Five by the Sea

I feel as though I am trapped by the world at large, or rather my own small world in which I spend my days. As the mother of three young children I often feel as though the events of the outside world, outside of my bubble of everyday reality, go on without me. Although most of the time I could care less about the latest celebrity media circus or the rise and fall of the price of gas or the stock market. I should care, at least I tell myself that I should care, because that is what all the “grown-ups” (that would be my retired parents and in-laws, friends without kids, etc.) are talking about, complaining about, yelling about; but I really don’t care. Now that just makes me look like a horrible person that doesn’t care about the world, that is not the case, what I care about it is how the world affects my family and how we can teach our children about the world in a way that makes it real, see it through their eyes and bring it to a level that we can all learn from.

I don’t feel an overwhelming need to travel beyond the borders of my little world so much any more, not like I did when I was younger. But with that sense of being home and enjoying my community I do feel as though it is my job to find a way to create a space in my reality that brings the wonders of that vast outer world into my own- for me and also my children.

How to bring the world into my little bubble in such a way that my children realize that not all children in the world can make a trip to Target and choose from a wide array of shiny new toys, that not all children have parents that are able to work and bring food and clothing to them. How do I show my kids how incredibly lucky we are? How can I do it in such a way that doesn’t scare them, yet impacts them? This is my conundrum of late- how to teach empathy and gratefulness in a world that is anything but.