Transcription of Kate Braestrup for the show Wellness from Within #224
Dr. Lisa: Today, it is my great pleasure to have back in the studio an individual who has written books that I really love. It’s just so thrilling to be able to hang out with her again. This is author Kate Braestrup who is a community minister, chaplain to the Maine Game Wardens Service and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Here if You Need Me. Her other works include Marriage and Other Acts of Charity and Beginner’s Grace: Bringing Prayer to Life. Her latest book is Anchor and Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service. Thanks so much for being back with us again.
Kate: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Now, Anchor and Flares. Tell me a little bit about that title.
Kate: The title comes from the instructions for what you’re supposed to take with you if you’re heading out on a voyage. The minimum safety requirements. You’re supposed to have an anchor so you can stop and you’re supposed to have a flare so you can attract attention. This actually wasn’t my original idea for a title. There was a lot of discussion about it. I was routing for the title 10-8, the number 10-8, because in Maine, law enforcement numerical code 10-8 means available for service. One of the themes of the book that I wrote my way to was how I defined an adult. What does it mean to be an adult in the world? I decided an adult is 10-8. An adult is available for service.
Dr. Lisa: Specifically, a parent of adults.
Kate: Yeah, parents are definitely 10-8 but at some point and for those listeners with young children, I can tell you this does happen but eventually your children become adults and because I have six, counting my stepchildren, four of them are mine, two of them are my stepchildren, and they all line up like stair steps in terms of age. One after another starting with my oldest son, Zach, they cross that threshold and became adults, and I think of it as each of them has gone 10-8. Each of them has become available for service in the world. The youngest has now done it too which is pretty neat though.
Dr. Lisa: My two oldest children are 22 and almost 20.
Kate: There you go. They’re still right down the edge.
Dr. Lisa: They’re right on that edge, right.
Kate: Exactly.
Dr. Lisa: Then, I have a 14-year-old. She’s just gotten out of the kids’ stage. It does seem as if the way that one parent really shifts over time, and yet you never stop actually parenting.
Kate: No. In fact, not too long ago, I was crossing the street with my youngest child, Willy, who is my little baby, and we’re crossing, and we were stepping out into the road in Rockland. There was a line of parked cars, and there’s the crosswalk. Naturally, we’re crossing at the crosswalk where it’s safe, and I stepped forward, and I put my hand back to hold my daughter back until I could make sure no cars were coming. She was 22 years old. She was a police officer in uniform. She was carrying a gun. Yeah, there’s some things that just they’re reflexes. They don’t change.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, I’m laughing because I feel exactly the same way about my own 22-year-old who has been out in the world and has traveled to South America and Europe, but still feel protective. It’s just a thing.
Kate: You can’t stop. It’s okay.
Dr. Lisa: It makes me think about my own parents and how they must feel about me, and of course, I feel like I’m such a big old lady now, legs, heavy …
Kate: Right, exactly. We’re the grownups.
Dr. Lisa: Exactly. Some of the conflicts that I found interesting in your book specifically included Willy becoming a police officer, for one, because your first husband and Willy’s father died in 1996 in the line of duty as a state trooper. Also, the conflict of your son joining the US Marines.
Kate: Yes, in 2004 which is not a good moment.
Dr. Lisa: Right, and I believe you consider yourself to be a pacifist.
Kate: Relatively. I certainly …
Dr. Lisa: That’s probably evolved, of course.
Kate: Yeah, it was certainly very challenging. I’d like to think actually that I had a more principled objection really than just when Zach first approached me about it, it had never occurred to me. Given that there were two wars going on, wars that I had opinions about, given that my father had been a marine, my husband obviously had been a state trooper which is not military but it’s paramilitary in a way, and given that I work in uniform with uniformed police officers who carry guns and all of that sort of thing, you would think that I would have evolved a better, more coherent view of my own children’s responsibilities and vulnerabilities to violence in the world, as well as just violence in our community, let’s say, but I hadn’t. It really had not occurred to me that one of my children would want to do this.
In my defense, he was only 16 maybe, going on 17 when it came up. We hadn’t really gotten that far. We were only just beginning to think about college and those sort of things. The college was definitely my plan. When he joined the marines, it was a real struggle partly because he joined and I always want to call it the early admission, but it’s delayed entry, the delayed entry program which meant you join, you sign up while you’re still too young to do it, and they prepare you for boot camp. Your recruiter works with you getting you ready for boot camp which is actually a good thing but it meant that I had to sign the paperwork, and that was a real struggle. I have never had such a hard time signing my name ever or taken so long to do it.
Dr. Lisa: That is the interesting thing that happens and that he ranged. Whether it is having some influence over where your child goes to college perhaps because you’re footing the bill or whether you’re signing your name to something that says it’s okay for him to fight for his country, that’s always the challenge is they have their own responsibility, and their own free will, and their determinations.
Kate: Their own trajectory in life which is one of the things it was strange, and one of the reasons I wrote the book really is that I felt as though I had not really anticipated that that transition from child to adult was going to be as difficult for them, as complex a task for them, and as difficult for me as a mother or me and my husband as parents. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me but maybe because childcare books tend to go up to a certain point, and they stop.
The assumption was always take care of the kid until they’re 18, you send them off to college, and then you’re done or they go to work and you’re done, but whatever, you’re done. They have to cross the threshold. You can’t do it for them. In a lot of ways, you can’t even help all that much. That’s really what’s tricky is realizing that this is something they have to pick up, and carry, and go on with. In fact, that’s the glory of it is seeing them do it but it’s hard. It’s definitely hard, and I definitely learned with kid number one as it turned out really what that looks like.
One of the big lessons was that our children aren’t safe, and we’ve spent so much time and energy trying to keep them safe and they’re not safe. They weren’t completely safe before they became adults and went off into the world but once they’re out in the world, they’re subject to all of the harms, and hurts, and heartbreaks that have happened to us as adults. As my son had to point out to me often, “But you do this, you managed this, you handled this. Why do you think that I can’t or shouldn’t?
Dr. Lisa: I was really struck by the story you told about the way that the citizens of Denmark dealt with the Jewish population during World War II, and that ultimately only 60 Jews ended up losing their lives.
Kate: Danish Jews.
Dr. Lisa: Danish Jews. You compared the people of Denmark to game wardens because there was some element of, I guess, the personality is that we’re generated in this culture that cause them to believe that in some way, everybody is worthy of being cared for. Everybody is worthy of having a life.
Kate: Yeah, and being protected, and being rescued if necessary. Yeah, I grew up with that story because my father’s family emigrated from Denmark and we had relatives who actually participated in the resistance and the rescue. It was always a point of pride to me when I was little that I was half Danish and I think I almost thought that it meant genetically. I was immune from cowardice, or moral turpitude, or something. That I had this genetic advantage which of course is untrue.
If you’re talking genetics, Denmark and Germany are virtually identical. They are identical. We have to say virtually because the Danes like to think that we’re a distinct people but the reality is it’s all one gene pool. Really, it had to do with the culture, and the decisions that were made, and the attitude that had been cultivated about the worth of human beings regardless of the things that were, at the time, dividing human beings all over the place, including in the United States and everywhere else.
This was, for me, a touch stone story in my life. Of course, I raised my children with it. Low and behold, it turned out they listened to me because the willingness to risk yourself in the name of human solidarity and love was part of what made Zach joined the marines too, that service, especially in extreme circumstances but really, service period always risk the self. There’s no way to serve without risking yourself. It was one of the many moments in my motherhood where I realized, “Shoot, my kids listened to me. Dang.”
Dr. Lisa: One of the stories that I found particularly interesting was about a man who lost his son which, of course, happens unfortunately all the time with the work that you do. You see people who lose their children but this person was not necessarily the easiest individual to love. He, in fact, had been violent towards people around him and at the same time, he still lost his son. What you’re describing as far as service, I think it is that next level. It is not just willing to take care of the people that we like. It’s being willing to take care of really anybody. Some people, we may not like at all.
Kate: With good reason.
Dr. Lisa: Right.
Kate: That is one of the things that I find so compelling about working with Maine’s game wardens is that the way they respond and the intensity and energy they put into trying to help people isn’t conditioned by who the victim is, that it really is essentially unconditional. You don’t have to deserve it. It is a kind of grace that the wardens give and really, they’re giving it on behalf of all of us. We are fielding them. We’re funding this project that’s really directed at anybody who needs help which is a pretty extraordinary thing and it’s something that whenever we discuss … as a society, we discuss privatizing law enforcement, locking ourselves into gated communities so that not hiring our own armed guards to protect us or whatever. I really think about how basic a publicly funded law enforcement agency really is, how basic that is to all of our freedom and all of our human dignity.
Dr. Lisa: I think that’s true. I don’t believe the answer has ever been lock yourself away because the more that you build walls around yourself, the more that the threats will change. Especially in today’s world, the things that have brought our country to its knees really were, at least to most of us, completely unforeseen. You can deal with one visible threat but there’s another one that comes that you can’t really prevent. There is always going to be a need for someone on the front lines who is willing to engage.
Kate: That willingness to put yourself in harm’s way on behalf of other people is really pretty impressive. We get to take it for granted. We really do. I get to walk around thinking of myself as a nonviolent person because there are people willing to use violence on my behalf. I get to call 911, and someone will show up, and try to fix it, and try to help. There are moments in the book that I described realizing that again and again.
One is going to the firearms training with new game wardens. These game wardens, by and large, are drawn from a population that’s already familiar with firearms. They hunt. Several of them had been in the military. They have a comfort level with guns that I, even after 15 years in this job, I just don’t have. I try. I really try to feel affectionate towards guns and I just can’t. They always just seem loud and dangerous especially if I am holding them but I did try. I fire off a few rounds, and make a mess of a paper target, and try to feel much so, but the end result, what I realized was when I was with them was that they’re practicing because people will try to shoot them. They’re practicing so that they can go into situations on our behalf where people will be targeting them. This year especially, that was extremely clear.
I realized my impulse when I’m with them is when the firearms instructors yells “Threat,” which is what they do to have them respond, my immediate impulse was to jump in front of them just like trying to hold Willy back from walking into the road. They’re about my children’s age, and I react to them like a mother, and my physical sensation was I wanted to leap in front of these young armed men so that nobody could hurt them, and having to step back and realize “No. Actually, they have to go out in front of me.” That’s true of my son too and true of all my children really, and in the sense that I am getting old, and it’s now true of my little baby daughter that’s he stands between me and the threat now.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, that’s a tough one because it’s not even just that you can’t protect them because things are dangerous but they are putting themselves in places where they’re almost … I don’t know that they’re seeking danger but they’re engaging in a much bigger way.
Kate: Right, they’ve made it their task. I don’t even just mean bullets. There’s that. Fortunately, those are still relatively rare but even there’s the psychological danger of being exposed to suffering and to being exposed to evil. My daughter, at the moment, is working for the computer crime scene which means she investigates child pornography, which means she has to look at child pornography. She has to be exposed to evil on that level. I don’t know how she does it. I made her a little icon for her birthday of Ceres, the Greek goddess who goes into the underworld to rescue Persephone. I told her that’s what she’s doing. She’s going into the underworld to rescue, and that’s very impressive to me.
I don’t know what you call that, spiritual danger, psychological danger, and then there’s moral danger. They’re risking doing something wrong. When a police officer screws up, people can die like a doctor or my stepdaughter who is an intensive care unit nurse. If she makes a mistake, someone could die, and that’s not true of me. That’s not true of most of us. It’s a moral danger that they expose themselves to in order to serve.
Dr. Lisa: This idea of having a frontline is an interesting one because it is easy to decide that you don’t want to be in military yourself, but then somebody is going to be in the military. I remember a patient coming in to tell me that just the psychological of being in the draft during the Vietnam War, just the psychological impact of possibly having your number up every single day was so formative for his young adult years that it makes me really grateful for the people who sign up so that we don’t …
Kate: Who volunteer.
Dr. Lisa: Who volunteer so that we don’t have to have an entire nation of, in this country, young men who end up needing to possibly go into war.
Kate: Virtually, all countries, it’s young men. There are very few countries that women serve in combat in any real sense, and there’s a reason for that. I think one of the many ways that we don’t see and take for granted the service of others is that I think we are encouraged now not to notice the service of men. We’re encouraged not even to notice the service of our husbands, brothers, sons. If there’s a weird noise downstairs in the middle of the night, it’s my husband’s job to check it out. It just is.
Once I was walking down the street with my husband before we were married here in Portland, and a guy was coming towards us, and I don’t know what his problem was but he was in a cowering rage, so he was flailing around, and screeching, and kicking garbage cans, and whatever. He was walking down the sidewalk toward us, and we were just going to walk by him, and the whole thing took maybe three seconds but as we pass by him, my husband without even consciously doing this, turned his body so that he was between me and this man. The man went by, and he went around the corner, and that was the end of it.
My husband didn’t even realize that he’d done it. I realized afterwards, I told him, I recognized that he’d done it because one thing about losing a husband is you tend to notice husband stuff when you see it, I noticed it, and I said thank you to him, but I also realized had he turned his body so that I was between him and the threat, the relationship would not have lasted very long. The reality is the expectation is still there, and those of us who count ourselves feminist should not let that blind us to that. We do expect young men to put their bodies in harm’s way, young men, old men, all men for us. That isn’t because it doesn’t hurt when they get hit and it doesn’t mean that they’re any less likely to die than we are. It’s that they’re stronger and historically, they’ve been considered expendable.
Dr. Lisa: I am thinking about my son, my 22-year-old.
Kate: I know.
Dr. Lisa: I was, in my family, the oldest of ten, and the first four of us were girls. My relationship with my five brothers is very different than my relationship eventually did become with my son. I think it has come to not only as if the men are asked to protect in many cases but also provide. These are roles that despite the fact that women are in the workplace, and women are in the military, and women are also protecting and providing, this is still something that is deeply enculturated. I think that women were, when we were, I don’t know, I guess released out into the world more avidly, this never went away.
Kate: No. What did go away may be … I don’t know. I am always suspicious of attempts to hearken back to some better day because when you go back, it never really looks that great close up. I would say going forward, one of the things that women could do is be more appreciative of what we, in fact, still ask men to do for us. We could be a little more appreciative of it. If nothing else, we could stop making those eye rolling remarks about men that are considered okay and polite company, and ought not to be.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, that’s true. I think it’s far less likely that one could get away with making an eye rolling remark about women.
Kate: Oh my gosh. You think?
Dr. Lisa: No. Doesn’t it come back to, again, this thing that you described about the nation of Denmark? Just that we all have intrinsic value as human beings, and perhaps some of us will choose one role, some of us would choose a different role, some of us have roles that have been modified based on our genders, but there is a value that each of us has.
Kate: Yeah, and actually, each of us has multiple capabilities. If I’m the only person in the house with the children, let’s say, when they were young, and there’s a weird noise downstairs, then it’s my job. In fact, when I’m in a room full of women, if something happens that seems threatening, I am usually the one that takes on the protective role. I don’t know why. Probably because I hang around law enforcements. I am channeling them somehow. It isn’t that we don’t have it, or that women can’t be protective, or in fact aren’t expected to be and have to be protective, including self-protective. It’s not that.
All of it really is about seeing. It’s about the willingness to see, and our ideas and theories of how things can get in the way of seeing. We can shift the lens that lets us see one thing really clearly but it tends to blur out other things. It’s important, I think, to shift the lens periodically and make sure you’re not missing anything that really matters or anyone that really matters.
Dr. Lisa: How can people find out about the work that you’re doing including Anchor and Flares, and Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service?
Kate: They can go to my website which is just katebraestrup.com. It would probably be the easiest way.
Dr. Lisa: I appreciate the time that you’ve taken to consider what you’ve seen in your life not only as a mother but as a community minister chaplain to the Maine game warden service author. I think that considering one’s life and taking the time to write it down and sharing this with other people, I think it’s important. I very much enjoy your works, and every time one comes out, I think, “Okay, this would be my morning read for the next few weeks.”
Kate: Thank you. Good, I’m glad.