I get asked a lot if I have children, and while I don’t have any children of my own my answer is always the same, “I have hundreds.” I get about 120 or so new kids every year, and I work really hard to try and make them learn, grow, and take a few steps closer to the adult people they will grow up to be. I do the best I can, and my best doesn’t always work. As a teacher, I get blamed by people, parents, school board members, Legislators, you name it, when the kids I have don’t take those steps. Just like parents are often blamed when their kids don’t live up to the arbitrary expectations that were set for them before they had any concept of goals. Yet at the same time these people who are quick to criticize will argue that they aren’t responsible for the actions of other people. They will tell you that you can’t change a person who doesn’t want to be changed… so there seems to be a disconnect to me. We all seem to expect to change these kids into who we want them to be, but rarely do we think to make them want to change.

Let me tell you a story. My Mom and Dad were young when they married and started their family, and did the best they could. They left their homes and moved across an ocean, with no family around. Soon they had three small children five and under, in a foreign country, with only each other to lean on. They had to learn to navigate marriage, adulthood, careers, and parenting with no one to help guide them on those rough days, in a world they were still learning to navigate themselves. You know what, they did great. I can’t’ begin to express how grateful I am for the life, and opportunities I had because of the work my parents did to figure out this new world they brought us to. It wasn’t always easy, but they did best they could. Not to brag, but I think we turned out pretty awesome.

I have two brothers, one older, one younger, and there was always a bond that they shared that I was left out of. I don’t really blame anyone for it, but I was a lonely kid. I was awkward (arguably still am!) and always a little out of place, trapped in between cultures with parents who were just as stuck, and two brothers. I love my brothers, they are probably my favorite people on this planet, but we didn’t grow up in the same world. I was a girl, trying to grow into a woman; they were boys trying to grow into men. They at least had each other to learn from. My younger brother is the luckiest in that he had my older brother to look up to. I did as well, he’s awesome, and I can never fully express to him how thankful I am for him in my life, but at the same time my challenges were not his and therefore, he couldn’t really relate.

My Dad worked a lot, and traveled a lot, and he tried to keep us in touch with our British culture, but was often at a loss for how to help us fit into American culture. My Mom was home with us, but couldn’t really help either, because she grew up in a different country, a different culture, and had sisters. It was harder for us to navigate the complications of growing up in America because we didn’t have parents who grew up in America. We had to figure it all out ourselves, and it wasn’t easy to do that. So we all did our best. We were not always perfect, but who really is? We made some mistakes along the way; and I have a habit of beating myself up for those missteps. But I shouldn’t, and neither should you. More importantly though, we need to teach our kids not to as well. Then, perhaps they will believe in themselves enough to want to change.

The experience my brothers and I had growing up may seem unique to you, but it’s not at all to your kids, because every child growing up today is growing up in a world their parents don’t understand, just like my brothers and I did.

The hardest part of growing up is acknowledging that you did the best you could. When you look back with regret for mistakes you feel you made in your past, the easy answer is to look back with regret wishing you had done things differently. To lament about how you wish you could change things, but I’m here to suggest that you be nice to former you. You did the best you could. When you made those choices you were not the you that you are now. You didn’t have the knowledge, experience, insight, or even confidence to do anything other than what you did. So don’t judge yourself so harshly; give yourself a break because you were doing the best you could. With those lessons you move forward, and you help others navigate life as it gets more complicated for every generation, and sadly you won’t always be able to help because their world is different from yours.

The world changes so fast these days that almost every person growing up now is growing up like I did, trapped between two worlds seeking guidance from people who barely understand the world themselves. When I was born in the early 80’s I doubt my parents could imagine a world where, with a device I carry in my pocket, I would be able to communicate with people all over the world. A world where I can watch terrorist cells brutalizing and murdering innocent people as easily as I can look up a “How to bake a pie” video. If our world has changed this much, try for a moment to fathom how the world will change for our kids.

More importantly, stop and think how much the world has already changed for these kids, those born after 2000. Most of their life has been fixated on terror, war, vengeance, fear, and sadly, revenge. They have seen nothing of politics but pettiness and bickering. To them government shutdowns just “happen” sometimes. To them, one team has to win for anything productive to happen. Is that really the message we want to send to our kids? The world is scary and complicated enough, why is it we insist to make it scarier, more complicated, more difficult to survive.

So, I implore you to try and think about this when you run into conflicts with people. Think about the world they grew up in, think about the struggles that brought them to this moment and rather than judging or being critical; try actually learning from them. Let them learn from you, because we are all doing the best we can.

Change the way you look at the world, the way you look at kids, the way you look at each other. Want to change those things, and maybe the world will get less scary, less confusing, and a little easier to navigate safely.