It Runs in the Family Read Free Page A

drawings and pawing her with sticky hands. She wears her “Grandmothers for Peace” sweatshirt like a banner—fiercely and with great love.
    Now that I am a mom, I do more than rely on my parents’ fierceness. I shake my head in awe at what they were able to accomplish. Their basic competency, indomitable strength, spiritual consistency, and indefatigable spirits are guideposts for me as I try to find myself as a parent.
    They leave me with big shoes to fill. Big shoes, but many gifts. My mom is quick to reassure me that I’m doing just fine as a mom. My dad always told us that we—his kids—were way ahead of him because he didn’t “wake up” until he was in his forties and we were—God bless us—born awake. I know I can’t match their intensity or their dogged pursuit of peace. So what can I offer my own children?
    The great American poet Wendell Berry calls us to “be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” That seems to sum up my parents—unlike so many conscientious people, they were not burdened or haunted by the ills of the world. My dad was joyful. My mom still is; in spite of everything they knew and experienced. Why? Because they saw themselves as part of the dynamic that is trying to change the world. With that belief—and lived experience—they endowed us with a moral cheerfulness that is both sustaining and infectious.
    My parents showed me that being part of building a new society in the shell of the old is fun, interesting, and refreshing. It brought my sister, brother and I into deep relationships with strange and fascinating people, freed us from the bounds of convention, consumption, and carelessness. It allowed us to be creative; it motivated us to build what you need and share it with neighbors. I see that moral cheerfulness in my husband’s upbringing as well. At our best, Patrick and I draw from that well of strength in our parenting and offer moral cheerfulness to our children.
    From our parents, Patrick and I learned how to live well without a lot of money, to speak up for justice in big and small ways, to treasure the richness of diversity, and to value truth and love above pretty much everything else.
    What does that look like in practice? Potluck dinners, composting, knowing our neighbors, belonging to the community garden and the food co-op, looking after other people’s children, joyfully embracing chores and family work, pitching in with food and time when a neighbor is in need, advocating for peace and justice, being enthusiastic members of our local Unitarian Universalist church, greeting people by name, cultivating curiosity in our children, having time for each other and for others, sharing what we have, and so much more.
    Our life today isn’t a cookie-cutter version of my own childhood—thank goodness—but I am grateful for the many ways in which my unique upbringing informs, complicates, and supports my own parenting.

COMMUNITY
    M y siblings and I divided the adults who shared the responsibility for taking care of us at Jonah House into two groups: the good lunchers and the bad lunchers. Some of them made awesome school lunches—sticking in cookies or juice boxes, using brand-new paper bags and Ziploc baggies. They tended to be the ones who would also plan fun excursions for us on the weekends. They took us swimming and sledding and on nature hikes and to Wendy’s for Frosties, or else played Crazy Eights and introduced us to the music of Frank Zappa and Led Zeppelin.
    Others made terrible lunches—juice in an old glass bottle, dry cheese sandwiches made with the heel of the bread and put in an old baggie along with mushy fruit that got all over everything. Their approach to childcare was equally lackadaisical. They were moody and unapproachable. They took us to the local playground (a place that we were actually allowed to go alone) and ignored our overtures to play basketball.
    But both kinds of adults helped us figure out our relationship to our