The email landed in my inbox only hours after calling my children out of school sick for the day. The email included links and handouts asking me to have my child watch the instructional video, possibly twice if needed and then complete the attached handouts and explained that the packets were due back completed on Thursday.
“What?” I thought to myself. “Are you f-ing kidding me?” I wondered.
However, I find myself printing the paperwork and having my son watch the instructional video despite the fact that my heart, body and soul all violently rejected the thought of this.
Day two, I called my children out of school sick. Not one, but two emails landed in my inbox with videos and handouts to be completed. This time, I didn’t print them. I didn’t require my son to watch the video. I was pissed. Really pissed.
How did our culture land here? How did we land in a place where we ask children to complete homework while they are actively sick? As if, somehow, healing isn’t enough. As if, doing that work will somehow matter in the grand scheme of things. How on earth have we gotten to a place where listening to our bodies and resting when our bodies need to rest to heal is discouraged? We are not teaching our children to listen to their bodies, we are actually teaching them to NOT listen to their bodies. We are telling children “push through whatever your body is telling you and don’t listen to it, be productive because the only thing that matters is production.”
I have a caseload of clients who, as adults, are just now learning to listen to their bodies because of this exact thought pattern.
When I got done being pissed at our culture and our society and our schools I decided that the most powerful thing I could do was to teach my child.
“Did you want to do school work today, baby?” I asked.
“No, Mom. I don’t want to. I am tired and my whole body hurts.” he said back with tearfilled eyes from a fever.
“Good baby! Listen to your body. It is telling you to drink and rest and you should always listen to your body because it is important”
My right hand moved the mouse until it was hovering over the trash can, my index finger clicked the small trash can and I watched the email disappear taking with it whatever societal expectation it included.
