September 25, 2019
Quick Answer: Everyone. Literally, everyone on this planet. If we’re to scold anyone when it comes to how we humans have conducted ourselves in relationship to our Earth, then we’d have to do it toward ourselves and every household, nomadic tent city, unique compound, homeless camp or any other type of setup that we homo sapiens respectively keep our residence. Please make no mistake in understanding the state of our world’s climate; this planet will be able to continue with or without us. Truly, it’s a matter of what we’re comfortable with and able to accept based on our lifestyles as we know it here in the 21st century.
Long Answer: The following is my succinct personal story in recent days of trying to love the Earth, fight for a new mindset on a bipartisan basis, and coming to raw terms of reality especially when it comes to environmental politics.
It’s been nearly a week since I traveled to Washington, D.C. for the second time this month. The first time was to attend the Bush-Cheney administration reunion held for those who served in various agencies and roles back during those years—it was surreal to be in the company with those whom, along with myself (I was a political appointee in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s office), had given of our time and talents to serve an administration during what already has been documented as a historically poignant time in our country’s history. We were able to share an audience with former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as they reflected on those years and shared encouraging antidotes for the present time. I personally took a time-out after serving the administration to give birth to our first child, followed by a few more pregnancies that sum totaled in three wonderful children while also helping elderly in the home we’ve had the blessing to live in south Florida for the past decade.
My second D.C. visit came by way of invitation to attend the Environmental Defense Fund’s Fly-In last week and to take the opportunity to visit with offices of Florida’s congressional delegation to share my heartfelt inclinations about the importance of pursuing legislative goals of environmental solutions for our state as well as nationwide. Ironically, as I traversed Capitol Hill on foot last Thursday with a few of my like-minded colleagues, our U.S. Congress was also receiving the most recent public comments from Miss Greta Thunberg of Sweden. While I carried copies of my children’s illustrations and short comments about our stewardship of the Earth to my state’s various congressional offices, Miss Thunberg was testifying that our nation was doing little to nothing to help assuage the seemingly accelerating effects of our contribution to our planet’s climatic cycle. In the past couple days, Miss Thunberg also addressed the United Nations in New York City by repeatedly saying “how dare you” in regards to the idea that this global governing body entity looks to the youth for hope and yet fails in action.
Rewind to earlier this year: I took the time out to track our household’s trash habits for a couple of weeks. This included taking note of the packaging that we deal with when purchasing goods and how we dispose of those items as well as pre-existing goods in the home. The results of this personal audit almost sent me into a full-fledged depression swing similar to the post-partum blues I had experienced in varying degrees with each of my children born. It was embarrassing to recognize just how much waste we deal with in this home and although we try to diligently sort our trash into as much recycling as we can—then we’re faced with the dirty secret in most of our nation’s municipalities that much of our recycling isn’t actually recycled, rendering this conscientious ritual of sorting our garbage in the house a moot matter.
My personal trash inventory and revelation, along with a shared vision with friends, gave me the inspiration to seek more avenues to help effect change in my city and county in the interest of cleaning up our act when it came to household habits and waste processing. It also highlighted to me that it is a harsh reality to face our personal habits when it comes to how we travel, purchase and process goods, dispose of our trash, and use our resources like water and energy sources. It is this message I believe that needs to be conveyed to the world’s microphone so to speak. Although as a mother and educator I wholeheartedly support the notion of a 16-year-old having global attention when it comes to helping influence change in funding, legislation, and other environmental mandates needed to assist a “clean-up” of our habits, I dislike our collective avoidance of the real problem we face in terms of our interaction with our planet’s climatic cycles: ourselves.
There is so much more to write on this subject today, probably redundant in nature given how much has already been written and shared in digital spaces such as the Twitter social media platform. If there is anything I desire to share and encourage in this discussion regarding our climate stewardship going forward, it would be that the most effective course of action would be to cease finger-pointing to entities such as governing bodies and business corporations. If we have any hope of dramatically changing our habits, we must take personal responsibility and ask ourselves if we’re willing to re-think how we transport ourselves, purchase and utilize goods, sort our garbage, and overall make those hourly decisions to make a difference in our human footprint on Earth.
R.V.S.Bean
“We are given substance, nurtured, and sustained by family. Kinship goes beyond family and is the connection we feel to the world at large and everything in it. Given the concept of family, it isn’t difficult to understand the idea of kinship with other forms of life—everything was of the Earth. We all came from it one way or another and returned to it when life was over. These were the unalterable realities that connected us to everything around us.”–Joseph M. Marshall III, The Lakota Way
Some favorite sources:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saint-greta-spreads-the-climate-gospel-11568989306
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/how-greta-thunbergs-rise-could-backfire-on-environmentalists.html
The True Corona Nightmare: What If You’re Cooped Up with Children and COVID-19?
March 13, 2020
COVID-19 Quarantine: What If?
As the World Health Organization deliberated earlier this week on whether to upgrade COVID-19 from an epidemic to pandemic, I sensed another collective wave of anxiety rising in parents and caregivers throughout the United States: What if I have to quarantine myself and my children? What if my job forces me to stay home at the same time my children’s school (or glorified daycare) shuts down and moves to an online format? What if I must be a “stay-at-home” with no end in sight?
Hope and Experience Reigns
Having personally logged more than a decade’s worth of “homemaker” status experience complete with a full range of infant/pediatric care for three children and geriatric home care for octogenarians/nonagenarians, I feel this is a good time for me to share with the online community some quick tips of how to survive and thrive in a possible quarantine situation with little or big ones at home. My tone is intended to offer hope and inspiration for ideas should you find yourself stuck at home with children.
Being a teacher-caregiver with three home/multi-schooled children, I’d also like to add some levity to the topic by dispensing my humble tidbits with an acronym description for COVID-19 using CORONA as the base word. At the end of each vignette I’ll try to provide some weblinks when able to help you research your own home plan of action. Thankfully Google and other search engines like talking with your family and friends still exist to help you brainstorm your respective paths.
C is for Correspondence Courses, Creativity, and Calming Continuity
The good news is that in 2020 most Americans have access to a wealth of resources both online and in print at home when it comes to helping educate students of all ages. If your children are enrolled in a traditional “brick and mortar” school, chances are your school district or the institution will also provide links and virtual options should you be in a self- or mandated quarantine scenario.
Take this opportunity to declutter and disinfect your home dwelling, in the process carving out an area for your students to conduct their studies. Comfortable and clear options for seating help your children find a cozy place to read, write, and create new ideas in your home abode. If you own books, consider congregating them in one room or area. One of my favorite places as a child was that space made in the children’s area of the public library that silently invited children to come and have a seat and open up the physical possibilities in a book, magazine, or today a “tippity-tapping” or swiping of the screen.
A few of my personal favorite websites to consider using for both digital and print educational materials: www.education.com, www.teacherspayteachers.com, www.ctcmath.com, www.ancient.eu, www.welltrainedmind.com, www.loc.gov, www.congress.gov, www.kumonbooks.com, http://www.scholeacademy.com
O is for Opportunity, Order, and Operations Management
While staying at home is not for the feeble of spirit or faint of organized, there isn’t any true template of what the order of things should look like in your space. If recent political news is of any sobering indication, it’s that we Americans say we want change and yet are slow to accept changes in how we accept stereotypical roles. We say we want more racial, gender, and age diversity in positions of government power and yet the U.S. Presidential field is now down to the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and former V.P. Joe Biden to face President Trump in the fall elections. This slowness to adapt change is especially true when running a household with children.
Somewhere along the line in our social evolution following the Industrial Age, the onus fell on the woman of the household to be responsible for the cooking, cleaning, and all other chores regulated to the “homemaker”. When facilitating the education of your children at home, your workload more than triples because it is a full-time job alone to help students with their school studies—let alone teach them yourself.
If delegation is king in the outside working world, then it is most imperative at home. I recommend devising a list on a visible chart for the household to see helping divest the household chores that needed to keep everyone clean, healthy, well-fed, and in turn happy. If you have been managing the home without much help from your dependents, consider the opportunity to alleviate those daily stresses and help foster more responsibility in your children.
In my home, the older children have certain nights they are assigned planning the dinner menu and must fold their own laundry (at age 10 you get your own hamper and clean your clothes too!). Lunchtime is their own responsibility, however, I do provide choices that within their respective age-appropriate ability. For instance, an 8-year-old can reach the sliced bread to apply both peanut butter and jelly for their sandwich.
There are numerous resources online for tips or printables for devising a list of responsibilities for your household. Consider reading books to the younger ones that cover taking care of the home or cooking. For the older kids, be honest and discuss what your concerns/needs are and what are they able to consider doing to be a beneficial working part of the household. Again, consider finding a template list that works for you as guidance, one of my favorites: https://livingmontessorinow.com/montessori-monday-age-appropriate-chores-for-children-free-printables/
R is for Rest, Reset, and Review What’s Really Important
The old writings in various cultures and in my personal reading of Christian scriptures often repeat the adage that when faced with an unexpected circumstance in life that could be deemed unfortunate, there is good that can come out of it eventually if not immediately.
So, you’re suddenly stuck at home with children and your job whether it was inside or outside of the home. This combination can be depression-inducing or at the very least aggravating. Also consider that your children are having a difficult time with this unforeseen set of events. More often than not, your children will absorb and in turn react to however you’re feeling and acting in this situation. Your default reaction may be either free-fall into this experience without much organization or swing to the other extreme of trying to exact complete control over every minute of the day with your children—both of these extremes can produce unsavory results.
I mention “rest” and “reset” in this section because for many of you, this may be how you try to approach the school break times in your children’s year. If the summer is their big vacation time, the first few weeks are a decompression time for your students before settling into a new routine. If this concept is foreign to you, again, there is no true template for you and your children but consider this to be a time to review what’s truly important.
Not unlike adults, children and teenagers need routine to help them grow and flourish. They also need rest and reflection within that daily construct. Being at home for extended hours every day may be something your entire household is not used to with jobs, school, extra-curriculars and the like. Remember that the opportunities to learn are not regulated to your students, you have a chance to learn alongside them and realize what amazing souls reside in your children when not stressed about running from schools to practices in traffic every day.
O is for the Outdoors
The fact that I may have to consider lecturing anyone on the importance of the outdoors for both children and adults is disturbing. Yet many Americans have simply lost touch (physically especially) with the outdoors and what raw nature can teach us. No amount of screen time with educational applications can replace what the interaction of the human and Earth can yield in terms of creativity, philosophical reflection, botanical and zoological education, and an overall appreciation for the organic mechanizations that make our daily life on this planet possible.
As mentioned before, there are countless digital and print ideas for how to approach “field trips” outside with your children. You may be able to simple open your back or front door to investigate. For avid readers, consider downloading or checking out from your local library the following book: “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv.
Our household is blessed with a backyard that’s allowed me the freedom to create planters with herbs, fruits, and vegetables with my children. I’ve also allowed them a space in the yard to literally dig into the dirt and create and recreate their own worlds, complete with a hose running water through it.
Although this may overwhelm anyone with germaphobe tendencies, there is a lot of scientific research still coming in that points to the benefits of us interacting with nature, i.e. playing in the mud. What good is teaching our children about the environment in schools if they don’t have the opportunity to physically walk, run, and play in it? You never know, the extra time taken to go outside with your child this week may help inspire them to find a calling in a profession that would help the environment in the future.
www.nps.gov, www.stateparks.org, www.arborday.org, www.nationalgeographic.com
N is for Nesting, Neighbors, Not Saying “No” So Much, and News
We usually think of “nesting” as a term reserved for the woman swelling with expectancy of her child’s birth. In the case of a quarantine situation, it may be the first time you’ve had an extended period to sit in one place and really assess what does your home look like? I personally went through a phase years ago where I researched “feng shui” for ideas on how to work with what I had in our home: https://www.thespruce.com/easy-steps-to-feng-shui-living-room-1274493
Neighbors: remember them? Maybe you have great relationships with the people immediately to your right and left—or maybe not. This may also be a season of learning who and what are in your local community and how you may be of help to each other during a possible COVID-19 outbreak in your area.
When dealing with circumstances beyond our control, we often resort to trying to control what we can. If you’re a parent you also know that being at home with your children often involves many questions an hour and therefore innumerable ways to say “no”. The trap for us becomes evident when we’re trying to exert more control in our home life and start replying in the negative more often than actually necessary. Again, if you need more ideas as to how to respond more positively, there are many articles and blog entries online covering the subject or ask your local tribe of family and friends what their strategies are in communications with their children.
News may be a tap or a click away for most Americans, but when you’re stuck in the house this medium can get old very quickly. It so happens that many publications still provide subscription materials at home these days. In my home we have a 94-year-old and children under the age of 10 who especially benefit from the print medium. Perhaps call your local paper or check in with your favorite magazine sources to see if you can enact a short-term subscription to have the publication(s) delivered to your door.
A is for Art Therapy, Appreciation, Adventure, and Amazon
If you are a parent or caregiver of little ones then you know their affinity for drawing and coloring. As an educator, I’ve noticed that the older children get it seems the less likely they are to participate in the visual arts unless they’re taught. While I understand this may be subject matter out of your league, try to open your mind to the possibility that participating alongside your student in an artistic endeavor may benefit you too.
A time of quarantine at home with children may seem as inviting as hunkering down in a hurricane with them (I’ve been there too), but I focus on looking at the bright side for both parties to better appreciate each other. This may be the first time you really get to pause and read through what coursework your children are doing at school and understand why they may be so detached and cranky at the end of a stressful school day. In turn, your children may learn more about what you actually do at work during the day and how those responsibilities can drain you to the point of having a short-fuse temper if they make a mess on the floor when they’re home with you after school.
At risk of being redundant, adventure lies in the unexpected and a quarantine may afford the only “pause” time in your relationship with your children to seek out a new way of looking at things together. If nothing else, this time together helps demonstrate to our children that life is filled with unplanned occasions where we simply need to press forward and make a positive outcome of it.
Amazon: need I say more? At this time, we have the opportunity to have things delivered to our door via humans. If they get short-staffed due to COVID-19, then the drone technology will likely get some quick updates.
Corona Closing
While we can all debate ad nauseum about novel this virus concern is, we are finding that government authorities around the world are taking unique measures that we’ve not seen since the likes of America’s travel security aftermath in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As a home caregiver and educator, I’d like to impart the idea that staying at home with your children may be a life-changing opportunity offered during this temporary season. Although you wouldn’t have planned it this way, it may be priceless in its yields for both of your futures as parent and child.
R.V.S.Bean
About the Author: Current caregiver and education administrator at home and MBA candidate at University of Florida’s Warrington School of Business, her past life prior to children included work as a political appointee worker for President G.W. Bush at the U.S. Treasury Department, Legislative Aide for former Congressman Mark A. Foley, and reading teacher at Bannockburn Elementary in Illinois.