Parenting During a Disaster

During the recent weather chaos in Houston I found myself staring out the window, completely unsure about what to do. I grew up in an area of Texas that faced the threat of tornadoes regularly, but had never actually seen winds as strong as the ones I was watching blow past my house.

Photo by John Middelkoop on Unsplash | Not a depiction of the recent damage done in Houston.

Based on everything I knew about tornado safety, if you were an elementary school student facing the threat of a tornado during school hours, you were told to pick your biggest textbook, file out into the hallway, and crouch down on your knees with your head between your legs. Facing the wall, you were supposed to put your book over the back of your neck, using the wall and your science book to protect the most vulnerable parts of your body. At least, this is what I was taught in 1996. Surely tornado safety precautions have evolved for schools since then- hopefully.

If you were facing the threat of a tornado while on the road and were unable to find shelter, I believe the advice was to pull your car over and lay down in a ditch. Once again, this was taught to me in the 1900s, so maybe that theory has changed a bit. Fortunately, we were not in a school or a car as the weather rolled into Houston.

At home, they tell you to get in your basement (which do not exist in the Gulf Coast Swamp in which I live). If you don’t have a basement, I believe the protocol is to get into a closet, hallway, or bathroom located in the interior of your home. Living in a 1,200 square foot house, there aren’t many places in my home that don’t have an exterior wall, but we do have a hallway running down the middle of it. I knew that if things got crazy, we could huddle in the hallway. Based on my fuzzy memories of tornado safety training from childhood, I also remembered that pulling a mattress over yourself could add some sort of extra layer of protection.

I had not reviewed tornado procedures for many years, but based on what I knew, I planned on getting in the hallway with my family if things got bad. If I were childless, I probably would have already been in the hallway waiting out the worst of the storm. But as a parent, you have to walk the line of protecting your kids without unnecessarily elevating their fear. My wife had the kids coloring and they were (shockingly) getting along. Perhaps they sensed the unease that my wife and I were trying to hide.

As I obsessively refreshed my weather radar app, I could see that we were actually threading the needle a bit as the worst parts of the storm were directly north and south of us. Somehow, we were hanging out in a marginally safer zone, and I could verify that as I watched the strong winds fail to do much more than shake the trees in front of my home. After about 30 minutes, we were through the worst of it. We actually had no clue how bad the storm was for the rest of the city until much later that night when we received an alert that HISD cancelled Friday classes to assess and recover from the damage caused by the storm. My heart truly goes out to the families facing property damage, lack of power, and for a few families, loss of loved ones.

For us, the biggest challenge we would face from the storm was an unplanned 3-day weekend with children that cannot breathe in the same room without physically assaulting one another. As I reflected on how bad the storm was for others, and imagined how bad it could have been for us, I began to feel utterly helpless.

Parenting on a good day is a challenge. Parenting during a disaster is a nightmare.

I remembered stories of parents as the US forces left Afghanistan literally handing babies to troops in helicopters to get them out of the country on the last flights to freedom. I thought about Anne Frank’s parents (and the thousands of others just like them) hiding with their children from an enemy seeking to kill them. I imagined what it would be like to try and keep my children quiet all day, making sure they understood the seriousness of the situation while also providing comfort. Putting on a display of confidence while fearing for the lives of your family is not something I have ever had to do, and I am uncertain if I could do it if the situation required me to do so. I was thinking about the families in Gaza, Ukraine, parts of Africa, and other corners of the world facing man made disasters that could be solved if only reasonable people led the different groups warring for power and control. A natural disaster is a morally neutral ordeal, but war is something else entirely. How do parents find the strength and wisdom to protect and care for children under such extreme evil and chaos?

Watching the wind howl down my street as my kids drew pictures of dogs at the coffee table was the tiniest glimpse of what it feels like to parent during a disaster. My prayer, of course, is that I never have to manage anything more serious than a storm while parenting, but I know there are real chances I could face true chaos one day while trying to lead and protect my family. I hope that I would find the strength needed, and that my faith in God would guide me, but I’ll never know for sure if I am ready for such a trial.

If you are a parent, I want you to know that you have signed up for an exceptionally difficult path in life.

I am certain you understand that. I do not believe that parents are necessarily more noble or mature than those without children, but bearing the responsibility of providing for and protecting humans that cannot do these things for themselves adds an additional burden that came sharply into focus for me as I tried to determine the best course of action for my family in the face of a potential natural disaster. Whether you believe in God or some other power, I believe that most parents get what they need when they need it to adequately protect their children in the midst of chaos. When faced with a natural or manmade disaster, I hope something bubbles up inside of me, equipping me to make the right decisions at the right time for the best outcome.

Ultimately, all we can do is our best, and I am certain that every parent in the midst of a disaster is thinking first and foremost about the humans who look to them for everything they need. In so many ways, parenting forces us to be less self-centered, and when lives are at stake, I know that every parent reading this would put the lives of their children over their own. That’s what love is. Parenting is one of the best training grounds to learn how to love others more than yourself, and when the world gets out of control, love is the driving force to help you weather the storm.