Self-Care

So “self-care” is a concept around here. Much has been written about it—my favorite article is one in the New Yorker entitled “The Politics of Conspicuous Displays of Self-Care.” Apparently this concept originated from Puritans and Christian thinkers who talked about the cultivation of self and “care for the soul,” which I found intriguing. In the 70’s and 80’s the term was resurrected in the context of defiant social activism, as marginalized groups insisted they mattered and were worthy of care. Interestingly, there was a resurgence of the concept in 2016 post-election as a kind of coping mechanism, then it boomed into something that was marketed. And now, this “collective social practice” is everywhere, including everything from skin care and diets to planners and tattooed aphorisms.

There is a particular brand of self-care in the Bay Area. It’s seated in the cultural ethos: one could see it as a counterpoint to mindfulness. If mindfulness is noticing what is happening around you to more fully experience it, self-care gives you permission to ignore exactly that in the focus on yourself and your feelings. Both are seen as important avenues to the cultural gods of empathy and inclusion: mindfulness because it encourages you to be aware of others, self-care because you can be more compassionate to others when you’ve been so to yourself. As one article put it, “when you endorse yourself as both vulnerable and worthy, especially when that endorsement feels hard, you can grant that same complex subjectivity to others, even to people whose needs and desires are different from your own.”

Self-care also exists here as a kind of response to pervasive anxiety. In a work-hard, play-hard culture, it is the antidote for a lack of natural balance or rest. In the stress that comes from seeking to optimize all options, it becomes another thing to optimize in escaping from that stress. In the struggle for identity and security in a constantly-changing culture rife with better talent, it becomes an avenue for affirmation. Self-care here can also smack a bit of wealthy privilege, as in, let me go “self-care” at Lake Tahoe, or with a custom-made tea, or by hiring a third nanny. 

I have some wariness of self-care as I see it here for some of those reasons, and perhaps ultimately because it evokes an underlying post-millennial cultural current of self-determinism that runs against the gospel. The gospel would say: we can’t determine ourselves; God as creator knows us. We can’t generate our own worthiness; God as savior has shown us. The acts of self-care aren’t where we find our own salvation, but they can be the outworkings of how we worship God. They can be how we live out stewardship of our bodies, spirits, and minds; they can be how we experience and thank God. They can be a liturgy of rest and renewal.

The reality is, I need to learn how to care for myself better. I was raised with what I now realize was an incredibly strong work ethic, plowed through medical training, and now as a mom inhabit a work sphere characterized by regular periods of intensity and no kind of natural break. I need to figure out what Sabbath looks like not just for my family, but for myself. I need to engage in soul-keeping. I need to not feel bad paying for childcare even if I’m not working. And sometimes, I need to paint my nails, get a good cup of tea, or shop for myself. Right now, that just feels like a basic reclamation of my humanness. And that is okay. 

Cultural Engagement

“Worldview is about spectacles, not what you look at, but what you look through. You only stop to examine your worldview, like your spectacles, if suddenly things have gone foggy and you can’t see straight.” – N.T. Wright

I’m always a bit jarred by school culture when the academic year begins. It hits me in not-so-subtle fashion on the first day of school when everyone assembles for an opening ceremony that starts with a Pledge of Allegiance that seems optional—if the barely-audible, dyssynchronous muttering is any indication—followed by a loud and enthusiastic Pledge to the Earth, something about allegiance to the flora and fauna which jumps to world peace. Mothers around me claim they are tearing up and feeling shivers while I suppress a traitorous urge to roll my eyes. And we’re off to a new school year!

There are lots of things I love about our school. It takes the memorization-based, competitive, compulsorily programmatic structure of traditional schooling, and turns it into a problem-solving-based, collaborative, experiential learning experience, complete with an emphasis on growth mindsets, socioemotional skills, and a full-out farm. In short, it is Bay Area elementary educational philosophy at its finest—but the interesting thing to me is how much all of it is steeped in a system of values that is essentially a worldview and religion unto itself. 

It goes something like this: we worship kindness and inclusiveness at all costs; we practice the liturgy of mindfulness through meditation, self-awareness, and yoga; good living is to have zero waste and avoid using gasoline whenever possible. Ellie does mandatory daily eastern-style meditation and regular yoga. Eric hears guest speakers share about every religious holiday except the Christian ones. 

One Christian mom told me she complained to the principal and withdrew her kids from school when she learned they were doing meditation. I understand that impulse, but on the spectrum of protectionistic versus exposure parenting, we’ve chosen to engage the culture with our kids instead of withdrawing from it. Living it out, though, can feel uncomfortable, and involves constant, intentional dialogue. What does the Bible have to say about these topics? What do we fully embrace, what do we participate in but with a different perspective or motivation, and what do we choose to not as fully engage in? Ultimately, how do these world views inform what we functionally believe about our identity, values, and how we live those values out? 

Functionally this looks different for each situation and issue. The kids and I agreed that mindfulness if it means introspective reflection, or awareness of one’s emotions, is a wonderful skill to cultivate and entirely Biblical (in fact, the Bible takes an understanding of the self to new levels); mindfulness if it points solely to a self-help paradigm we may approach more critically. We agreed that meditation if it means filling the mind, posturing the soul, towards God and his word is a valuable discipline; meditation as an emptying of the mind to find centeredness is not (so I slip Ellie verses that she can memorize instead of following the teacher’s meditation instructions). And so on.

Today we were listening to “True Colors” from the Trolls soundtrack in the car, when our four year-old suddenly asked, “Is this true?” I stopped the song and asked him what he meant. “Is this from God?” he clarified. I had to stop and think (so of course, I asked him, “what do you think this song is about?” but he just replied, “I want to know what you think”). And then we had a discussion about identity, love, being understood or not by others, and whether it’s always right to decide what we want to be and let it out, or whether we sometimes don’t if we’re following Jesus and love him first. We decided the song was partly right and partly wrong. He felt it was still okay to listen to it (though by the time we got to that part, we had stopped driving).

I suppose this is the dialogue we should always be having. It’s not about labeling or fear, as much as thoughtful engagement with cultural subtexts. Because everything our kids are exposed to has one. Take Disney, which most Christians automatically label as fine for their kids. Disney movies teach our kids to follow their hearts, to seek individual dream-fulfillment over communal wisdom for self-actualization—is that entirely Biblical? Do we question that, and why not?

Culture is never neutral. But it is often transparent. As a recent transplant, I feel it, and sometimes going to this school feels lonely and jarring, but it’s teaching me to see and be thoughtful more than I ever have before. And somewhere in that is the gospel. Jesus came into the world, after all; he came from an entirely different dimension of reality and functional authority—talk about culture shock! He came to live out inclusivity and kindness and self-insight, ironically, in a way that was completely radical to the culture he lived in. He came to humbly engage. We can do no less.

Choosing Mediocrity

So, our six year-old plays some chess. At least I believe that’s the appropriate humble-brag. The actual-brag would be: he’s a nationally-rated tournament player.

But the truth is something both in-between and more bizarre. When we first moved here, one of the after-school offerings I rolled my eyes at was the K/1 chess class. I didn’t even play chess! Surely only moronically over-optimizing parents would think their five and six year-olds should!

So the first bizarre thing is that Eric plays at all. Dave showed him the game on a random afternoon and he loved it with the same immediate, inexplicable passion that he had for dinosaurs and Star Wars. Soon enough, I knew about PP-on-the-PP (putting pressure on the pinned piece), Bobby Fischer, and Italian openings the same way I knew about the archaeopteryx and Slave I. There I was, picking Eric up from the same class I rolled my eyes at.

But once the school class wasn’t challenging enough and we looked into the local chess world, we discovered something even stranger—that apparently, Eric was nothing remarkable. We discovered droves of serious-looking east- and south-asian parents inhabiting hotel lobbies every weekend with young boys glued to chess puzzles on their iPads, and probably being coached by private instructors when they weren’t playing all-day tournaments. 

Growing up in southern Virginia, it didn’t take much to acquire the reputation of being a “genius”—just taking some accelerated classes, making valedictorian in a class where no one popular wanted to be one, studying instead of going to the local beach. Where we lived, people didn’t necessarily expect their kids to go to college, much less have their eye on Stanford from birth. I wasn’t challenged much by my peers, but standing out was effortless.

In the chess world here, Eric is strictly middle-of-the-road. He easily beats many kids his age, but neither does he ascend in prodigy fashion to the highest level. I began to understand why no one here has four kids—there’s no way I can put him through the rigors other kids at his level go through with three other kids to take care of. We worked out a way for me to take him to afternoon-only tournaments twice a month; he gets some instruction from a teenage boy he likes; and Dave tries to play him when he can (I’ve given up). Today, they had a pretty even game going until Esme came and moved all the pieces around. That’s sort of his chess life: we try to be intentional, without making it too paramount; we try to keep it fun, but encourage his potential; and you never know when your little sister is going to come along and mess up all your pieces.

A friend once said, when it comes to extracurricular activities in the bay area, pick your poison. No one does anything half-way. Around here, people start their kids early, give them the best resources, and work them hard. Woe unto those whose kids start later, or are just in it for fun, and find themselves surrounded by elite peers—at least, that’s how I feel. Take swimming: I was elated to finally find a sport Ellie likes to do. How graceful she looks, I think, sluicing through the water in beautiful form. But the moment I try to find her some kind of regular opportunity to swim, I’m flustered again by the local offerings, swim teams in which kids her age are already working on perfecting their times. The coach took one look at her in try-outs today and consigned her to the non-competitive younger class. 

But as we were leaving the pool, Ellie was so happy. I get to swim for fun! she told me. I don’t have to compete! And I thought to myself: she’s right. That’s what we’re in swim for: giving her a form of exercise she continues to delight in, while maintaining balance in our lives at this stage. Around here, mediocrity is hard to achieve. You have to work pretty hard at it.