Compassionate accountability - a way forward from COVID-19

When I started my career in mental health, I learned early that my role in the growth of the people with whom I worked would depend on me implementing the proper balance of compassion and accountability. While we can’t undo previous wrongs, we’re responsible for creating future rights.

Regarding accountability, the coronavirus has revealed itself to be a non-discriminatory interrupter of life, the status quo, and the myths we’ve told ourselves about our American exceptionalism. It has exposed infrastructural flaws with our approach to work, to healthcare, to what’s deemed economic success, as well as many ways we’ve ignored the US Constitution’s Preamble’s clause “to promote the general welfare.”

It’s revealed how our obsession of with the delusion of independence is often deadly when the reality of interdependence is necessary for life. It’s revealed the gaps in support that we have in caring for those who care for others. It’s revealed how fragile our nation is when some are willing to sacrifice Sam, Tamara, Mary, and Julio Jones, pushing them to rebuff social distancing to offer short-term protection for their non-human namesake, Dow Jones.

It’s re-exposed inequities, as we see who’s able to work from home versus those disproportionately poor, black, and/or brown who are pushed to put themselves on the line, because our nation’s safety net is more of a cobweb, and because so few things (food, healthcare, housing, etc.) are basic human rights. It’s revealed irony in how the very housing choice vouchers that many landlords in our region discriminatorily decline as rental income for some of our most vulnerable citizens would be welcomed in this time of landlord income vulnerability.

Constructively, we’ve seen short-term stepping up at various levels that we can’t take for granted. Simultaneously, we need to commit to a more sustainable approach that allows our philanthropic step-ups to operate as the side salads they were designed to be versus the main course we’ve unsuccessfully tried to use them as the last four decades. As a community, we must not allow this crisis to be the equivalent of a 21-year-old birthday end-of-the-night toilet bowl prayer: “God, if you get me through this, I promise (insert broken promise here).”

Regarding compassion, we must be willing to give ourselves and each other some grace day to day. As a father with a 6-year-old and 3-year-old, married to a wife whose workload matches, if not exceeds mine, this is a humbling time. The sincere gratitude of having paying jobs is balanced with learning to accept that we cannot operate as full-time employees and simultaneously replace the educational experiences our kids were getting, with their peers and strong teachers, including childcare teachers who may have to navigate wage reduction in the future.

While I want this to apply to everyone, speaking directly to the many parents out there, I have one request. Give yourself some grace. Give your kids some grace. Give your kids’ teachers some grace. Teachers, please give those of us operating as mediocre imposters of you some grace.

I’ve had numerous conversations with parents trying to balance the new challenge of homeschooling kids, managing stress from a pandemic, being in proximity with family with much greater frequency, increased financial and work distress, while expecting ubiquitous excellence. This. Is. Not. Realistic. While I enjoy excellence, self-preservation sometimes requires a willingness to appreciate good enough for now.

In this moment, our children need to see us model compassionate accountability; deciding to value long-term humanity over short-term profit, while providing grace and compassion to each other in navigating COVID-19 in our day to day lives.

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 9:21 AM.