WHEN JIMMER’S AWAY

WHEN JIMMER’S AWAY WHITNEY FREDETTE ON GETTING THROUGH LONG MONTHS OF COVID-19 APART FROM HER BASKETBALL STAR HUSBAND

BY FENDI WANG

Since meeting jimmer her freshman year at BYU, Whitney Fredette has supported her husband through an extraordinary disciplinarian, put them to bed, clean up breakfast, do the laundry. All of these little tasks add up. My biggest priority is making sure my children professional basketball career for over a decade. She has watched his wins, get one-on-one time with me. As easy as it is to plop them in front of the losses and — above all — ability to adapt. In 2016, Jimmer signed with the TV, which I do sometimes, I make sure to carve out intentional time to Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association, placing him in do things that are fun for them, like riding a bike or a scooter. It’s such a China for a portion of every year and introducing an unconventional chal- quick and fleeting time that your kids are home and little. lenge for her and their two young children. Experiencing a new country The Chinese culture is phenomenal

At the time of interview, Whitney had not seen Jimmer in over six and the people are amazing. Something I love and admire is how importmonths due to travel restrictions related to the pandemic; they usually ant family is to them. There are obstacles like language barriers, but it’s all spend no more than six to eight weeks apart. Fortunately, the family re- worth it. I love giving our kids the opportunity to immerse themselves in united in their Colorado home in mid-April. a different language, different food, something other than what they see

Here’s what she’s learned through it all. every day in Colorado. It sounds cliche, but it provides such a wonderful Being in the spotlight I’ll admit, in the beginning, during the peak perspective on how lucky we are as a family. of Jimmer’s popularity when he first got drafted into the NBA, it was The importance of self-care In order to be a great parent you need obnoxious. We couldn’t go places, we couldn’t do anything. I remember to focus on yourself, too. I’m a better mom if I’ve had an hour to myself to thinking I didn’t want to deal with this for the rest of my life. As time go to the gym or grocery shopping or walk my dog and enjoy some peace went on, it’s become better. Now the people who want to talk to him and and quiet. “Me” time is just as important as time with your kids, if not more shake his hand are genuine fans. We live in Colorado where there is less of important. That’s where my mom steps in. I’m fortunate to live 15 minutes a Latter-day Saint community than in Utah, so I think people recognize away from my parents. I don’t think I could do it if I didn’t have her. his name but may not know more than that. Faith as a guide The concept of the eternal perspective is always in Dealing with distance It’s very difficult. I like to keep my plate filled the back of my mind, especially when Jimmer is gone for long weeks and so the days cruise on by, but the kids and I miss him a lot. We FaceTime months. He and I do get to be together forever, and time apart is such a every day. We support him because it is a great career, a way for him to small little blip on the radar. Prayer is huge for us, too. support our family, and he’s a talented basketball player who loves what What the future holds As our children grow older, Jimmer will close he does. Knowing there are six months offseason when Jimmer is home out his basketball career so he can spend more time with the family. We’re with us every single day, all day, makes the times he’s gone a little easier. fortunate that he has business opportunities lined up, so it’ll be a pretty We have an end in sight, and it’s not like this is forever. seamless transition. It’s weird to think about that chapter coming to an Motherhood Raising our children without Jimmer half of the time has end because basketball has been in his life for as long as I’ve known him, been difficult because everything falls on my shoulders. I have to be the but it’s in the future — the soon future.

THE LIFE-AFFIRMING POWER OF THE FAMILY REUNION

IT’S MORE THAN ASSORTED SALADS AND GAMES — IT’S ABOUT BUILDING STRONGER BONDS

BY LAUREN STEELE

Suzanne vargus holloman attended her first family reunion in 1980, when she was in her mid-20s. She didn’t play hideand-seek with her cousins in the grassy fields and old growth forests of Pennsylvania where she grew up, or get a special toy for winning a wheelbarrow race. But she did see an uplifting change in the family.

“At our first family reunion I saw the impact it had on the young men,” Holloman, codirector of the Family Reunion Institute, recalls. She says that the men were affirmed by the extended family in ways they hadn’t been before. Feelings that they weren’t living up to the family’s expectations or didn’t have the support they needed were replaced with assurance and love. “The way they carried themselves and the self-confidence they had when they left that reunion — you could see it.”

After that experience, Holloman and her mother, Dr. Ione Vargus, had questions. Namely, “is this phenomenon just my family reunion or are all family reunions like this?” That question inspired Dr. Vargus, dean emerita of the Temple University School of Social Work, to dedicate herself to researching African American family reunions. She interviewed families from the eastern, northern and southern parts of the United States, diving in to discover the reasons families hold reunions and the benefits reunions have for individuals. What she found is that the experience that she and her daughter, Holloman, had at their reunion was not unique in the slightest. Many families around the country were using reunions for goal-specific reasons, like building up future generations and building a strong foundation of extended support. So, in 1990, Dr. Vargus founded the Family Reunion Institute, an organization that boasts being the only one of its kind in America to focus exclusively on strengthening extended families. And while she maintains that any type of family gathering — whether it’s Sunday dinner or a barbecue — is important for passing down values, building strong bonds and passing along history, family reunions have a distinction: “Reunions are mission-centric,” she says. “It’s more than a picnic.”

Across the country, families of all backgrounds and in all regions — from the East Coast to the Pacific Northwest — hold annual reunions. More often than not, there are special T-shirts that are made and planning committees that determine the location and date of the event. Some reunions last a day, some last a weekend and some last longer. Family recipes of salads that mysteriously contain no veggies are happily (or sometimes, warily) consumed and games are played. Stories old and new are told, and family elders dote on youngsters. And while many family reunions hold space for family history to be passed down and retold, many don’t know the history of family reunions themselves.

Family reunions started after the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, Holloman says. “While people were enslaved it was very hard to keep family connections. The very system of slavery was meant to break up families. After emancipation, African American families finally gathered.” After generations of being torn apart, Black families began to put themselves back together. William Still, a wellknown abolitionist and author of “The Underground Railroad,” founded the Still Family Reunion to bring descendants of the family back together, and to pass down stories of horrors survived and freedom found. “He called them to gather on a regular basis,” Holloman says. Today, the Still Family Reunion is more than 150 years old and hosts more than 500 participants. “What has happened in general with reunions is that they’ve become a part of our cultural heritage,” Holloman says. “They contribute to the survival and progress of families with very specific goals.”

One of those goals is to impart values, which families identify and weave into the reunion’s activities. Some families place an emphasis on education, collecting donations to create scholarships that assist the kids going to college in the family. Other families have nonprofits and create chapters to raise money for charitable causes that are important to the family. Some families that Holloman and Dr. Vargus have worked with create venture capital funds to gift to family members who want to start businesses. There are even organized workshops around various topics such as retirement saving, building wealth, charitable giving and business that are held at some family reunions.

“We’ve seen reunions take shape as highly organized events and that impart values and love through growth,” Holloman says. “They are very specifically planned to help the family progress and to empower the family. And sure, they are still lots of fun, too.”

Dr. Vargus and Holloman both say that family reunions in general are something that every family can benefit from. “It’s an opportunity of families of all backgrounds and all definitions to come together and have that time of imparting love and concern and supporting each other,” Dr. Vargus says. And this summer, as families reunite for the first time — in some cases — since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, having time to spend together, to tell stories, to hug and to have intergenerational interaction will bring a much more literal meaning to “reunion” than it has in generations.

Dr. Vargus and Holloman both anticipate seeing more and larger family reunions this year and next year. “We have gotten back to basics and the importance of family,” Holloman says. “And while technology has helped us stay connected, there’s nothing like the face-to-face contact.” It, just like those family stories and lessons from our elders passed down, helps us to feel affirmed and for us to know better who we are.

THE SUMMER OF THE FREE-RANGE PARENT COOPED UP FROM COVID, KIDS NEED A LONG LEASH TO ROAM AND EXPLORE

BY NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY

When scott sampson was about 4 or 5, his mother took him to a frog pond. He scooped up several tadpoles, with their “bloblike bodies, and long, slimy, transparent tails,” he writes in his book “How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love With Nature.” Captivated by these creatures, he recalls, he waded farther into the water until it went over the tops of his boots. Sampson, who is now a paleontologist and author, says that “many years later, my mother told me that she started to object but thought better of it.” This summer, parents need to be more like Scott Sampson’s mother. It is time to silence our concerns about kids getting messy, stop following kids around with bottles of hand sanitizer and extra masks, and start letting them explore the world on their own. It’s time to embrace our inner free-range parent.

The past 16 months have been hard on children. It is not just the learning loss, though the fact that 2 million kids were missing from school this year does not bode well for future academic success. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 31% increase in mental health-related doctor’s visits for kids in 2020 compared to 2019. In an article published in February, NPR found after conducting interviews with providers in seven states that “more suicidal children are coming to their hospitals.” Dr. Vera Feuer, director of pediatric emergency psychiatry at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of Northwell Health in New York, has seen a slight increase in 10- to 11-year-olds attempting, but the majority are teenagers. The number has doubled from the fall of 2019 to the fall of 2020 at the emergency room at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, in California, says psychologist Marisol Cruz Romero. Kids have suffered from the isolation of the lockdowns — and many are looking forward to going back into the world — but a year of being at home has also instigated or

exacerbated anxiety about social situations for many children.

As parents, we need to use this summer to get things back to normal, says Lenore Skenazy, but not just pre-COVID-19 normal, pre-helicopter parenting normal. Skenazy, the founder of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, says that she doesn’t blame parents for their hovering, especially not this year. “It’s the culture that does this.” A recent study in England, for instance, found that over the course of one generation the age at which parents think it’s OK to let kids play outside by themselves has increased from 9 to 11. “Eleven? That’s a year younger than Juliet when she married Romeo,” Skenazy jokes. As Anita Grant, chair of a group called Play England, told the Guardian: “Adults’ protective instincts are not helpful when they restrict and control exploration, creativity and a child’s natural instinct to engage with their environment freely.”

Even before the pandemic many parents were searching for perfect safety for their children. Accepting even the smallest risk became intolerable and COVID-19 made that worse. It’s nothing short of a miracle that this disease has not affected children very much at all. Kids ages 1 to 17 are more likely to die from — among other things — cancer, the flu and heart disease. How much effort do you devote to preventing your kids from contracting these other illnesses? Never mind. Don’t start thinking about it now.

It’s time we started to weigh all the risks to kids instead of just the ones in the headlines. The risk to kids from obesity, depression, anxiety that have come from keeping them home, in front of screens and 3 feet from the refrigerator far outweighs the risks of sending them to play with their friends outside.

And Skenazy says: “If we’re worried about social emotional growth for kids after this year, nothing turns the key in the ignition better than independence.” So have your kids climb a tree, play outside with friends or go to

IT IS TIME TO SILENCE OUR CONCERNS ABOUT KIDS GETTING MESSY, STOP FOLLOWING KIDS AROUND AND START LETTING THEM EXPLORE THE WORLD ON THEIR OWN.

a store alone. Tell them to come home when the streetlights come on — or if they really have to use the bathroom.

Or send them to camp. “Kids really need badly what most camps have to offer right now,” says Audrey Monke, author of “Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults.” Getting kids outdoors and ensuring they have lots of face-to-face contact with other kids and young counselors is really important for putting them back on track to physical and emotional health. Monke is a big fan of sleepaway camp and has been running one for 35 years. She says that being away from parents for a few weeks allows kids to “form their own relationships, speak for themselves and make their own decisions.” Even something as simple as deciding whether they want vanilla yogurt or strawberry or whether they want to make a friendship bracelet or try ceramics is important. “Parents in the rush of life these days make all those choices for kids,” says Monke. This need for efficiency — “Just eat the flipping yogurt already!” — may sound familiar to anyone trying to juggle home-schooling with a job this past year.

Along those lines, Monke says there is another reason that kids should go away to camp this year. “Parents are fried and they need a break.” Maybe it sounds selfish, but Monke says, “Breaks are important to a parent-child relationship. You miss each other. You realize you can do some things on your own.” And then after a few weeks “you can be refreshed and ready for more family time.”