April 2008

Editor's Note

I’m sitting at my computer late at night while my family sleeps. As I sip my tea and stare at the computer screen, I am remembering a letter written to Seattle’s Child years ago, from a mom living in a rural part of the Midwest. Somehow, in that pre-Internet era, she’d gotten her hands on an article we’d published about parents’ efforts to monitor their teenagers’ use of alcohol.

Feeling isolated and scared by the risk-taking behavior she was sensing in her 16-year-old son, she thanked us for the article’s concrete recommendations for coping with this high-stakes parenting challenge. Although I was pleased that the article had been helpful to her, what really stuck in my mind for all these years was how she described herself --writing the letter late at night, sleepless with worries about her son, grateful for the advice, but above all starved for the company of fellow worried parents. She was deeply appreciative of the honesty of the parents who opened up in the article about their experiences around their children’s drinking, in a way moms and dads in her small community were not comfortable doing. Needless to say, this all took place before the word “blog” existed.

For months we’ve been working on the new Seattle’s Child website, set to launch (if all goes according to plan) April 4. If our site is successful, we will have created a virtual “town square”, where what we share in common – a love for our children and desire to create a community in which they can will be safe and thrive – is our meeting ground.

While I’ve worked on the site, thinking about how we can construct it in such a way that it weaves together all the threads of interests, questions, worries and dreams around parenting in our community, a favorite quote of my mother’s comes to mind. It is from the book “Howard’s End” by E.M. Forster and the character Margaret Schlegal extolls the importance of connecting to each other with our hearts as well as our minds:

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”

Lofty and romantic words for website construction and a century long stretch from the intention of the writer penning his 1910 novel, I admit, but nevertheless I extend the invitation:

We’ll supply the meeting place at www.seattleschild.com. Join us there, with your words and passion for your kids. When we connect, who knows where it will take us?

Ann Bergman, Editor/Publisher
abergman@seattleschild.com

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Seattle's Child, a publication of the Washington Post Company
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