Raise the Roof. Raise Cain. Raise Hell. Just Raise.

As a parent, and a person, I think a lot about what people need from me. This is not unique; I know. It’s part of the human condition.  What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? How can I be better? Am I showing up? Is this how it’s supposed to be done? Am I raising kids the world wants to have and hold?

And in pondering these questions almost daily, I can’t help but go back in the time machine to my own childhood and recall how things were handled or not handled; what was shared and what was ignored; what was prioritized and what really didn’t seem to be important. A lot of this comparison between then and now is really about generational differences; I know this. But at the core of most of my realizations is one idea – we were taught to push down.

Just push it all down. The negative and the pain. The uncomfortable and the messy. The fear and the questions. If we don’t talk about it or even point out that it’s staring at us from the corner, it’s not there, right? How many of us grew up this way, and how many of our parents, and the family members before them lived this existence? I don’t blame anyone for this. Like I said, I believe most of this was the norm of the times. Who we are and what we actually showed the world were often two different versions of us. We were often rewarded for how well we could be these two people. Beautiful and messy sides of the same coin; our job was to know which side was supposed to be face up at all times.

I believe we carry that forced denial with us today like a heavy scarf we can’t seem to take off. You didn’t talk about gay children. You didn’t admit someone was struggling with mental health. You didn’t talk about fears that you or your husband might lose their job. No eating disorders. No anxiety. No kids who felt alone. Everything was just fine. Repeat after me. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re fine.

But we’re not fine.

We’re drinking, popping pills, watching porn, having affairs, ignoring our kids in favor of our phones and a litany of other things that don’t reflect who we are. What these behaviors do is shine a light on the knowledge that we don’t know who we are. Or that we’re not allowed to be who we are. So what do we do? We escape. We run away to numbed oblivion where it doesn’t hurt so much to live with the pushed down.

Well, I, for one, am tired of pushing down. I have decided that this is the generation of parents and youth who will stand tall and proclaim, “no more pushing down. We are here to raise up.”

What does this mean to me? It means I want to raise up everyone and everything around me. I want my kids to feel free to be who they are and talk about what worries them. I will not tell them not to worry. How many of us heard, as kids, “you’re a child. What do you have to worry about?” Well, the answer is PLENTY. And now we know that. Because we know better, we must do better.

If we each continue to raise up instead of push down, what this results in is a beautiful community of witnesses. We become witnesses to each other’s lives. And having a witness makes it real. Hard, yes. Scary, yes still. Complex, maybe even more. But real. And as we know, the Velveteen Rabbit was real because he was loved in spite of his tears, rips and bare spots. He was loved because someone saw him.

I don’t have parenting advice because I am not an expert. But I will say this. As my years of mothering continue I feel like I have two main jobs and they are woven together. The first is to raise my kids to be fearless. This is of course impossible, but it is my goal. I want my kids to base their decisions on trust, passion and purpose. Fear is the root of everything bad. My second job is to witness my kids. To call out everything that I see and not label it as good or bad, but as “you”. Does that mean I won’t discipline? Of course not. But it means my kids will not grow up with a head narrative that tells them “I’m too opinionated. I’m not good at math. People will think I’m bragging if I’m proud of my accomplishments.” Nope. None of that self talk.

Instead, I want the narrative to be “my family loves me just the way I am. And my job is to love others for who they are.” The irony I have found with this approach is that by avoiding the pushing down and focusing on the raising up, people naturally strive to be better. They focus on growth and on accomplishments and on character because they feel free to develop these things. Building character and pushing yourself takes courage. And courage comes from the knowledge you are not alone.

The funny thing is that none of this makes daily living any easier. We still struggle. We still hurt. We have loss. We are convinced we will never recover. But, by being a witness, we can remind our kids and each other that burdens are lightened when shared. I cannot solve my kids’ problems. But I can tell them that I understand and know their problems are real. I can put my arms around them and tell them time heals most things. I can wipe their eyes when they cry because they will not be afraid to cry in front of me.

Think about that. How many of us quietly cried into our pillows because crying was weak? How many of us hid our feelings because we thought we may get in trouble? There is no worse pushing down than what we do by ourselves in the dark, afraid we won’t be accepted if anyone saw us in such a pitiful state.

Today, we raise up. I am deeming this National Raise Up Day. When there is darkness and you are alone, don’t think to yourself, “good. Now I don’t have to deal with that, and no one will see me so screwed up.” Instead, say, “it doesn’t matter how dark it is because if I look up, there is always the moon and she illuminates all the people standing by me. The moon and these people are my witnesses, and they are the road I need to take to get to myself.” We are all on this road, and we have all always been.