How are the children? Reflections on where it's good to be a child, motherhood, travel, and my little brood

(Preamble: I’m posting this from home in Seattle, but drafted it nearly one month ago while in Norway, reflecting on returning to the US . . . I’ll post more soon about settling in here at home.)

If I were on Bwejuu beach in Zanzibar, and my acquaintance “Mr. Mango” (name likely chosen for tourists’ convenience and recollection) walked by, I’d ask him whether Masai people truly greet each other with the query: “How are the children?”  It’s a good greeting, I agree that children’s well-being is a good measure of community well-being.  How are the children?

In Norway, kids seem to be pretty peachy; Norway seems a great place to be a kid.  On a recent hike, a young co-hiker who recently moved here from the Congo told me exuberantly about how to be in Norway.  He assured me that “you can hike anywhere in the forest, it’s no problem, people don’t mind.  And you can get permission to take karate classes.  And my teacher connected me to the football (soccer) club, and they’ll even take me if I can’t go myself.  And you can get a computer so that you can play Minecraft on it.  And I’m going to a special school to learn Norwegian language and culture so that next school year I can join my classmates at my age level.”  For this young chap, he seemed to feel that he'd arrived at summer camp, even as his family also misses the community, culture and warmth of their prior home.  Norway's May 17^th Constitution Day is also called “Children’s Day,” and one objective is to eat as many ice creams as you can – I heard one kid brag they ate 5 that day.  Much to their delight, my kids each ate 3, in between other cakes and sweets. Norway is rated as #3 for the “world’s best countries for raising kids” as of 2021 (tho this from CEOWORLD, whose title alone makes me ponder their incentives and scientific credibility, https://ceoworld.biz/2021/02/01/the-worlds-best-countries-for-raising-kids-2021/).  This brilliant score covers disparities; whereas 5% of families with native Norwegian parents experience poverty, that number jumps to 36% among immigrant families. (https://borgenproject.org/tag/poverty-in-norway/)   So inequity challenges remain even here.  But if I was an analytic, nerdy embryo picking where to emerge, Norway would be right up there on my list.

On the same list, the US ranked #15 among the world’s best countries for raising kids.    As I consider “How are the children?” in the US, I recall headlines about school shootings, mental health, suicide rates, immigrant families separated, even the suspension rates at my kids’ elementary school – oddly high for Kindergartener and 1^st-graders.  In the US, the % of households living in poverty was 12%, with 10.7% of households experiencing food insecurity.  The children are not, it seems, okay.  Is it unfair to compare a Scandinavian country with the US – more homogenous, richer, less complex, vs. a very diverse country made up of numerous immigrants, with a severe trauma history and varied, ambiguous cultural identities? Perhaps, but it’s not unfair to expect that as one of the richest countries in the world, the US must prioritize things that children and families need to be healthy such as cost-effective, good quality childcare, reasonable parental leave, good schools, women’s rights – over corporate interests, gun rights, political power.

Sculpture in Vigeland Park, Oslo 

As I prepare to come home to the USA, I’m bracing for the familiar but also harsh and crude blend of politics, racism, addiction, mental health, crime.  Abundant, but violent.  Rich but selfish. Individualistic, but lonely.  Free rights, but others can invade yours.  A society where power is crudely wielded to the detriment of the less powerful.  A country whose lack of care for it's people shows in the thin-to-non-existent social safety net.  Still, so many people we’ve talked to on our trip want to come to the US, I assume drawn by the affluence, culture, business success, educational opportunities – the showier side of how US society has been built and what it’s come to represent.

Given that we’ve gotten to experience the fairy tale of traveling for a year, I know that even in the US, my children hold a great deal of privilege – even as Neil and I will both be job-hunting and perhaps using up bits of the kids’ college money.  But I’m reflective and unsettled as a mother, by going home to a place where, I feel, things are worse for kids overall.

4-day old baby horse with mama

As we've traveled, I’ve had occasion to reflect on numerous types of motherhood.  I kinda always reflect on motherhood and how it’s demands vary by country, species, era, circumstance.  On the animal front (especially because we’ve sorta chased spring in our itinerary by moving further and further north – starting with March in central Spain and ending with June in central Norway), we’ve

observed many sweet moments between lambs and ewes – the mamas patiently tolerating aggressive headbutting, and being rewarded (perhaps?) by the lambs exuberantly waving their tails once they successfully nurse.  In Spain  we saw a 4-day old foal/horse who, all leggy and awkward, and we bottle-fed young calves. In Costa Rica, we were lucky to spot a baby sloth with mama, and lots of baby monkeys. Our safaris in Tanzania revealed hundreds of baby wildebeests, zebras, giraffes.  I’ve also seen lots of art about motherhood. . . paintings, sculptures, statues, my favorites included here.

The Basket Maker by Maria Blanchard

Women and Children by Auguste Herbin

Memorial to Kristiansund Jews who died in Auschwitz 

Mary, her daughter, granddaughter and friend

I was lucky to make (or renew) several friendships with women with whom I feel a commonality as mothers. . . A friend in Norway who is a fantastic mom, inspiring her kids daily with art and beauty and joy.  A new friend in Spain who’d arrived from Ukraine 3 weeks before, along with her two daughters – their husband, daughter’s boyfriend and other male relatives left behind to fight.  Now trying to learn Spanish, getting a job, stay stable.  A friend who married into mothering 4 kids after both she and her new husband lost prior spouses to cancer.  A friend who desperately wants to be a mother and will pursue it via surrogacy – even as she nannies for lots of other babies born to surrogate mothers, as the baby transitions to their new family, across

Betty who cares for malnourished kids in Juba

international lines.  A friend I reconnected with in South Sudan at the Juba Al-Sabbah children’s hospital where she triages and cares for malnourished babies and toddlers.  Her recent message talked about increased hunger in Sudan due Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying the “ward (is) overwhelmed with children with anemia and so on. Painful death rate.”  In South Sudan, food insecurity has tragically reached the most extreme levels since independence in 2011. (https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/south-sudan-emergency).  Another friend in South Sudan who my family briefly cared for when I was 12 and she was 8 months old, whose life is not easy but was recently made more joyful as she welcomed her first grandbaby.

Kamilla and I playing and pushing

I realize how much the transient nature of our year has taxed me as a mom.  Travel like this imposes certain barriers – most obviously language, culture – and provides fewer natural connection points like school and work.  Our family has had to rely on each other (with adult things appropriately falling to Neil and I).  As parents we’ve been teachers and therapists, have had control over every toy put in their backpacks, every precious piece of clothing tucked into small suitcases.  Spencer and Kamilla have relied heavily on each other as playmates, emotional regulators, punching bags, roommates, frisbee partners, sweatshirt-sharers, etc.  Add a prior 1.5 years of similar self-reliance with COVID, and “it’s been a lot” of family intensity.  I try very hard in our fights to manage my own emotions and

Tongue-rolling with Spencer

help kids learn to manage theirs, so we can all emerge from a given fight having learned but not having been traumatized.  Recently it feels like these family fights are worse, and I’m ready to come home and find some more supports.  I feel as a mother, a heavy responsibility to deliver my children to their futures well intact. . . emotionally, physically.  And I feel a weight to return them home stronger, healthier, wiser, deeper, more well-rounded after a year of travel – even if a bit raggedy with worn out shoes and stained sweatshirts, needing haircuts and dental appointments.

While traveling, keeping our kids healthy has meant nursing them through the occasional “traveler tummy” episode, making decisions whether to take malaria prevention pills, tending to bug bites or slivers, dealing with motion sickness, navigating emotions / bureaucracy / logistics around pediatric Covid vaccines, keeping their special items safe (and limiting how much they can bring), ensuring they have healthy food that’s “good enough” even as it pushes them outside a preferred comfort zone, keeping them safe at playgrounds with varying levels of maintenance, allowing them on carnival rides.  Two days ago, Kamilla took a tumble head first down our ladder/stairs (9 stairs, about 7 feet high, called "samba stairs").  I was right at the bottom and instinctively reached to catch her, resulting in our foreheads connecting with a mild whiplash for both of us.  I think I made things better, tho I’m not sure. 

Keeping the climber safe

So now as we return to the US, I’m asking myself . . . How are the children in this family?  Sometimes it varies by the minute.  The other day we hiked the rocky knolls by the shore on a very windy day.  Spencer and Kamilla were thrilled to play in the wind, surfing it with their jackets held as wings, trying to sit on the wind, letting it tip them over, elated and giggling.  Kamilla fell and was examining her hand. I asked “Are you okay?” and was treated to her jubilant response.  “A little bit hurt, but other than that, I’m amazing!”  I know she’s right, that she is amazing.  And I hope she can hold that truth even in the moments that sting.   While packing up from our one-month stay, Spencer commented that one thing he’s come to hate the worst is leaving, after people, places, and things have become familiar – “a year of good-byes” he’s said – and that he’s very much looking forward to being and staying home.  We’ve all been changed by our experiences, and now it’s time to come home.  And so we shall – via Tennessee to take in a family reunion on the Gerrans side, then Georgia (the state 😊) to see my sister.  See you in a few short weeks, friends and home in Seattle!