Coming of Age in a Time of Turbulence
Parenting an 18-year-old right now is like being blindfolded in a leaky lifeboat in confused seas, one rogue wave after another slamming us. What guidance can I offer on the cusp of her graduation from high school? What comfort? She wants to help, wants to be part of mending this broken world. What can she do that doesn’t feel like an empty gesture, virtue signaling, or preaching to the choir of her “woke” friends? Her questions are mine, only more urgent. She is on the cusp of fledging (– but where? how? I am moving, dismantling the nest. Her summer job at overnight camp is gone, and with it her summer home. Her dishwashing job and babysitting gigs are gone. Graduation will be piped into our dining room through my laptop, the inadequate conduit emblematic of our evanescent plans, our fading certainties. The uncertainty is all-encompassing, too much most days to talk about.) Last night we walked down the street with Rosie’s small homemade Black Lives Matter sign and my small