Let's Call A Family Meeting

Growing up my mom always called ‘Family Meetings’ and my siblings and I would almost always roll our eyes. “What is she going to talk to us about now?” we’d ask as we dragged our bodies to the couch. At the time we were ungrateful for such a powerhouse of a mom who took the time to talk about difficult things with her kids. My mom used to sit us all down to talk about important current events and then give us each a chance to talk about it and ask questions. I remember vividly feeling warm and good, even relieved after our family meetings were over. While we used to roll our eyes at the start, but we all enjoyed the conversation and the time we we spent together being honest about topics that were so much bigger than us. What my mom knew back then was that one of the major ways she could help the world around her was to teach her kids about the unfairness and ugly. I remember my mom crying on 9/11 and at the end of that wretched day, calling a family meeting to check in with us all. I was in high school, my sister and brother in elementary school. She calmly explained what happened and then asked us how we felt. We all talked and it was and still is a day I remember every moment of. That is just one example of when my mom would call these family meetings. Growing up I remember feeling timid about the world around us, but knowing what was right and how to be kind to those who needed it most. My mom taught us to see the value in our differences and the need to celebrate them rather than to just accept them. Anyways, this past week made me remember my mother’s famous ‘Family Meetings.’ My mom is a nurse and is currently working to the bone so there was no time for her to call a Family Meeting last week. With all three of her kids out of the house living their own lives, it was up to us to call our own. It was my turn. And even though my kids are still so small, talking to them about current events in ways they can understand is important. So, I called a Family Meeting and because this space is dedicated to my family (and the food we eat) I felt it important to call the Family Meeting here as well. This space is all about Food + Family. And while I do my best to keep the content light, there are times where getting raw and real is necessary. I am human and and I strive to be a good one at that. I can’t let last week go un-noticed in this space.

Last week started off on a fresh new foot. Most of us feeling somewhat refreshed after the holiday break. I know I felt a small sense of relief swirled with hopefulness after saying goodbye to 2020 and hello to 2021. I knew that this year would look a lot like 2020 in the fact that the pandemic would continue to rip through us, but I felt hopeful none the less. You know me, striving for positivity no matter how bleak it all seems. While only a few days in we saw a horrific brood of people storm the nation’s Capitol building with little to no security stopping them. I was about to be guest on a podcast, all set up to record, and in come horrifying images. Bold headlines detailing what was happening. A total gut punch on a Wednesday afternoon. I’m sure my interview was a mess, my mind was thinking about the disaster that was/is our current world. My attention drawn to the ugly taking over the Capitol. My immediate reaction was anger, horror, embarrassment, and yes I was shocked. Though why am I continuously shocked when truly it isn’t surprising at this point what happens in politics, what happens with our government … for lack of a better term it always seems like a shit show. Anytime you turn on the news, it is a mess. It always seems to feature people making decisions that don’t really seem to help and then people are always so angry. Everyone is so angry. Myself included. What my anger needed was to be alone. I felt embarrassed because while I know there are millions out there who are racist, seeing it displayed out loud climbing up the walls of the Capitol building made my skin crawl. I felt sad. Helpless. The hope I felt at the start of the week vanished into thin air. What is to come of this now? I signed off social media for the week and had to just sit and think. What am I do with this in my house, how can I talk about this with my kids to hopefully make a difference in the long run? How does this all really make me feel? How can I help? Who can I support? It all makes me feel so out of control. And what do I do when I feel out of control? I make a list of the things I can control and start ticking away at the things within my power I have the ability to fully control. Mind you my house has never been cleaner!

We (my husband and I) took the rest of the week to work through the events, talk about them, explain them to each other and to our girls. Mostly Mila. We had healthy conversations and had a Family Meeting. Making my mama proud. This past week was not as productive as I planned it to be what with work and school, but what it did was stop us (once again) in our tracks. It forced us to address the fact that white privilege is alive and well, which is sickening. It gave us another opportunity to talk with our children about white privilege, to check our own. To talk about how an important building in our country was taken over by people who we don’t ever want to be like. We never want to be that entitled, that reckless.

Now here comes the hard conversation, and one that you may not agree with. And of course what happened on Wednesday has a lot of layers within it. But the main point we wanted to make clear within our family was this, what happened on Wednesday was white privilege at work. Our daughter Mila is five and this week we taught her about our Nation’s Capitol and what it looked like. We showed her pictures of the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and made plans to visit D.C. in the future. We then showed her a few pictures of what the Capitol building looked like on Wednesday. We all talked about how wrong it was. We also talked about the fact that if it were a group of Black people doing these things they would have been stopped immediately, violently stopped. And yet because this group of people were white, they were seemingly allowed to break in. And yes maybe it was planned that way. And yes now, after the fact, people are being arrested. But still. It crystal clears up the fact that Black people are always seen as violent, but look, white people are violent too, if not worse. We broke it down of course and talked about it in a way that Mila could understand. And in doing so it helped us as adults understand it all. Trust me, it is hard to talk about. It is hard because a lot of, if not all, systems we buy into and trust are embedded with racism. It is hard because it isn’t natural to check your own privilege. However, it is the hard things that are the most important to carry out.

We talk about all this with Mila so she can grow up knowing about the world we live in. We need to be honest with Mila so she learns to check her own privilege and knows how vital it is to support Black people, LGBTQ+, people of color. It is imperative that we teach our kids to love all, no matter the color of their skin right? But it has to go farther than that. We have to be honest and explain that in the world we live in there are a lot of people who don’t agree. And that is why we must continuously support, learn, and check our own privileges. Teaching our kids now won’t jade them, it won’t take away their innocence, it will allow them to go into the world as a better, more loving human who can spot the crap and do what is right.

Last year I took a class on how to raise unbiased children and wrote about what I learned HERE which is helpful when you begin having those difficult conversations with your kids.

Our family has a group text chain and last week someone wrote that they couldn’t wait until January 20th. Like when Biden finally comes into office and Trump is finally gone. I get that. But what happened last week had a lot to with how Black people are continuously treated terribly and continue to get killed more than any other. It opened up the fact that so many people feel it is OK to be so mean and negative and racist. We all saw the flags, the shirts. It was all gross. And now what? While we all wait to have a new president, what do we do? All I can tell you is what we are doing in our home. We keep learning and unlearning the things in our life that are embedded with racism. We keep reading and teaching our kids, teaching ourselves to check our own privilege. We try our damnedest to use our privilege to help those who need it. We keep showing up.

It is easy to feel out of control or watch the news and then turn it off feeling like you can’t do anything but shake your head. “What can I do?” you say as the world around you feels like a fire that you can’t extinguish. Ya, I don’t know what to do to other than to talk about it with your friends and family. If you have any sort of platform, then talk about it. Listen to others. Act with kindness. Teach your kids about the goings on in the world and tirelessly show them and others around you empathy so that they know to do the same.

That is all I got right now. Last week was horrendous. The good though is that tomorrow is a new day. We begin a new week tomorrow and the same hope I felt last Monday I feel again. We will try again. We will work harder. We will talk more about the important things. We will take care of ourselves and do something kind for someone else. We will do the things we can and control what we can. We will keep walking forward, one foot in front of other.