precision?
YOUR MINI-YOUS
Oh, if only I could escape my alternative Universe for a few moments to talk with all parents about the parable of the tree and the fruit. An allegory I learned about from my grandmother that informs the way to parent. How I wish more parents, especially those parents whose children pulled triggers and bent knees on the necks of other people’s children, would adhere to the parable’s guidance.
It’s past time that parents come to grips with the truth my grandmother shared with me that our children are mini versions of us. Thus if we deprive others of their humanity in our professional life, if we express beliefs in our homes even the smallest notion in the inferiority of others, we should expect our children to grow up a similar if not a worse version of us.
If your children never witness you having a meaningful relationship with anyone but those mirror image members of your homogenous group, significant as defined not by you but by those who are from diverse or historically marginalized communities, then you should not expect that your child will be anything other than a bad fruit produced by you the bad tree. For any of us to do less not only merely forces us to continue living in a multiverse, but it cements our legacy forever as a tree that bears bad fruit as in the proverbial bad apple.
BAD APPLES
And yes, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. All over the country, one, two, or a few dozen bad police officers are not only damaging the entire profession, but one lousy public servant can wake up a whole community, causing prolonged civil unrest, making it impossible for anyone, including me to get any rest.
So, from my alternative Universe with the little energy that remains, I’m begging you. Please, mothers and fathers, raise your children, specifically your current and future public servant children better.
I’m tired. Parents like me are so mother expletive tired.
What talk are you having with your children about humanity? How do you discuss potential interactions with police with your children? What person from outside your homogenous group considers you a true friend, a loyal and faithful companion?