My Kid Took A Knee

how we show up when one of our people is hurt (plus masculinity??)

Headcold bleary this week as I write BUT am thinking about all the ways we show up—for friends as well as for strangers. In public moments but also in more private ones (and what’s even the distinction… do we need a quorum before it’s considered public? OMG I have so many thoughts about this artificial line in the sand… for another post).

Last weekend at my nearly 9-year-old’s soccer game a teammate of his got injured. Not bad, just enough to lie there for a minute, unsure. Honestly, it could have been a kid from the other team, I couldn’t even tell.

My kid is the one in the air :)

But here’s what happened next:

And all the other kids stopped gameplay and took a knee.

They’re taught to do this; it’s not like I witnessed an entirely spontaneous collective act of care. But I’ll tell you: it felt like it. And I’ll tell you this too: I fully teared up on the sidelines. I’m tearing up even now as I type this.

Why?

Maybe it’s because there’s something so simple about: one of my people is hurt. All my focus goes there. Our culture, our busyness doesn’t set us up to do this very well. But multiple friends of mine have ended up in the hospital with terrifying diagnoses the last few months. And in those moments, we all search for how to show up. Rearranging schedules, sending gifts, connecting them to other friends who’ve gone through it, worrying we’re not doing enough or that we won’t say the right thing. (Shout out to my reader who told me she googles what to say in birthday cards, even to good friends, because she doesn’t trust herself to say the right thing.)

Reminder: there is no right way, except to connect. To do something for the person who’s suffering that’s actually meaningful for them, knowing them as you do. This may require that you breathe, wiggle, and connect to you, too, to a deeper trust in you.

In fact, there is no right way to show up, ever anywhere, except to care out loud. It’s a physical being there + a spirit of I’m not hiding. We want to hide from pain or discomfort or mortality, of course, so the I’m-not-hiding is the brave part. It’s leadership with a lower case L. It’s doing the thing and not NOT doing the thing.

I think I also got weepy at the boys taking a knee because there’s something so profound about teaching boys to stop the action and instantly turn a moment that was fighty, gentle. To choose relationship over competition. It’s not a message boys get that often; I’m deep in this incredible book called BOYMOM that isn’t out till June but Ruth Whippman (who just started a Substack!

I Blame Society

!) sent me an early copy and I’m geeking all the way out. Its subtitle is “Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity” and it’s for literally all of us whether you’re raising a boy or reparenting yourself or trying to understand our wild cultural moment:

The stories we tell boys about what it means to be a man—that life is a series of battles to fight, that relationships are about competing rather than cooperating, that they must be stoic and tough and not share their emotions or validate other peoples’—all work against building strong relationships.

Even though, according to a famous Harvard study that started in 1938 (!!) and followed hundreds of men over decades trying to determine the ingredients that make for “the good life,” the answer was overwhelmingly the opposite:

More than anything, for these men, the key to a happy, healthy, well-adjusted adulthood was good relationships. Strong connections to friends, family, and community were associated with every marker of mental and physical health and well-being and all measures of life satisfaction including income and career success."

She talks about how her sons get close to zero modeling from books or TV shows that caring for other people’s emotions is their business; they’re mystified at the idea that tracking how their friends feel is their job. But we know the stats about male loneliness and suicide. We know that this story has to change and now. “In addition to being more open about their own emotions, boys also need to learn how to listen to other people’s,” she says. “To take an interest in others’ lives and experiences […] and figure out how to respond appropriately to someone else’s vulnerability.”

I went to a workshop a few weeks ago put on by Desiree Adaway with the premise “friendship is where we get to practice liberation.”

I think friendship is where we get to practice public speaking, too. By which I mean, showing up. By which I mean, caring out loud: making it entirely clear that we are there (imperfectly, messily, but present) in mind, body, and spirit.

“I am here.”

Is a radical act of kindness.

So today, while the tissues pile up and I’m feeling pressure between my eyes and also heavy about the world and wondering, too, where to put my own focus looking toward the second half of this year and this no-path amorphous career I’m trying to lovingly shape, I’m taking a breath to think of you, reading this, and to tell you: I am here.

Showing up for you and with you.

What’s one thing you’ve learned from a good friendship?

I’ve learned the power of a kickass check-in text message out of the blue. I do them all the time now, because I’ve learned from the best.

What about you?

Opening this comment section up for the whole community—tell us the first thing that comes to mind: what’s one thing you’ve learned from a good friendship?

Or, if it feels juicier, how did someone show up for you or you for them lately?

Love on a friendship here, if you would.

Big hug,

SB

PS. Next community Zoom workshop got moved to April 26th, 10a PT/1p ET/6p GT. It’s ON! And it’s on STORYTELLING: how to tell our story or our stories dramatically but without the drama. My best tips + live coaching. Upgrade to join and get the coaching you need 👇🏼