Revolutionary Children: Giving Wings to Fly Through the Storm

The whole goal through this series has been to talk about raising kids who emerge ready to rock this paradigm shift. Two days ago I thought I had finished this series. Then I began to think about my older two. My 19 year old has already left home. He left at 17 to stay close to his girlfriend of the time after the rest of us moved down here to Belize. In retrospect, perhaps I should have discouraged that more strongly. He's still living with his best friend and family. It's increasingly difficult to move out on his own, especially in excessively gentrified Asheville.

If you've been reading my posts for any time at all, you know I think my kids are magical rainbow unicorn fairy Angels. I seriously think the world of them. They are powerful and kind and amazing. My boy is struggling, though, y'all. He knows and understands the challenges we're facing right now, and he had this magical childhood and now finds himself in this situation of needing to work for the man to pay bills. I've tried to get him to start his own business, but he's so anti capitalism. I think my big goal for his Christmas visit is to get him on here. He's so damn stubborn. No clue where he got that from. He's looking at a devastated US political system, a desperate ecological crisis, and critical situations for the women, POC, and LGBTQ2 people in his life.

With his baby brother

I'm not here to talk about his personal situation, though. I want to talk about his whole generation. Technically he's a millennial, but it's that crossover from millennial to z. They're all looking at this train wreck of a world we've got going on, and then people complain they are destroying everything and ruining America or the economy or whatever. Seriously? Who wants to eat at Applebee's anyway?

I truly believe things are improving for the better. I believe the shift is well underway. Have you ever read Don Miguel Ruiz The Mastery of Love? In it he talks about how relationships help us heal our emotional and spiritual wounds. First, though, we have to clean those wounds, and we all know that shit hurts. I think that's where we are as a species. There's been a lot of hurting and anger for a long, long time, and it's gonna take a while to clean that mess up. It's gonna be ugly and painful for a bit.

So, those of us with birdies leaving the nest right now need to take extra care. This is new territory for me. I've been raising kids for a long time, but I've only had one leave, and it was super painful, and I don't think it happened in an ideal way. I know we need to give them extra support, but I don't know how. Having open communication lines is certainly important, and we've talked about how that begins early on. I've always had great communication with my kids, but I think there's still this expectation they have of themselves to succeed in that old way of understanding success. At the same time, the outer world is so depressing, so they kind of have a fuck it, what's the point thing too. This combo can leave them embarrassed or shy about speaking up, even if you're close.

Many, many moons ago

Maybe what we need to do is let them know it's all normal, and this phase of our evolution won't last forever. That it's normal to feel depressed, and that's a good time to reach out. That it's ok to be happy and have fun even when the world is crazy pants. That, in fact, it's really hard to effectively and lastingly change the world when you're depressed or hungry or too poor to pay bills. Yes, it's time to change the economic situation of this planet, but you need money to live, and it's ok to want to travel and have nice things. There's a fear that being too comfortable will make you complacent. I think they need to hear that being comfortable makes it easier to help others and help the shift.

I'm really thinking out loud here. Like I said, this is new territory for me. What do you think? What's the best way to help those leaving the nest in the current storm?

Pics are mine