We can all only care so much

We are all busy. We are all overstressed. At any given minute, we have stress at work, a loved one in turmoil, our own emotional weight of life, pressures of elderly parents, kids, sick loved ones, fear over the state of the world. Things that feel immediately existential. 

So it is natural that we only have so much capacity to care deeply for others as we would for ourselves. At some point, we have to triage. 

I am so devastated at what is happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. But I also have so much happening so close to home. Other than feeling devastated, maybe sending money somewhere, reading about and amplifying the issue, there comes a point at which...I emotionally move on. 

I feel like a terrible person writing that paragraph. But I am being honest with you, because I think we all need to be honest about that very real limitation of humanity. We need to look it in the face. My conscious brain rank orders the people in my community, because it’s wired for survival. And that’s how human beings were able to survive: Protecting their groups. 

But when we are aware of the limitations of our conscious brain, we can do something about them.

In this case, do you know what would change my limitations? If a loved one was from Afghanistan or lived there. Because then, my conscious brain would put them in my must-protect group. 

THIS is why diversity is so vital. At work, in our communities, in schools, and in our friendships and family. This is why it is urgent. It’s how we care. It’s how we fight as if it’s our fight. Because it makes it our fight. 

When I see a story about a Black child being victimized by the police, I think of my friends’ kids who are Black. That makes it vital, important, urgent, and real, because it’s close. It’s people I love individually, not just love in the sense of all love for humanity. My brain cannot triage it away. 

I try to remind myself of this when I get enraged about others’ actions that treat transgender kids as disposible. Maybe they don’t quite believe the suicide rates, don’t see their pain, or don’t care to. Maybe they’ve just never really thought about it much. Maybe, they tell themselves, it’s sad but there’s not much they can do about it. 

Last night, I had a conversation about someone I used to be close to, who I considered a friend, who is running a company that’s making money off and giving money to transgender hate. Hatred that will kill someone. 

This person just cannot see that putting kids’ lives in danger outweighs their business model and the right for other cis/het white men to spout that hate and make money off it. There is nothing anyone can say that can convince this person otherwise. 

Clearly, this person is not in my life. But I still have to sit with that as the mother of a transgender child. That someone I cared about doesn’t care if my child dies if it costs him money. That he’s probably annoyed that someone told him he should feel badly about this. 

Do you know how hard it is to sit with that? If you are the parent of a disabled child, a Black kid, a kid who is different in any way, of course you do. Way too many of us do. 

This is why Eli is such a gift to me, to my family, to her school, to her friends, and to her community. Her existence makes people care, one by one. 

This is why it’s so important for families to have diverse communities. I was worried about my kids moving to Palm Springs for school, because it’s the first majority-white city I’ve ever lived in. But I’ve been heartened about how much more diverse their school is, because they have been intentional about it. They go to school with Black kids, Latinx kids, gay kids, transgender kids, disabled kids, Native American kids — all groups they rarely interacted with in comparatively more diverse and cosmopolitan and, yes, liberal San Francisco. 

And they prize these friendships because they know from the conversations in our home, but also from Eli’s lived experience how much more, how differently, you fight for others when they are in your crew. How it widens your most ferocious inner sanctum of love. “Black lives matter” becomes “MY BEST FRIEND’S life matters!” It’s a language so immediate to all of us, especially kids. 

We may be limited in our ability to hack our limited, survivalist brains.

But we can do this. We can be intentional about who we spend our time with. 

I am writing about this today, because it’s in my heart today and it hurts a lot after the conversation I had last night. But it’s also top of mind because we are creating a course for November on anti-bias parenting. 

We have never done a course that comes close to touching parenting, because I’m a believer that parenting tends to be one of those things that we have in our hearts, that we are the experts on our own kids. 

But this is beyond parenting, really. It’s about creating a better world. It’s about giving your kids the tools they need to get outside their own survivalist brain and be part of that world. To put themselves at risk to help others who don’t share their privilege. That also takes intentionality. 

We’ll tell you a lot more about this course in future weeks, but if you know your family needs some coaching on this (And answers! There are answers!) you can email me now and I’ll put you on our pre-sale list when it becomes available. 

This will not be a course that shames you. Like me and the Afghanistan example, I am sure that you know, and you already feel badly. Our community doesn’t need privilege explained. 

Instead, this course will give you immediate actionable steps to make sure your children don’t end up like my friend who is profiting off transgender hate one day. Or the kids of liberal, well-meaning parents who casually traumatized Eli in kindergarten.

If I didn’t have a transgender kid, would I have talked to my five-year old-about it? If Eli had been cisgender, and didn’t know anyone transgender, could that have been him? That thought drives me in all the awkward conversations that others may feel my kids are too young for. 

Together, we can all raise better humans. And be better humans in the process.

What advice or support can you offer fellow members today?

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• Have you watched Social Dilemma? Did it change anything about your web habits??