Two weeks ago, my daughter came to me with a question: Could she interview me for a school assignment?
I figured what the heck.
The assignment was for her English class. She was supposed to write about events that had shaped someone else’s life — that is, to find and share one of the core pillars of someone’s story, while describing how it influenced what that person is currently doing. Part of the assignment was to have the featured person read the draft and make sure everything was represented accurately.
My daughter’s draft was accurate. But ouch. Like, carry-me-off-with-a-stretcher ouch.
My daughter laid it out:
- I haven’t published my books.
- My podcast still has abysmal downloads despite having done 100+ episodes.
- I’m still responsible for most of the housework and can’t get organized.
- I’ve been exhausted working for insufficient pay.
There’s plenty more to the list. But tucked into my daughter’s assessment, right after a statement that my life is mostly on fire, was the assertion that I’m mostly a cheery person.
Modeling still matters
Any adults who genuinely know me know that I’m depressed and anxious a lot. The items on the list contribute, but many other things do, too. I have been clear with my daughter that it is OK to be sad and talk about it. As Inside Out so touchingly shows, being sad has a purpose and can help restore joy by bringing others to us.
But for my daughter’s sake (and also for my son), I try not to focus on being sad and anxious more than I have to. I try to be silly and joke, not to completely deny reality or be dishonest, but to remind myself there are yet good things, and to ensure that my daughter, by association, has a fighting chance to be silly and joke, too. Moods are contagious, and so I try to model what I want her to have.
I’m not a perfect parent. I absolutely plan to be more open with my kids about the struggles I have had, as it becomes appropriate. But if my daughter can understand now, in this moment, that a person can decide to be cheery even when so many things are going wrong, that we can love others by not ruminating too deeply about ourselves, that we have a choice whether to focus on hope or act like light doesn’t exist, I just might have done something right.