A 21st Century Hero’s Journey
To grow up is to admit that life is challenging and that we are responsible for our own behavior and for the well-being of one another. In psychological terms, the urge to grow up is called individuation, and in mythological terms it is called the hero’s journey – the inner calling to push off from the shore of mother and father, to test limits, to know your worth, to speak your truth, to claim authentic selfhood.
Elizabeth Lesser, Cassandra Speaks
Today’s newsletter begins with a shoutout to my longtime friend Liz. I told her recently that I had started Elizabeth Lesser’s new-ish book, Cassandra Speaks, but failing to lose myself in it, I was in search of replacement nighttime reading. Liz made a face just like the one she used to make in high school upon hearing highly juicy lunchtime gossip: jaw slack, eyes squinting and bulging at the same time, brows held high on her forehead. What?! she said without moving her gaping mouth. Go back to it. It’s amazing. Just trust me. And so, I did, and the very first sentences I read atop the page where my bookmark had waited patiently were the lines above.
Being a pediatrician, I think and speak often about individuation. It explains so many behaviors in our kids that otherwise seem uncharacteristic or irrational. Particularly at this time of year, with high school seniors graduating and launching into the next stage of their lives, individuation rears its head. A euphemistic explanation says that kids are readying their parents for an empty – or at least emptier – nest. The more blunt one: these teens’ behavior can be so triggering that parents actually look forward to their upcoming departure. Said another way, individuation makes separation a whole lot easier for everyone.
While I have thought about individuation for many years, I never would have equated it to a hero’s journey. What’s heroic about pushing human buttons, testing limits and even laws? But I found myself drawn back to Lesser’s lines, re-reading them over and over, moving from surprise to no-duh. Because viewed through the lens of the individuator, the whole process of breaking free and jumping into a new environment with new friends, new rules, new everything is 100% heroic. A hero doesn’t have to be an outlier, she doesn’t need to be a uniquely strong or insightful or brilliant individual actor who changes the course of events. When we individuate – and we all have or will – we become our own heroes steering our own courses. Not big-screen superheroes, but rather uber-local mini-heroes of our own destinies.
These past few weeks and months, a different kind of individuation has spread across the country as kids emerged from their bedrooms and returned to school. This act of transition, a September ritual postponed and prolonged through the fall and winter and then well into the spring in many parts of the country, is nothing if not a hero’s journey. Mastering Zoom school in whatever form it may have taken for an individual kid was hard enough; reentering physical school masked, distanced, and in many cases with new hormone-fueled accessories (curves, facial hair, acne, and a few extra inches… or not… both scenarios can be dilemmas) requires full freaking heroics. Opting to stay home on Zoom school can be heroic, too. The mental health journeys we have been reading so much about did not end when schools and restaurants and malls reopened – for some they got better but for others, stressors and anxieties appeared in new forms, unanticipated but wholly predictable.
Our school-aged kids cocooned and now have to individuate. At least, that’s how I am explaining my kids’ recent moments of bluntness so sharp they can stop me in my tracks. My kids are great kids, by the way, loving and kind, but they’re also kids who had lunch with me for 57 straight weeks, from March of 2020 until just last month. That’s not normal. And so, a process once reserved for graduating high schoolers appears rampant among all school-aged kids and I think we ought to tell them that we may not love how their individuating acts feel at a particular moment, but their ability to ride the waves of this pandemic have been nothing short of heroic.
Today’s links come in paragraph form because, well, I felt like it. I’m breaking free of my own convention. I’m individuating!
Now that all of America suddenly feels open for business, the moment has come to look back from 30,000 feet. This incredible read describes sophomore year in a pandemic. And this one looks forward – hopefully not too far in the future – to how the pandemic ends. But don’t toss your masks yet! (P.S. Need masks? OOMLA’s got them for kids and adults at fire sale prices!)
We’re still not all playing on a level playing field, though, as all of you with kids under the age of 12 well know. While COVID was initially believed to largely spare children, growing evidence suggests it doesn’t – like a study out of Cleveland showing a steady increase in long-haulers syndrome among kids. Meanwhile, for the tweens and teens approved by the FDA for Pfizer vaccine, a different kind of dilemma has appeared: some kids want a shot, but their parents don’t agree. Turns out, it’s not always the parents’ choice. It also turns out in news released just this morning, kids in this age group might have their own unique vaccine side effects, emphasis on the word might. All of this makes for a heated debate around the existential question: should COVID-19 vaccine supply go to adults across the globe before being given to kids in the U.S.? The answer becomes further complicated when factoring in repeated distribution hurdles facing the Covax program.
As COVID continues to dominate headlines – including daily stories about the variants vs. the vaccines, the spring COVID trend of hospital patients getting younger, and the news that the Pfizer vax can be stored in normal refrigerators for up to a month (instead of five days), which means it may be coming to a doctor’s office near you – so, too, it dominates this newsletter. But if I were to award an I-didn’t-see-that-coming prize, it would have to go to the newest possible side effect of COVID vaccine: money. In Ohio every single week for the next month someone will get $1M and in NY, there’s a scratch-off ticket system with a range of prizes including one $5M payload.
COVID isn’t the only topic in our zeitgeist, clearly. Other notable reads this week include the story of an Idaho teacher who showed what true heroism looks like, one about the new Marriage Pact, and press about how Lego is going awesome for Pride Month.
Today’s meme is off-COVID-topic as well…
