Smiling Through Collapse

Because My Kid is Watching

There are days when the grief is so thick it gets into your lungs. And still, you make lunch. You refill the water bottle, wipe the sweaty forehead of your kid who’s flushed and cranky from the heat, and pretend, for just a few minutes, that everything is okay. Because they need you to. Because their world hasn’t ended yet, and you don’t want to be the one who teaches them how to feel it falling apart.

It’s a strange kind of love, this denial. A holy one. It’s not the same as lying. It’s the performance of stability, a protective spell you cast with shaky hands. You learn to smile through the tears. To soften your voice even when your heart is breaking. You pretend that the fridge being emptier than usual is no big deal. That the heat is just a “weird summer.” That things are “a little tight right now” instead of admitting that the entire economic structure is collapsing under the weight of its own cruelty.

Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does. Grocery prices inch higher, and wages stay the same. The house needs fixing, yet again. And it’s 100+ degrees in places it never used to break 80. We’ve normalized so much collapse that we’ve started calling it “the new normal.” But none of this is normal. None of this is okay.

We are parenting through fascism. Through late-stage capitalism. Through climate collapse and the violent unraveling of everything that once felt certain. Through a system that was never designed for us to thrive in, especially not those of us who are queer, disabled, poor, brown, Black, Jewish, trans, Indigenous, immigrant, or some messy, beautiful combination of all of the above.

Donald Trump is back and louder than ever. His rallies sound more like war cries now. His base has become more organized, more emboldened, more terrifying. And the liberal response is what it’s always been: performative hand-wringing and toothless policy. Democrats tell us to vote harder while fascists stockpile guns and judges strip away our rights. It’s a rigged game, and we’re all supposed to pretend it’s fair.

And still.

My kid needs lunch.

Still, they want to know if we can go to the park.

Still, I light a candle and say a prayer.

Still, I let the wind move through me and try to remember what it feels like to be tethered to something bigger than fear.

Because fear can’t be the only thing we pass down.

I think a lot about what it means to raise a child in these times. What it means to try to build a life while everything burns around you. And I come back, again and again, to the image of ancient ancestors, wandering, fleeing, rebuilding. Lighting fires in exile. Hiding in caves. Holding hands under threat. Planting seeds in soil they didn’t know they’d live long enough to harvest.

I think of the Israelites walking through the desert, barefoot and bewildered, carrying the weight of memory and miracle. I think of Marsha P. Johnson facing the fascism of her day and still showing up for the girls at STAR House with groceries and hugs and safety pins. I think of every queer elder, every disabled prophet, every poor person who refused to give up on joy even when joy was nowhere in sight.

This is the lineage I claim. This is the tradition I carry. Not one of perfection or prosperity, but one of persistence. Of radical care. Of smiling even when your heart is heavy, not because you’re faking it, but because you believe, somehow, that the smile itself is sacred.

It’s not easy. None of this is. Some mornings I wake up with a panic in my chest so sharp it feels like drowning. There’s not enough money. There’s not enough time. There’s too much news. Too much hate. Too much apathy. Too many systems built to crush the vulnerable and reward the cruel.

And yet: my child laughs in their sleep sometimes. I wake up to birdsong even in this heat. My neighbor dropped off fresh veggies last week “just because.” A teenager online told me they’re reading Audre Lorde. A garden grows stubbornly in the small plot in front of our house. Life insists on itself.

I’m not here to offer false hope. I’m not here to say “we’ll be okay.” I don’t know that. But I do know this: we can hold grief and joy in the same breath. We can scream and still make breakfast. We can mourn the world we’ve lost and still dream up new ones. We can be terrified and still raise our kids with tenderness.

The smile I wear isn’t fake. It’s forged. It’s tempered like iron. It’s defiant.

Because even now, even here, love is possible. Beauty is possible. Resistance is possible.

And our children are watching.

• Community Call •

If you're feeling the weight too, don't carry it alone. Connect with your local mutual aid network. Find a radical synagogue or whatever place of worship your faith has. Start a grief circle. Share resources. Share food. Make art. Light candles. Find each other. Build what they said was impossible.

• Invitation to Comment •

How are you coping through all this? What’s getting you through the days? What does resilience look like in your home, your body, your spirit? Drop a comment. I want to hear from you.