A few years ago, our student council nomination forms were due by 5PM on a Tuesday. Lily (not her real name) who was in 8th grade at the time, had battled some self-confidence demons to find the confidence to run and turned in her form at 6PM - and our staff was thrown into a deep and long philosophical conversation. Should we allow Lily to run for student council and give positive reinforcement to her hard won self-confidence? Or should we tell Lily she missed the deadline and let her learn an important lesson about timing and consequences in a relatively low-stakes setting?
Part of what made this decision so difficult was knowing that hearing “no” - particularly in a situation about which we care deeply - is really hard. No one likes to hear no when there is something they want. But as parents, we are taught that those no's build boundaries and structures for kids, that we are teaching resilience, and that sitting in uncomfortable feelings is a necessary part of growing regulated adults. We’re told that sometimes as parents, we’re called upon to say no to our kids and to mean it - no matter how much they protest.
Right now, globally, the answer is no - and not just for children who are asking for another snack or five more minutes before bedtime. The answer is no for us, and sometimes the wants are really high stakes.
“Can I hold the wedding I have dreamed about my whole life?” No.
“Can I travel to visit my grandmother who is in hospice?” No.
“Can I send my children back to school?” No.
The answer is no, and there isn’t much we can do about it. No amount of crying, begging, cajoling, pressuring, pouting, paying, or arguing will change the realities of living through a pandemic or make the virus go away. Many of us have developed strategies and techniques to turn a no into a yes. And don’t get me wrong - that’s healthy and adaptive. Knowing how to advocate for oneself is a critical skill. Being able to analyze, problem-solve, and get creative when something isn’t working is crucial. These are the qualities we attempt to instill in our children because they’re vital.
But one of the things these last seven months have revealed, I think, is the fundamental limitations of our own agency. It’s been deeply unsettling to really experience what it means for the answer to be no. I have been thinking a lot about this, along with the desperation I feel for life to return to normal. Maybe that desperation is about the rituals and routines I crave, and maybe it is also about the sense of control - illusory as it might be - I long for. So I’ve started to wonder, how do we, as the grown ups, sit in our own discomfort and manage our upset when the answer is no? How do we model for our children how we want them to sit in discomfort and manage upset when we feel the same way they do?
The only other time that many of us, as adults, have dealt with something so definitively out of our control is when we confront illness or grieve the loss of someone who has died. And I do think there is a lot to learn from the five stages of grief. We all start in denial (“I could still have my simcha -- we can safely assemble 100 people together” or “they would never keep millions of kids home from school - I am sure it will be fine.”). We then move into anger - anger at public officials or anger at those behaving differently than we or anger at those who deliver the no. Therapists tell us that when we feel anger about the things we cannot change, we need to identify and name our feelings - I feel sad that I can’t see my family, I feel scared about my kids’ development on zoom, I feel angry at the decisions public officials are making. Once we can name those feelings, we might try to reclaim some control - but we may also feel down, overwhelmed, or foggy. These are all normal feelings, and it is only by feeling all of this grief, sitting in it, holding it, and naming it that we can move into acceptance that the no really means no.
But I want to be clear - just because we accept it does not mean we are happy about it. We can each think of tragic events in our own lives that we accept, because we have to, but we wish were not true. We can accept that our response to this virus changes our lives and be really upset about that fact. But once we move into acceptance, we can begin to make plans with the reality in front of us. I love the line in Sheryl Sandberg’s book Option B, “Option A is not available, so let's just kick the s--- out of Option B.” This isn’t about being Pollyannish or about finding the silver linings. It’s just about living with what is and refusing to waste energy on bringing back the life we cannot have.
So what, you may be wondering, happened to Lily? As a staff, we decided this was the time she had to hear no. We committed to supporting her through the disappointment. She was devastated and angry. But with the boundaries firmly set and lots of love, she worked her way through the no. She is now in college, an incredibly accomplished young woman, who is learning how to navigate this strange world from her small apartment. And she always turns in her applications on time.
