DPNs and Diapers

What I’ve learned about Knitting and parenting

Wow, this is a tough time to be a parent. I say that as a white parent, I can’t imagine what black parents are going through. No matter how hard I try to understand and empathize, I won’t be able to because I was born white. I hold Fynn at night and my heart implodes knowing that even though I feel sad, disheartened, sick, anger, and pain, it is nothing – not even a drop in the bucket compared to what black mothers are feeling. Knitting is meditative to me, especially with simple patterns. I’ve been making a shawl with large garter stitch sections so I’ve been able to spend a good deal of time in thought. DPNs and diapers, that’s how I’ve been spending my time.

Since Fynn arrived, I’ve doubled down on both my businesses, marketing and knitting. I’ve cut back on reading, and many other things that I love in order to be able to give Fynn, my husband and dog, and my businesses the time they need from me.

More than DPNs and Diapers

But now I’m carving time back out of my schedule. I need to do better. I need to learn and grow like so many other Americans. To do this, in addition to DPNS and diapers, I’ll be dedicating: dedicating time to reading and engaging with others (you can join us here), dedicating patterns to unity, dedicating resources towards meaningful solutions.

I hope you’ll join me. I sincerely do. As this all happened, I had planned on expanding my blog to include more about parenting and my life as a new mother. After all, when I started carving out this space I had talked a lot about my life as a new homeowner and then wife. I hope that together we can carve racism out of our lives, but before we can do that, we must stop carving it out of our narratives, conversations, and thoughts.

Before this all happened, when I heard about the Black Lives Matter movement, I had the immediate “all lives matter” response. Because, all life does matter. I’m a firm believer in Dr. Seuss’s line “A person is a person no matter how small”. But now I realize that for all lives to matter, we have to make black lives matter. Living in a white suburb, going to a white church, having mostly white friends, racism was beyond the horizon. I couldn’t see it, so it was hard to believe that it was there.

The Ugly Truth

The ugly truth is that systemic racism has infected so many different parts of our society. If you don’t look for it, you’ll miss it. If you’re not honest with yourself, and give yourself permission to explore the places where it might be ingrained in your life, you won’t understand why black lives matter.

I’m no saint. I’m no expert. I’m simply a person who is learning. Will you learn with me?

White Fragility

I reached out to a friend who is much more enlightened on systemic racism and asked her to challenge me. I asked her to help me take the blinders off of my eyes, to help me see past the DPNs and diapers, and dedicate my time and energy into becoming part of the solution. We agreed on a book that would be a great place to start: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. I’m restarting my online book club to read and discuss this book with friends.

Yes, some of you will read this post and say this is not enough. That I should protest, that I should do more. I don’t feel that I can speak out until I learn more about the actual problem. If I post and share now, I’m simply adding to the noise and drowning out the voices that need to be heard. This is my feeling on the matter. If you feel differently, I support you.