Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on March 7, 2021.
I made Hamburger Helper for dinner last Tuesday. To make it “healthy”, I used lean ground turkey and mixed in a can of green beans. Our boys got a protein, carb, and vegetable, and I called it a midweek victory. Low-energy Hamburger Helper will be as much a staple in our boys’ youth as it was in mine.
At some point in my tween years, Mom sat me down to talk about “interdependence.” It was a conversation framed around her need for my help. She was a single parent and her job was changing significantly. She took on the role as the only child protection social worker in Idaho’s four southeastern counties. This would have her dropping me off at school well before 8 a.m. and driving to Caribou, Oneida, Bear Lake or Franklin county each day. She also had to cover southern Bannock County and the communities in the Marsh Valley school district including Lava Hot Springs, Downey and Arimo.
She asked me to help more with cooking, cleaning and generally taking care of my own needs with homework and getting home from school. While this was a normal age for an increase in responsibilities and contributions to the household, the shift in our small family was abrupt and without wiggle room. Our years of interdependence were upon us.
A couple nights a week, dinner was my job, and Hamburger Helper was my go-to. I’d scurry home at dusk after practice and start browning the hamburger. The stewed casserole would be warming on the stove when Mom got home, and we’d eat together and talk about our days.
I can still remember names and cases and atrocities that children suffered that Mom helped with. Hamburger Helper commercials at the time said “help your hamburger, help her,” and I took it to heart. She had to help a lot of children and families, and in assuming more responsibilities at home, I was helping, too.
Mom wasn’t working alone in Idaho’s southeastern counties. She worked with teachers, school administrators, law enforcement and school boards. I can still hear her say things like, “I met a new friend today who is a principal in Soda Springs” or “the sheriff in Preston” or “the chair of the Marsh Valley School Board.” She worked with all of these people to conduct investigations, bring perpetrators to justice and educate communities about child abuse and neglect. As soon as she worked with a fellow civil servant, she spoke of them as her friends.
It was during my impressionable youth, I came to grasp that social workers, teachers, principals, law enforcement - any public servant really - sees things that the average person does not. My middle school friends were mad once when a classmate got an extension on an assignment; I noticed the cigarette burns on the back of his neck. Peers teased a classmate because she smelled bad; I saw her walk into the counselor’s office where one of Mom’s “friends” was waiting to talk with her. I knew there was even more going on around me beneath the surface that I didn’t know, and that truth remains today.
Our community is in the middle of a recall effort of three school board members. The central claim of recall proponents is that the school board hasn’t listened to the public – that they are not “serving the public.” As a member of the public, I’m here to say that I feel adequately served by this board. I am not in agreement with every decision or even every decision-making process they’ve undertaken, but I know the public they serve is vast, and information comes at them from many perspectives. The school board is privy to personal stories of individual students, teachers, and subject matter experts that I am not, and there are state and federal laws they must adhere to that I’ve never even heard of.
This recall effort isn’t helpful, and in fact it’s detracting people from their jobs at hand. A recall isn’t going reduce the COVID-19 numbers to ensure kids stay in school. The public must help with that. A recall isn’t going to get my kid to turn in his math assignment on time. I have to help with that. While still firmly in a pandemic, a recall isn’t going to ease our children’s mental health woes, but as parents, we must work together to do that.
I view my relationship with all public servants, including the school board, as one of interdependence. Before I consider how they should be helping me, I consider how I could be helping them, and right now I’m probably most helpful in encouraging empathy and understanding all around while taking care of myself and my family. And, good ole easy-peasy Hamburger Helper is helping with that.
