The Co-dependent Generation
Going on the record with real-life stories of children being harmed and issuing a warning of long-term damage to an entire generation, this high school teacher and mother of two tells it like it is.
This one is from Lea Munoz-Steele — Lea is a Bilingual-Certified “Exceptional Educator” award-winning KSEE 24 teacher and a Youth Sports Coach who lives with her spouse and two school-aged sons in Fowler, California. She has been a teacher for 28 years.
Today, Lea is going on the record to advocate for all children she has a hand in raising, whether in her role as a mother, as an educator, as a mentor, or as a role model.
So please: Read this one for Lea — and for all the voiceless kids who are in desperate need of heroes like her.
The Co-dependent Generation
by Lea Munoz-Steele
June 2022. For the first time, my youngest will be attending Boy Scout Camp, a camp he’s heard his older brother wax poetically about for five years. This is also the last year of camp for my oldest. The boys have one summer, this summer, to be together at camp. Off they go! Pictures taken, bags packed, mosquito bands and neckerchiefs on. Liability and health forms signed, prerequisites for merit badges accomplished. Load up and head out. Have fun, boys!
Two hours later, the phone rings.
It’s the scoutmaster. Without anyone’s prior knowledge or consent, which is required in CA if a minor is 13 or younger, the director made the on-the-spot decision to rapid test every Scout once they arrived at camp. My youngest has tested positive. He has zero symptoms, but we need to come get him. He can’t stay.
An hour and a half later, we arrive at the camp and are directed to a quarantine tent, where we see our oldest, sitting outside, talking to his brother through the canvas. Climbing in the truck, it’s clear to see he’s been crying. Said he didn’t mean to, he didn’t know, was worried that he had actually done something wrong. Everyone else was allowed to stay. Not surprisingly, two days later, an entire troop went home because several of their scouts began to have symptoms and tested positive, even though everyone had tested negative upon arrival. You know why? Because it’s a virus, and it doesn’t care what protocols middle managers put in place. To add insult to injury, the camp says the fee is nonrefundable. You know what else is nonrefundable? Childhood.
My husband keeps telling me to let it go. And I can't. I have tried. I am trying. I am livid, I am heartbroken. I can’t get that phrase out of my head. I didn’t do anything wrong. Because I’d heard it countless times this past year, from my students.
Thankfully, sports were back this year, but some schools in our league wouldn’t allow our athletes on campus unless they tested negative before competition, so our AD would test at lunch. Inevitably, I’d have a student come in to get his or her belongings. They had tested positive, even though they had no symptoms, and had to go home.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Steele”
“I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
You know who else says this? Children living in abusive homes. You know who else irrationally takes on the emotions of others and tries to manage them? Children of addicts. California’s countless mandates and our governor’s endless state of emergency are conditioning a generation of kids to become codependent. Congratulations everyone!
Let’s look at common behaviors in children who grow up in codependent homes. According to Psychology Today, the common warning signs of a codependent child are:
*The need to be in control
*An excessive need to please others
*Extreme worry
*Not feeling “good enough”
*Blaming self for others’ problems
*A lack of trust
If only addicts had known the trick! Dad’s alcoholism is now “mitigation efforts” and mom’s pill popping is “harm reduction.”
“If kids would only act right, they wouldn’t get hit.”
This anti-anxiety med is going to work if I just take a little more!
“The fourth booster is sure to work!”
“Be quiet kids, dad’s drunk and you don’t want to get him riled up.”
“Once we have a vaccine for kids 1-4, we can give them their lives back.”
Spot the difference? Me neither.
Do we adults really want to be in the business of convincing kids that they’ve done something wrong merely because, in the act of living, they’ve exposed themselves to danger, whether that be a virus or an abusive home?
I grew up in a home where chaos was the standard. I never knew when the rug was going to be pulled out from underneath me. No matter how good I was, it still refused to stay in place. Two things children of abuse learn to do with that rug: start pulling it out from underneath you your own damn self, because at least you know it’s coming and can validate your expectations, or spend the rest of your life nailing that rug to the ground. I have learned that either strategy is self-destructive. In both scenarios, the rug rules your life. I’ve spent my entire adulthood attempting to create a slice of stability for my students and my children. Consistent, reliable, steadfast, encouraging. I don’t want them to become accustomed to living codependently.
Now imagine the past three years if you are a child living in a dysfunctional and dangerous household. Will shutting them out of society make them more trusting? Less worried? Less inclined to blame themselves for other people’s problems? COVID is endemic. Bad policy, in California, is also now endemic, and irreparably destructive to our most vulnerable population. The only thing the state’s efforts and recommendations have proven to accomplish is to guarantee setbacks for our students.
Often, as a teacher, when I come across a student who is disinterested in everything, and refuses to exert any effort in any area of his life, I would say his self-agency is missing. He put it down somewhere and he can’t find it. My job, as his teacher or coach, is to help him find where he put it. Because everyone, I believed, is born with a drive to find purpose, and once it is relocated, we can start building again.
Well, guess what? My self-agency is in tatters currently. I don’t believe in institutions anymore. Public education is limping along. Teacher unions shut down schools for over a year and then wonder why there’s no buy-in from students, why there is chronic absenteeism.
And I tried so hard: made the yard signs, signed the petitions, attended the zoom board meetings for my son’s district, where my questions were ignored. I’ve emailed camp counselors, called the Fresno County Superintendent. To no avail. And now, three years later, our kids are still being blindsided by policies decided on the fly by adults terrified by not being “compliant” with arbitrary, damaging policy.
I know at some point, as a mom and a teacher, I will have to locate my drive and shift it back in gear. But for what? For the next safety measure? The next unforeseen consequence? The next sudden tug on the rug?
In California, no organization purporting to be foundational; not church, scouts, school, sports: none of these institutions attempted, in any tangible way, to throw a lifeline to our children. Not one. Scouting’s motto is “be prepared,” but prepared for what, I ask?
We collectively communicated to kids: stop trying and stop believing; it’s not going to work out anyway. Try out for sports; oh wait, there’s no bus to take you to the competition, never mind. Sign up for outdoor ed; oops, sorry, we invented this new policy on the fly without telling you. Maybe next year. School is crucial! Make sure you are here everyday to maximize your education! Here’s a Chromebook kid, just turn it on and show your ceiling fan so the teacher can mark you as “present.” Then go back to sleep, or watch YouTube.
Whatever. We really don’t care.
Or we do, but we’re scared of unions and politicians, policy wonks and not being compliant. So, I guess we don’t. Not really. At least in California, groups pretending to be the “good guys” have effectively told young people fear and chaos are actually good for their development. C’mon, kids! You are resilient!
I’m bewildered by the adults who’ve spent the better part of three years dismantling society complaining about the behavior of “kids these days.” What did you think the results of your actions would be? My youngest is ten. For the majority of his recall memory, he has lived in a world of “probably not” and “it depends what the new mandate is”. He, and the vast majority of California’s children, have been at the mercy of adults who decided on a whim to upend society.
How will this chart the trajectory of our young people’s lives?
Anxious?
Disinterested?
Listless?
A generation has been told by society to shift their drive into neutral, and when it’s time, you can start it up again.
Maybe.
Unless or until a new policy comes along.
Our Take:
Wow.
Thank you, Lea, for sharing your story, your experience, and your message — YOU ARE A HERO!!! (and a REAL gutsy woman, if you ask us).
We’ll certainly say this about California’s policymakers: They seem to be putting the interests of children near the bottom of their list of concerns.
What’s Next:
If you would like to:
A) Get in touch with Lea Munoz-Steele on Twitter, follow her @RedRunnerLea
or
B) Tell your own story through our Substack — whether on-the-record or anonymous
then
C) Reach out to us at restorechildhood@substack.com or @Rstorechildhood on Twitter and we’ll do what we can to make that happen.
And of course, please
D) Share Lea’s story with the heroes in your life who are also fighting back.
It's that ending part: not being able to reassure your child unequivocally that there is something to look forward to.