The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Essay

Goodbye Armonk: Gratitude, Reflection, & Vision for a Prosperous Suburb

by

After a generation in the community, my family is moving on, which is bringing up a range of thoughts and feelings. In reflecting on how Armonk shaped me as a person, I’m struck by how much of a gift it was to grow up here: the natural beauty, sense of safety, abundant opportunities. And how no gift comes without its price. 

For me, a town like Armonk’s most potent gift is achievement culture. Like many families who flocked here in recent decades, we were drawn by the quality of the school district. My siblings and I dutifully jumped through all the academic hoops, orienting towards what seemed like a shared north star of get good grades, to get into good schools, to get good jobs, to afford good things, to have a good life and create a better one for our posterity.  

But because that cycle had been spiraling upwards for three or four generations, and then comes along little anxious Andrew in one of the wealthiest and most academically competitive zip codes in the United States, the story I internalized was that I had to do something BIG in order to feel complete, loved, accepted. Which would look something like brute force way into Ivy League, let loose to compensate for emotional and spiritual malnourishment, burnout and move to India for detox and balance. Then brute force way through Silicon Valley, get lost in the clouds of saving the world, go to my room to think about what I’ve done. In both cycles, I almost didn’t make it out alive. 

Acknowledging the multiplicity of backgrounds and ways that others experience this neck of the woods, I wonder why we don’t give more attention to the impacts of pressure of expectation and narrow definitions of success. Especially amidst an exploding global mental health crisis and increasingly destabilized society. It makes me wonder if poor mental health and resilience are the biggest prices we pay to live in a place like Armonk or countless other suburban, achievement-oriented communities around Westchester and the world. And if so, how can we acknowledge and shift that in a good way? 

Beyond mental health, what if overachieving atrophies our capacities for resilience? Rigid identities (“I am my job”) and expensive habits (“my net worth is my self worth”) can lead to isolating cycles of wealth accumulation in which we meet more of our needs through buying things instead of through community support, making us more fragile to shocks to the system and less adaptable to change. I’m not against wealth. I am for awareness of the tradeoffs; especially the unnecessary suffering in pursuit and as a result of wealth. 

I’m also curious about the impact of achievement culture in this historical moment when it has become clear that our Western consumerist lifestyles bear the bulk of the responsibility for the planetary crisis. With an estimated one billion humans displaced by 2050, will we environmentally, socially or spiritually be able to pursue a high earning career, that will afford a McMansion(s) life, with multiple new of every thing every time it breaks or the styles change, to then herd our kids into elite educational and professional paths that exacerbate the situation? Whew. The complexities of navigating life during the sixth mass extinction are heavy. Compassion all around.

Educator Zak Stein in Education in Education is the Metacrisis points out that when social systems are in periods of rapid transformation, the role of schools becomes contradictory. They teach knowledge that is no longer relevant, socialize individuals into roles that no longer exist, and provide the mindsets needed to continue ways of life that are rapidly disappearing. Zak argues that students deserve an education relevant to the world they inherit, and that the future depends on the articulation of a new vision of humanity. What might that look like? 

In 2018 I received a tear-jerking vision for Armonk’s future during a meditation session. I saw the possibility of: flourishing individuals, families, and community. Children coming alive, discovering their authentic passions, bringing their fullest expression forward, cultivating healthy lifestyles. Beautiful threads of love and healing, weaving the fabric of our social relationships into a beautiful tapestry. Joyful, educational, and supportive interactions between neighbors, generations, and unlikely friends. Group therapy for those wounded by the common thread of pressure of expectation to conform to a narrow life path and identity. Excess resources flowing naturally to the areas of greatest need. Courageous gestures of resistance and care amongst those in positions of power. A shared motivation to leave Armonk better than we found it. The potential of Armonk as a role model for upper class achievement communities. 

Utopian fantasy, or within reach and worth orienting towards? What is the role for a resourced, elite-adjacent (2%?) community like Armonk in the transition from here to there? I’m encouraged by initiatives like the Byram Hills Challenge Success program to center student wellbeing, and the Buy Nothing community on Facebook to promote sharing economy principles. I believe our religious institutions have a significant role here, with time tested wisdom that holds clues to the big questions, including how to build resilience. And I believe in every person. Any citizen can step into leadership now. We can choose what happens next. We vote everyday for the town we want with our words, dollars, choices and ideas. What would a Renaissance of civic engagement look like? What do you perceive is imbalanced in Armonk? What are you positioned to change? What is your unique perspective that gives birth to your unique gift?

What if all the achieving and wealth accumulation was in service of freeing up time so that we might focus on cultivating resilience, healing, self and community actualization of the next generation? I hope that children who have such a large safety net(s) may be fully supported in becoming artists, activists, healers and roles of service we can’t even imagine. That one of the primary goals of Armonk be to identify their true gifts, and help them bring them into the world in a good way.  

Many in Armonk have the privilege to think about these bigger questions, take risks, rest and play and create. Let’s play with the levers to balance things out: less virtue signaling, more vulnerability. Less wealth, more health. Less mundane, more sacred. Less consumption, more creativity. Less avoiding pain, more attaining joy. Less external power, more internal strength. Less speed, more depth. Less security, more choice.  

At the end of the day, there’s no perfect town. There are no easy answers here. Armonk is a mixed blessing for many. Perhaps this is our unique paradox to wrestle with: how to create the best life for ourselves and the next generation, without crushing them, atrophying resilience, and harming people or planet. Maybe it’s one we’ve been wrestling with since time immemorial. 

The unabridged version of this letter was first published on Medium in late 2021.

Reclaiming Motherhood

by

Sabra Staudenmaier  PHOTO By Carolyn Simpson

As a small girl, I had big ideas about being a mom on Mother’s Day.  The day would begin with breakfast served to me in bed by little ones in matching pajamas. We would cuddle together as I opened crafty gifts and read homemade cards. We would spend the day enjoying the beauty of our bond. It would be the best day of the year. A celebration of togetherness.

When I became a mom and Mother’s Day came around, a celebration was the last thing on my mind. What was there to celebrate? The never-ending pile of laundry I faced daily? The ever-present crumbs on the floor of my car? Yes, I loved my kids. But motherhood,  at least my motherhood, not so much. Reality came with a mess in the kitchen from breakfast preparation. There was glitter all over my bed from the home-made cards. Even more work that I didn’t want to be doing. What I wanted on Mother’s Day was a break from it all. I was trying to survive; I didn’t have the energy to celebrate. 

Before becoming a mom, I saw the role as a powerful place to be. I saw the mother as the leader of the home, loved and respected for her guidance. After a decade and a half, I was experiencing the opposite of this. I felt disempowered. How could I be strong doing something that was so draining? A 24- hour, seven days a week job with no vacation. Three kids taking turns having meltdowns and making messes all over the place. I didn’t need to celebrate motherhood, I needed to be rescued from it. 

What was happening? 

I was teetering on the edge of burnout. I had been so focused on my role as a mom that   I stopped taking care of myself. I thought that a good mom was one who sacrifices herself for her family. All I needed was for my kids to be ok and that would somehow make everything else, including me, ok. I was clearly doing something wrong. I could feel my foundation crumbling. 

The problem wasn’t motherhood, it was the way I was doing it. I was looking at it from the top down. It was like I was building a building starting at the penthouse floor when I needed to start at the foundation. I was the foundation.

I knew something had to change. The quality of my life depended on it. I had to start taking better care of myself. Once I understood this, I was able to rebuild my motherhood by strengthening myself.

The first step I took was I started lifting weights three to five times each week.  I became physically strong, and physical strength set me on the right track. My mood improved. From there, my entire motherhood fell into line. I became the manager of my house, delegating housework rather than doing it all. I took control of my finances. I built new skills. I rested and recovered as needed. 

And then what happened? My motherhood experience transformed from one of disempowerment to one of strength. When I felt physically strong, I felt capable. Every aspect of my life began to bloom. I was in a role I didn’t need to escape from, not even for one day.

Motherhood is a big job, and the circumstances continue to change. While old issues remain new ones, like managing technology, social media and Covid, accrue. I have discovered that having an amazing family and home isn’t enough. It all must be managed in a way that isn’t depleting and exhausting.

This Mother’s Day, look at where you are on your journey. Do you want to celebrate motherhood or escape from it? 

If your experience is the one you’ve dreamed of, fantastic. If it isn’t then it’s time to make some changes. I invite you to join me for my podcast Banishing Mom Burnout. This is a podcast dedicated to getting moms out of depletion and into a position of strength and power. There is a way to reclaim motherhood. If I did it, so can you. Now, that’s something to celebrate!

Our Mom & The Bouquet of Peace

by

After you lose your mother, Mother’s Day becomes a somber day of reflection. Our mother is gone 21 years now. She died from lung cancer at the age of 56–a year younger than I am today. It was strange for me when I realized I’m older than my mother would ever be. Still, I reflexively reach for my phone to call her whenever something good or bad happens. Then, remind myself, with phone in hand, she’s not on the other end.

Her life was brief, but the life lessons she instilled in her three girls come back to us constantly. Sometimes, her lessons come slowly, subtly, and, other times, they slap us right in the face. I cannot express how much I love when that happens. Belonging to an Irish Catholic family, living in the Bronx, my mother was the eldest of six. Her life was filled with a steady stream of laundry–much of it done by hand. So, when she married, she insisted on squeezing a washer and a dryer into our already cramped kitchen. It would finally free her of the laborious chores of her childhood.

When I was 11, our parents separated. My mom, two sisters, and I would spend many years in our kitchen talking over the vibrational whir of the washer and the thunderous tumbling of the dryer. At dinnertime, she’d stop the machines mid-cycle so we could have some quiet conversation. Even after working twelve hours a day, six days a week, our mom always made time to sit at the kitchen table and ask about our day. The image of her reaching over to pull open the dryer door, without getting out of her chair, is forever etched in my memories. 

Right there, in our groovy 70s kitchen with its loud orange and yellow geometric, metallic wallpaper and knock-off Saarinen white-round table with matching bucket chairs, hung a print of Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace. Since I was, as my mom would say, ‘the artistic one,’ I had trouble with the drawing’s simplicity. I mean, I was 12 and could draw a more lifelike image of a bouquet of flowers. It perplexed me as much as it intrigued me. As a teen, I found myself researching Pablo Picasso and the phases of his work. His earlier work was spot-on realistic. So, clearly, he knew how to draw and paint, but the influences of the time, lead him to break free from realism and delve into cubism, and, eventually, he turned to painting in a childlike manner. I also learned he painted The Bouquet of Peace in response to the peace demonstrations taking place in Stockholm in 1958.

Our kitchen table was the roundtable of our world. Under the watchful eye of The Bouquet of Peace, it’s where our single bra-burning, bellbottom-wearing, liberal-leaning mother created a safe space for her three girls to talk about anything and everything. Nothing was off-limits. It’s where she celebrated our rite of passage into womanhood, and, subsequently, where we complained about our cramps and pimples. It’s where we learned to put on makeup. It’s where we cried over boys. It’s where we talked about our mother’s limited paycheck and how, if we wanted a new pair of Jordache jeans or a new pair of Candies, we had to work for it.

The response to a piece of artwork is typically an emotional one–even if it’s no response at all. Picasso’s flowers were always waiting to greet me in the morning. I’d stare at it while eating my Cheerios. My mother loved the cheerful nature of it and how it represented a sweet gesture of one person giving to another. She shared with me how the giving of something as simple as a bouquet of flowers could bring much joy to the recipient. In those moments, my mother was teaching us the art of the giving, the art of simple beauty, and the art of appreciating art. 

So, when I noticed my sister hung that very painting in her laundry room, it bothered me. Why would she choose to hang a significant piece from our childhood in such an obscure place? Then…BAM!!! It hit me. My sister got it right. It was the perfect place, right next to the whoosh of washer and the melodic tumbling of the dryer. Like I said, I love when that happens.

As the Pandemic Slogs On, Teens Hit Hard

by

Our Writer Finds Out How She & Her Peers Can Stay Strong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never thought that of all the worries that come along with being a teenager, being able to see friends, eating inside at restaurants, and going to school would make it to the top of my list. But when the pandemic hit, these things I took for granted were abruptly taken away. Each phase of the pandemic brought a new worry. I don’t know which was worse: the beginning when everyone was in strict isolation, or the period when things slowly started to re-open and everyone held different definitions of what the “right” or “safe” thing to do was. 

Either way, we were faced with issues that were definitely not the normal stresses that come along with being a teenager. Amidst the lack of social interactions and the scares that came when waking up with a sore throat, many faced new or aggravated mental health struggles. On top of normal worries about Covid, we had to miss out on monumental moments of our social so many lives, education, and just simply growing up. 

Once reality settled in during the initial lockdown, any feelings of excitement about a two week break from school quickly died down. “The beginning of online school was kind of exciting, but as it went on it was like… how much longer is this gonna go on for? Where are my friends? Where are any other people besides my family?” said one Horace Greeley high school student. 

Loneliness began to creep up on people. “Being inside and alone for so long definitely did not help my mental health,” said another Greeley student. These feelings of loneliness and anxiety were, and still are, completely normal. Humans have never been creatures that deal particularly well with change, and with a change as big as a global pandemic, we need to cut ourselves some slack.

During this first wave many were unsure of how to cope and what to do with their time. “I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t do much during the lockdown. I didn’t really find anything that helped me,” said a Greeley student. Another said “I sat in my room all day which definitely did not help my mental health.” Teens being in isolation during some of the most vital years of their development was difficult to say the least.

In a CNN segment, Michael Smerconish said that he’s “worried about kids being educated remotely and losing out on a whole host of social dynamics. What you can’t get in the remote world are the life lessons, the human interactions, the forging of relationships.”

However, things started to look up as people were getting vaccinated, returning to school in person, and finally spending time together. Even though I am a sophomore, returning to school this year full time in person felt like my first real year of high school. The level of focus and material I’m learning has improved drastically. I even had a teacher thank a kid for talking and laughing over them because they missed that realness after a year of silence and stiffness on Zoom. 

Another Greeley student said that “it is good to get to see people and actually learn.” For most, it seemed the only thing that kept them sane was getting back to in-person schooling and seeing their friends. Smerconish shared that he felt it was unfair that kids are “bearing the brunt of Covid even though most infected children are at much less risk of becoming severely ill,” and therefore, “anytime society is contemplating a response to Covid, their needs need to be prioritized.” While maintaining safety throughout Covid is extremely important, it is also important to prioritize kids’ mental health.  

Horace Greeley psychologist Dr. McAuliffe shared insightful advice to help students remain hopeful. “In general, choosing to have an optimistic attitude, to believe things will work out helps. Believing in your ability to handle hard situations also contributes to an attitude where students can engage in managing their challenges rather than overly worrying about things. The truth is, we all will get through this and overly worrying robs people of the ability to solve problems.”

While many aspects of teens’ mental health have been hurt due to the pandemic, I also think that after going through this experience, teens came out more resilient than ever. Aside from learning about masks, social distancing, and quarantining, we also learned to adjust, grow, and deal with change. 

“I continue to be amazed how well kids cope with this in general, despite the fact that this is a really hard situation,” said Dr. McAuliffe.  I’m optimistic that we can use the strength we have gained, remain hopeful, and, as said by Dr. McAuliffe, “persist, persist, persist.”

Service to the Community

by

Tuan Anh Dang, here with his mom Huong Giang Nguyen at Crabtree’s Kittle House shortly before receiving the Rotary’s Student Community Service Award and a Rotary Scholarship.  Photo by Grace Bennett/Inside Press

My first American role model was ‘Eric’–I met him when I was just 10 and he was a lanky 19-year-old studying at UCSB. Though he might be glossed over by some as just another college student, to my English as a Second Language (ESL) classmates and me, he became our guide to the outside world. Despite not having a single language in common (Spanish, Chinese, German, Vietnamese) among ourselves, Eric still somehow managed to teach us all English. Through Apples to Apples, he gave us a basic vocabulary (and uncontrollable laughter–the universal language) that we could build upon. While trying to help us integrate into the broader community, he created one right within that class. Even after the course ended, people in that class remained some of my closest friends after elementary school and throughout middle school. We kept in contact even after some of us had to return to our home countries.

I am not sure if Eric knew that he had just fostered a dozen children and made us all feel at home in this foreign country for the first time. Inspired by Eric, I strive to pay the favor forward to other immigrant children by teaching ESL classes at Neighbors Link. In their confused eyes, I see my younger self who was equally perplexed by this odd world. Unable to communicate, there is no doubt that these children are feeling alone amongst their peers, just as I did. 

Whenever I see this uncertain look in their eyes, it just drives me harder to help these children feel like a part of the community–not apart from it. Of all the children I tutor, eight-year-old Angel is the most difficult; yet he is the person I look forward to seeing every day. When he hurls books in frustration, I gently remind him, “These are the same words I once struggled with.” I want Angel to know that I will struggle through these words again for him.

In my sophomore year, as the Westchester County representative to Youth to Youth International, a youth leadership training camp, I learned leadership skills required to organize a community-based drug prevention program that focuses primarily on middle school and high school students. I met remarkable people with incredible stories of resilience as they fought their addictions to become coalition leaders. A common thread connecting their stories is the importance of communities in overcoming these substances, whether faith-based or a group of users struggling together. My peer leaders showed me the optimism and dedication it took to maintain a community in which everyone needed to believe the goal is achievable. This belief proved to be essential during a summer internship at our local New Castle United for Youth where I organized events with the goal of creating a support network that extends to all those who seek help in our town. 

Through high school, I learned how to be someone my brother can confide to about his mental health; how to be a teacher who the children in my English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) class can expect to not give up on them, even during the most difficult readings; and how to be a non-judgmental friend who can be turned to for advice with substance-problems. 

Through these experiences, I can say that trust is not a ‘thing,’ but an action. It is a vulnerable act of giving something one values, knowing that person will take good care of it like they always had. It is the highest honor someone can be given by their loved ones–no wonder my grandma emphasized its importance so much. Trust is not a one-way street. Just like how my parents, brother, students, and peers rely on me, I am sure that they will be there when I need them. Most importantly, I can trust myself to be trusted.

“Kə’myōōnədē”, the word that would not roll off my tongue when I first came to America has now become my favorite. Whether it is in school or in town, I look for communities everywhere. After all, they are what hold us together. 

Editor’s Note: Dang was honored on June 30th at Crabtree’s Kittle House with the Chappaqua Rotary Club’s Student Community Service Award; in addition, two-term Rotary president Eileen Gallagher–who received the Paul Harris service award the same day–presented Dang with a $1000 scholarship from the Rotary for his outstanding achievement and dedication to ‘Service above Self’.