In Praise of Small Towns and Doing Our Best

We spent the 4th of July in Wisco this year.

That's small town Wisconsin for the uninitiated.

I love these trips, and even though it’s absolute chaos these days trying to get through the airport with a baby, a toddler, and a dog, it’s totally worth the memories. 

Nothing beats a small town parade with familiar faces and outlandish combinations of old brown recliners affixed atop riding lawn mowers to make a holiday weekend memorable. MacGyver has nothing on midwestern dads with a bit of time on their hands.

Life lately has been slow and steady. Our summer has been filled with family traditions alongside new rituals we’ve chosen for ourselves. We're not stressing about always getting it right. We're tuning into each other and our kids as we decide how to meet the world around us with each new moment. 

We've simply learned how to parent through intuition and grace. It’s a knowing that comes from conscious introspection, which is hard in a world that tells us to rush from one thing to the next. And maybe that's one of the things I love most about small towns. They remind me that not everything has to happen so dang fast.

The world, however, is set up to rush to judgment.

I recently shared my perspective in Parents about being a 'Beta Mom,' and I know plenty of you have thoughts, including some objections to the alpha mom vs beta mom binary. Regardless of the labels, the point remains: we could all benefit from letting go of the pressure to parent for other people’s approval.

It was either philosopher Immanuel Kant or John Mellencamp who said: “The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you're doing, someone else does.” If you've ever experienced a small town or tight-knit community, you know exactly what he meant.

The internet can feel like a small town too. You start to think you know someone from their social media, but those are just highly curated glimpses.

Trust me, I do not share photographic evidence of all the messes we make from letting Rose play sous chef in the kitchen. Or the nap time struggles as we transition to a big girl bed. Or the tough moments when both of my littles physically need me and yet I still only have two arms and one body.

Last week my friend sent me a video of an influencer going through a small town grocery store like she was in The Blair Witch Project. Oh, the horrors of a run-of-the-mill grocery store, she seemed to think. It all felt so performative.

There’s already been plenty of commentary, so I don’t need to pile on. But what it reminded me of is how quick we've become to judge experiences that aren't our own.

On the flip side, technology also makes incredible generosity possible, like seeing friends rally around Left Field Publishing's Kickstarter.

Maybe that's the tension of modern life. The same tools that encourage performance also make community possible.  

When I talk to fellow moms and dads in the trenches of parenthood, we all agree on one thing: we want our kids to see us work hard, try things, sometimes fail spectacularly, and then try again. We want them to look beyond their own perspectives and experiences.

And we're already seeing that happen. Our girls are teaching us to experience the world with a little more childlike wonder and a quiet assumption that every family is doing their best.

I hope our girls grow up knowing that kind of universal small-town love. The kind that assumes good intentions, celebrates effort, and leaves room for people to become who they're meant to be.

How lucky are we that our biggest mission in life is so simple: Just. Be. You.

With much love,

KRW

P.S. Special shout-out to the editors I've been working with to get bylines out while balancing two kids. It's meant more quality time for our family, AND it has infinitely improved my craft as a writer. 

ICYMI - Peep a few new reads in Parents, The Mother Chapter, and FoodFamilyTravel. Would love to know what you think!