Published: October 12, 2008 01:46 am            

GUERILLA MOTHERING: Here comes the story of the hurricane

Days after Hurricane Ike, about a half million houses in the area were still unexpectedly off the grid, and it didn’t take long before our TV and videogame addicted children drained the Mommy-power reserves, as well.

We Harmons are rugged outdoor types, kung fu with camping and expert at keeping food on ice. We once survived nearly two weeks without power, following a bad storm a few years ago, so I figured I could handle it.

With the kids falling asleep at 8:30 to books by candlelight, you heard no complaint from me. After a few days of neither school nor TV, though, I began to wonder why the blackout was so much harder than camping.

Dominos and board games only did so much. Outdoor romps got boring. I guess they’re more of the “sidedish” to TV and video game’s “main course,” and my kids were craving more.

The power outage really drove our TV addiction home. Stuck within the maze of road closings, getting out of the house for an escape wasn’t an option, either.

“Can we watch a movie?” Sam asked.

“Nope. No power,” I said, as I washed dishes by candlelight. I encouraged him to help me, but he would not be swayed.

“Can we go to the movies?” he asked. “I think ‘Indiana Jones’ is at the movies.”

“I wish. Power’s out there, too,” I told him. I moved on to the bathroom with my cleaning. Potty training in the dark? Not recommended.

“Can we watch a movie on the computer?” he asked.

“Battery’s almost dead,” I told him. “And our Internet connection is down, too — power’s out.”

Powerless in more ways than one, my kids grew more and more frustrated. As for me, as much as I adore the series, there were only so many times I wanted to read Captain Underpants’ latest. By the third time I’d said “preposterous purple potty people” aloud to a preoccupied pugnacious peck of punks, I was ready to pop!

One or two nasty outbursts aside, though, we survived. My kids learned a lot about electricity, and we established an earlier bedtime that seems to have stuck.

It wasn’t until I resumed “real life” the following week that I seriously gave thought to what other families in the area were going through during the power outages.

In addition to mothering and skating and writing, I also do a little teaching — mostly of adults, and mostly journaling and collage classes — touchy-feely stuff. During the inevitable “How was your hurricane experience?” talk on our first day back, a student — Maurice — brought up a good point about how our community responded to the aftermath of Ike.

The evidence of our ignorance about the storm is overwhelming. The child of an acquaintance was killed during the high winds, when a tree struck him. My own husband took our youngest child into the yard to play in the same wind they had been watching on the TV. At the same time, I sat with a friend, blacked out of skate practice, and watched sheets of insulation fly off the top of a building site on Veterans Parkway.

Did anyone take this storm seriously, while it was happening? No one I knew. I wonder how many other kids were out playing during the windstorm. I see trees down all over the area, and thank God I haven’t heard of more tragedies.

My student mentioned armed guards surrounding a dumpster near his local grocery store. He evidently thought the measures extreme, until he saw young parents scrambling through another grocery store’s Dumpster a few miles away.

“These low-income families who depend on the schools providing one hot meal a day for their kids — they didn’t have any food! And if they did, it probably went bad and had to be thrown away.” He described the crowd of people he saw carrying food away from the dumpster. “It was Thursday until some places had a soup line or anything set up. Why didn’t anyone think of it? What were we doing?”

As compassionate people who love children and who are very interested in our neighbors — why didn’t we take the aftermath of Ike seriously?

Were we too busy bemoaning the lack of our TV? Too busy plugged into laptops at over-crowded coffee houses?

Some people got busy when Ike swept into town — infrastructure repair people and clean-up crews. Undoubtedly, their children saw a lot more of the babysitters than their own parents, during that time. Several local groups did get into disaster relief mode, as it became clear that the power wasn’t coming right back on. Certainly, we should be thankful for all who put forth the extra effort to help families.

What’s a child to learn from all this? Life is unpredictable? The weather is scary? Ignorance is dangerous? Always keep an extra bag of ice in the freezer?

Are my children old enough to understand the tragedy of the child who was killed during the storm? I’m not sure. As for modeling compassion and charity, I’m not really available to rush out to volunteer at soup kitchens — I’m needed at home with my own kids.

We did what we could, although it wasn’t heroic to many. We had friends over who were without power. We entertained and fed them and let them charge up their electrical “stuff.” One of them took advantage of the power to straighten her unruly hair, for work the next day. It doesn’t seem like much, though.

Between now and the next global warming extravaganza, I’ll be thinking about what more I can do — not to keep my own kids occupied, but to reach out to other families in need. Maybe if we all do that, we won’t be so immobilized next time.



Leslea M. Harmon is a wife, mother, and freelance writer. She can be reached online at lmharmon.com or via email directly at Leslea.Harmon@gmail.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.