Please note: I've moved my ongoing blog/newsletter to The Stoic Mom Substack. Check it out and subscribe for free!​

​Happy New Year! Today, I’m taking a trip down memory lane to when my first child was born, and it’s reminding me about something that helped sustain me during those early days: new friendships that offered mutual support. It’s a side of parenting folks don’t talk about as much as childcare itself, but that definitely merits our attention. (Let’s not let ‘old acquaintance be forgot’!)

In the beginning, my mom friends and I always joked about how crazy it is that no one gives you a manual when you take home a newborn baby. As if a days-old infant is easier to handle than a microwave! On top of all the physical issues that come with giving birth to a newborn, new mothers also deal with a whole range of questions and concerns about how to keep their babies safe, fed, and rested. 

And while some things about infant care feel intuitive, most of it is pretty confusing… and all of it is up for debate when you start reading books, magazines, and social media.

And on top of THAT, in our society, new parents and their newborns are often cut off from all they knew before. You have a baby and go on parental leave/stop working—and lose your work community (at least temporarily). You stop going out—and lose your local community (again, for a period). You stop seeing friends who don’t want to be around babies, and lose some of them for good. Your family may live far away, or may visit and then go away again.

So many reasons to feel that you’re isolated and alone with an infant needing round the clock care.  

To counteract this isolation and sense of uncertainty, after my first child was born, I joined a moms’ club. And then I quickly joined a second one. (I would have been happy to be part of any parent or caregiver organization, but when my child was born—a child who is a teen now—mothers’ groups were what I could find locally.) In my small living room, I hosted about 10 other mothers and their infants, all spread out in a circle on their tummies on the carpet. We compared notes on how we were surviving with 24/7 care needs, how nursing was going (or not going) and how we were dealing with our own physical recovery.

The group I spent the most time with was Las Madres, a longstanding local moms’ club in my neck of the woods. I recall my first club meeting. I found myself with my infant in a carrier walking into a Las Madres meeting in another parent’s home, and seeing folks cradling their infants in various stages of wakefulness. I walked up to another mom holding a baby that looked about 3 months older than my little one. It turned out hers (a boy) was about 6 months old, and mine (a girl) was about 3 months old. We started to talk, and later formed part of a playgroup for our infants and then toddlers. The babies were too young to interact at first—parallel play or just playing with their own feet was the extent of it. Later on they started sharing toys. But really, the playdates were for the parents. That mom has since become one of my closest friends for the past 17 years.

The bonding among new parents extended to “Moms’ Night Out” evenings organized by club members at local inexpensive eateries or cafes. We’d leave our infants at home with another caregiver, and join the group chatting about anything and everything, but mostly about our babies. I looked around at the people at the table, realizing how unusual it was to be part of a social group with folks I had nothing in common with other than our babies were born around the same time. The group encompassed a cross-section of mothers with questions like my own. The bonding was real—we were in the trenches of new parenthood, and there for each other to talk about sleep patterns, breastfeeding tricks, fighting off infections, coping with returning to work, and more.

Today I look back on those days with nostalgia. I’m thankful for that time. I am not sure if the mothers’ clubs I was part of a number of years back are as vibrant today, now that social media has grown even more prevalent for answering our baby-related questions, and since the pandemic stifled so many social activities for a long period. But I hope they are, and that they encompass any new parent or caregiver who wants mutual support.

All this leads me to say that we owe it to ourselves to form these kinds of friendships if we can. As Stoics, we don’t rely on other people exclusively to get us through tough times—we do that for ourselves. But there is a very important value to making and keeping friends through difficult times. We seek to find those people who inspire us to become even better. 

As Epictetus said, we should keep company with those who uplift us, and “whose presence calls forth your best.” The friends I made as a new mother did that, and the handful of folks I’ve kept ties with from that period have been there over the long haul—through medical challenges and house moves and changing jobs and shifting relationships and everything else.

Over the years, the questions about our kids change, and so do our lives as we move past infant care into many other phases. But the desire for this kind of friendship persists, and those who have been with us through the parenting journey occupy a special place.

As Seneca put it: 
Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship, but when you have decided to admit her, welcome her with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with her as with yourself… Regard her as loyal, and you will make her loyal.
- Moral Letters, “On True and False Friendship,” adapted by me

Here’s to a new year of old friends—and new ones! Please feel free to share your parenting friendship stories in the comments, and wishing you a happy and healthy 2023!

Please note: I've moved my ongoing blog/newsletter to The Stoic Mom Substack. Check it out and subscribe for free!​

I’ve been watching the History channel series Colosseum, which explores how the huge arena played a role in solidifying power and influence in ancient Rome. The show is filled with computer-generated imagery of ancient Rome, actors playing gladiators and gladiatrixes, beast masters, Roman leaders, and victims of the Colosseum’s violence, with historians to give it all context.


What I did not expect to find in this depiction of Roman “bread and circuses” was a glaring example of a Stoic parenting fail: The Emperor Commodus, son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. His story is a cautionary tale to all Stoic parents.

Marcus Aurelius was the model Stoic. He had been educated by Stoic teachers. He personified the Stoic virtues, and his poetic and personal writing about his effort to implement Stoic ideals in the Meditations still resonates with people who read it today, just as it has done throughout the centuries.

But when it came to his son Commodus, Marcus’ philosophy could not save him.

Marcus was the last of the so-called “five good emperors” of Rome during the empire’s Golden Age. He took his obligations and responsibilities extremely seriously when it came to managing the government and was celebrated for his wise judgment. He fought invaders attacking Roman holdings as well as the plague attacking his citizens. But his efforts to raise Commodus, his only son to live to adulthood and the young man who took over the empire after his death, had disastrous results.

Commodus bankrupted Rome’s treasury on elaborate, bloody contests at the Colosseum (including his own performance as a gladiator, for which he paid himself the equivalent of millions of today’s dollars), made peace with warlike enemies who promptly re-invaded Italy, and tortured and killed members of the Senate. He escaped the city when the plague ran wild, and his corrupt delegates caused an economic meltdown and famine, causing many deaths. His paranoia about being assassinated led to countless murders upon his orders. Commodus even wielded a club like his hero the mythological Hercules and used it to clobber victims brought into the Colosseum during his violent “games.”

After so much destruction, Commodus was, in fact, assassinated—killed by his own wrestling trainer on the orders of other Roman leaders who witnessed his descent into madness. (If you saw the movie The Gladiator, Commodus was the evil emperor depicted there in a fictionalized retelling, in some ways less bad than the original.) Historians point to Commodus’ rule as the dividing line between an ascendant Rome in its golden age and its long decline.

How is it possible that Commodus could have turned out to be so awful—despite being the son of such a wise father?

Whether or not Marcus thought of himself as a “Stoic parent,” he definitely wanted his son to be well educated and he surely wished to leave the empire in good hands. But he had a tough time. Even while working nonstop to fight wars on Rome’s behalf, Marcus took pains to provide excellent tutors to educate Commodus. He brought Commodus along to the military base during the wars, exposing him to what it was like to defend the empire, and then asked the great physician Galen to help protect the boy from the raging plague. Marcus also took Commodus with him on a trip to the Eastern provinces and to Athens, where they were initiated together into the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, a secret religious tradition.

But Commodus still turned out to be an irresponsible, corrupt, and murderous emperor. His temperament played a role. Commodus was a deeply flawed young man whose character was completely different from his father’s—volatile and, according to some Romans, cowardly, as well as averse to hard work. He was easily swayed by people around him. Some contemporaries in Rome thought he must have been the product of a different father, pointing out that Marcus’ wife was allegedly having affairs with gladiators.

Could Marcus have played a different and better role in his son’s upbringing? That is one of those what-if situations we’ll never really know about. He did a great deal to educate and influence Commodus, all the while managing the most powerful Mediterranean empire the world has ever seen through war and plague (which likely killed him). And it’s easy to imagine how Commodus’ enormous power went to his head as a teenage boy, no matter his upbringing. He was only 18 when his father died, leaving the empire in his hands.

I think this story demonstrates three things: First, how little control we have over our children’s temperament. Second, how much external influences outside our power can shape our offspring. Both of these elements should be familiar to Stoics: We have limits on what we are able to change, and we need to come to terms with that. 

And third, this story shows that no matter how busy or preoccupied we become with work and our own callings, we should attempt to make the time needed to raise our kids to be decent human beings. (As a corollary, we should forgive ourselves if we fail.)
​
Marcus did what he could to train Commodus, especially when he was a teen. But I’m sure that the pressures and responsibilities of running the Roman Empire at its height left little time for really getting to know and influence his son, causing him (like anyone in his role, surely) to rely instead on tutors and assistants. 

My personal takeaway from the Marcus and Commodus story is to remember to take a step back from work whenever I can to be there for my children and family. Many parents and caregivers I know have changed from full-time to part-time employment, left jobs, or opted for full-time positions that offer stability and limited hours to be able to take care of children during their formative years (realizing that not everyone has the financial flexibility or option to do so). For those who can make it work, spending time with kids in their younger years can demonstrate the value of wisdom, justice, courage, and self-control… instill caring about and helping other people (encouraging our pro-social nature as humans)… and model how to question what we think we know, and understand what’s going on below the surface (stop, drop, and question your impressions!).

All this is well and good, you may say, but how much is enough, and how much is too much time and influence on our children? During the pandemic, some parents learned the limits of what they could and wanted to do. The shutdown of many schools and daycare services demanded that caregivers spend more time teaching and helping our kids—which was sometimes very demanding, especially to parents stretched thin by many responsibilities. It was made all the more tough when in-person social contact was cut off.

In the ideal world, we’d find a middle ground. We wouldn’t leave our kids to learn everything from school and other kids and YouTube and TikTok – we’d be there to teach our values. We also wouldn’t be stuck at home continuously with our kids, serving as their only influence, cut off from everyone else. Instead, we would balance our community’s educational and social influences with family- and caregiver-instilled virtues and values.

There are lots of ways to find this path, and there’s no one right answer, but simply searching for this middle-ground way forward—and prioritizing sharing our life philosophy with ours kids and our communities in the time we do have—seems to be the rational approach to working to shape our kids into good human beings. We can also acknowledge that kids are individuals, with their own temperaments and characters, and there are limits to what parents can do to form and educate them.

Please share your thoughts on this, and any other aspects of Stoic parenting in the comments!

I'd like to begin by sharing that I've launched a Substack newsletter, where I will be sharing my posts and sending them directly to your inbox. If you've subscribed to The Stoic Mom in the past, you should be receiving the newsletter already. If not, please check it out here and subscribe for free! And now, for my latest post:

Whenever my kids are heading back to school, I have an early warning system: My stomach kicks into action, summersaulting and twisting, and I start popping Tums like there’s no tomorrow. 

(The candy-colored coated chewy ones don’t taste sooooo bad. I’ve recently used up a full jar of the stuff and am becoming a connoisseur of orange vs. pink vs. yellow. Beware the less-soft generic brands that threaten your dental work!)

This all started back when my older daughter had her very first week of kindergarten 13 years ago. I can hardly believe that as I type this: 13 years ago! 

That was before I turned to modern Stoic thinking, which I’ve now been practicing for the last 6+ years. Stoicism has definitely helped, but not completely solved these nervous feelings, which is why I’m still writing about them today.

She was a young student for kindergarten, only 4 years old. But she was bright and imaginative and bored with her part-time preschool. Plus, she made the public school kindergarten age cutoff back then (now, she wouldn’t), so we figured she would benefit from starting “real” school.

But that first morning, when I heard my daughter’s kindergarten teacher’s voice booming at the small children and watched the door closed behind her, as unsmiling parents standing around turned away from me, uninterested in any kind of mutual support—I felt a distinct churning inside. 

Our local public school, it turned out, was mostly stick and just a little carrot for the students. Treatment of kids could be harsh or humiliating. Parents were viewed by administrators as unreliable or even problematic. Communication with families was an afterthought, and conditions weren’t always supportive or even safe. At the back to school night, where “childcare would be provided” so parents could sit through a lecture about the school’s rules and regulations, care consisted of stuffing dozens of kids under the age of 6 into a single sweltering room with one person to watch them, a TV set showing a cartoon drowned out by raucous voices.

I know that the early school experience was tough on my daughters. As young kids, elementary students can't always explain what's going on. They can't always tell us their teachers are not supportive or caring, or that they feel singled out. I wish I could protect my children from everything tough, but I haven't been able to do that with their school experiences. It's hard to hear about their ups and downs (especially hearing about it much later, when there's nothing at all that can be done). But when I take a step back, I hope these tough times have been character building and strengthening for them in some ways.

But why do I feel it so much physically? As my older child starts her senior year of high school and my younger daughter begins high school this month, why do I wake up with twisting intestines? Are other parents experiencing this? 

Just the other night, my younger daughter came to my room at nearly midnight. She is generally an early to bed, early to rise person, so I was surprised. She was having trouble sleeping the night before her freshman orientation at high school. Guess what? So was I!

We chatted for a while. Nothing I said helped. But at least we could visit for a few minutes to distract our worrying minds and tense bodies. She borrowed my weighted blanket and went back to her room. In the morning, dressed in her new jeans and ready to go, she said the blanket helped her sleep. And that she felt fine. More than I can say for myself as I went back to sit down and doubled over again.

Sending our kids to school is very stressful. It starts with the page after page after page of paperwork required of families just to start the school year, along with activities and sports, in our district—which I’ve been making my way through. 

When classes actually begin, students encounter a lot of challenging stuff. It’s outside our control, setting up a classic case-in-point of how a Stoic should respond: By not wasting time and energy worrying about it. By not overidentifying. By not focusing on all the things outside our control, and staying on top of our character and that of our children. As Epictetus put it in his spitting-truth way, “When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?” (Discourses, 2.13.1)

This is the crux of Stoic parenting—trying to prepare our kids to be the best versions of themselves when coping with unpredictable and chaotic situations, and steeling ourselves to handle whatever the universe throws at us. What we want is learning, growth, enrichment, and positive social connections for our kids at school, but we have to accept that so much else may come instead—or along with it.

So it’s not easy. Most of what I think about is how will they adjust. Will it be something they can effectively handle or something that actually harms them? Also, is it safe? Not just safe from disease (including Covid, which I’m concerned could spike with all the kids in classrooms together) but also from violence? That is not a given at American schools, especially if you watch the news these days. In our system, an added layer of concern is that I am not sure what kinds of support students get at school if things do go wrong. 

I recently noticed a book title at my local store called something like “I Don’t Want to Be an Empath Anymore.” It made me chuckle and shake my head. There are days it’s just too much. Often I think I feel more stressed out for them than they feel for themselves! 

On some level, maybe I am having subtle flashbacks of my own awkward and anxious back to school days… (Maybe this is why I’ve always disliked fall, and loved spring. Subconscious brain at work?)
​
When I line up all the unknowables and sources of uncertainty or danger, my Stoic-aspiring brain reels. It makes me consider my options. Would my kids be better off homeschooled? It’s possible, but I got a taste of that during the pandemic lockdowns, and the answer for my family was no. Both my children seem to get their energy from interacting with other humans, not just their parents. They hated being at home in the pandemic. Plus I know I don’t have the ability (or time) to teach Calculus BC (though my husband helps!).

So to school it is.

And now, on top of that, my older daughter has spent some of her summer preparing to apply to colleges. Some of the schools she is aiming for are very far away. She is excited and nervous and scared and stressed. Can you guess how I feel? Another ambivalent mess. I want her to pursue her goals, but also know I’ll have some worries. I will remind myself that we are all just moving through this universe of impermanence, in the best way we can, and that we’ve prepared our kids to the best of our abilities. I turn back to Marcus Aurelius and other ancient writers for wisdom.

Do you have kids in your life going back to school? Please share your thoughts on back to school jitters for you or your kid(s) or the challenges of starting new schools!

There's a weird thing about being a mom: You can forget who you are.
 
As a parent, you struggle to recall what you wanted for just you, before you had kids. Everything becomes a calculation of how kids will react or respond to what you do, and that calculation often takes precedent over what you want for yourself. You forget how to choose for yourself.
 
This happens at a really small, granular level—I’ve asked myself, when my kids aren’t around, what foods do I really like (just me, not to share with my children)? What TV shows do I want to watch on my own, if I have the TV to myself all Sunday afternoon? What places do I like to shop, without family in tow? What vacation destination would I pick, if it were just me, or just me and my husband?
 
But it also happens at a very deep, philosophical level. Have I forgotten how to be myself? What do I want for myself? Who is the person I wanted to be, before I had kids? Who am I now?
 
I’ve been reading Who You Were Meant to Be: A Guide to Finding or Recovering Your Life’s Purpose by psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson. She helps readers think about what they are really drawn to, what interests them deeply (rather than what others want them to be interested in), what kinds of jobs they want to do, what they want their relationships to look like.

Much of her focus is on her clients who did not make life choices that they’re happy with, many of whom were influenced by controlling parents. They find that later in life, they aren’t doing well emotionally, and want to make big changes.
 
But what about those of us who are parents ourselves, and who have been shaped for the last umpteen years by our children’s needs, wishes, and personalities? It’s not that my kids are controlling me, it’s that I shifted so many aspects of my life in order to be able to care for them. That’s been true since the moment they were born, and I am not complaining! I chose to do that, making my kids my highest priority. 
 
On one hand, I would never, ever in a million years give up that shaping. It would be a cliché to say it’s kept me young at heart (and a true one). It’s made me more emotionally intelligent and aware in ways I never imagined. As a parent, you need to constantly stay flexible and shift gears on a moment’s notice, putting others’ needs before your own, dealing with crises and challenging questions and many things you wish you could avoid but have no real choice about  (currently coping with an onslaught of bureaucratic paperwork for back to school/back to sports is just one tiny example!). 
 
But on the other hand, parenting has also made me prioritize my kids and family over some of my deepest wishes for my own life. Again, I’m not complaining here. Just acknowledging. For example, I recently preferred to spend my week off work helping my daughters get ready for their summer programs, taking them to Target and Walgreens, pulling out their duffel bags, reviewing their packing lists, allaying their concerns, helping them enjoy final moments of freedom at home before heading out to new group settings… I did all this rather than working on my own writing projects. Rather than fulfilling my personal wishes, I decided to help them realize their summer dreams. I had an important motive—I wanted to soak in the little time I had with them during summer, time that feeds my soul as a mom.
 
And now both of my daughters are gone, one for just a week, and one for 4 weeks. My husband and I suddenly have the run of the house. And while we are busy working or heading out to meetings during the day, it seems normal, but suddenly, as I came home to an empty house this evening, I found myself in shock. 
 
I know this is an early taste of the “empty nest.” I thought it would be quiet and empty. But the odd thing is, more than that, I felt boring and dull and uncertain of what I would do with myself. For all this time I’d been struggling to sneak in a few minutes for my writing, between my full time job and my daughters’ needs and other family members I wanted to spend time with… and suddenly, now that I have hours to choose how to spend, I felt a sudden sense of blankness. 
 
I’ve long known that my children are separate from me. As a Stoic, I hold this knowledge close, remembering that my kids need to make their own choices, and that they have to take some responsibility for what they decide and what they do. I also understand that I have agency over myself, and I can choose to devote more of my time to my interests, especially those that uphold the virtues. However, my role as a mother takes precedence. And I genuinely love to spend time with my daughters. They are cool, interesting, fun, smart, and humorous people, who keep me guessing and laughing. They (and coffee) are my lifeblood!
 
So I’ll be missing them now, and I’ll miss them even more later. Again, Stoicism reminds us we don’t possess our children or any other humans, and that all is transient. One day we have them, another day we don’t. It’s the way of the world, and holding out for another option is absurd. I will try my best not to hold onto them, but rather to prepare them for the world, and to help them take flight in it. 
 
And I’ll work to be grateful for the time that’s allowed to me with my teens, and try to use to coach them to develop their character, their grit, wisdom, sense of service to others and confidence in themselves, their moderation in all things, and their courage. I will stay mindful of the moments we share together. And I will still always be there (as long as I am alive) to do my mom thing. To chat, to ask, to listen, to do, and to just be present. 
 
But for now, while they are away, I get the TV to myself for the next couple hours, to watch the most dry historical documentary I can find, or maybe the oldest classic movie in black and white. It seems I’ve forgotten how to decide. 

“Are we going to be OK?” I could see the look in my daughter’s eyes turn fearful as she lay on her bed holding her pillow to her chest, a distinct note of anxiety in her voice. So many things to worry about... so many concerns for a teen girl becoming a young woman to face. I felt sadness welling within me. I didn’t know how to answer, but I said, “Yes, we’ll be OK.” I needed to reassure her, though in truth I could use the reassurance myself. I, too, was struggling with how to move forward in a positive way. 
 
It has been a tough few months—years, honestly—in the US. Whether I’m talking to my teen daughters as they look with concern to the future, reading the newspaper with its page after page of stories of violence (here and abroad), or having coffee with friends who are despairing about the direction of our country, it has been challenging. 
 
In the wake of so much turmoil, I often wonder about this question: What can I do? How can my family and I make a difference when there are so many powerful forces at play and so many reasons to worry? 
 
We all know that the dichotomy of control is fundamental to the Stoic world view. There are certain things that are in our power, and many, many others that are not. When it comes to political power structures in Washington, for one, individuals have frustratingly little influence. We should vote, of course, and we should encourage others to vote. We should support causes we care about, and try our best to protect our rights and our safety by raising our voices to our leaders.
 
In reality, we can only create change in the small ways that are available to us. So let’s talk about that. In some ways, I’m writing this post to help myself and my family find a path forward with meaning and virtue. I hope you’ll read it as an effort to make even the smallest of differences. 
 
Here’s what I think we can do:

• Focus on raising our kids right, with values and with virtues. Make sure they know they are accountable for what they say and do, that their actions affect other people, and that they have a stake in a better community and country. Teach the them the golden rule (treat others as you’d want to be treated).
• Raise our voices in the community, and at the ballot box. Contribute to causes and candidates we care about with donations, information sharing, organizing, and volunteering efforts.
• Read and listen to podcasts and news from reputable sources to learn the facts about what’s happening and what we can do. That includes history and research studies, too. I’ve been reading a book one of my daughters asked to buy: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder and illustrated by Nora Krug. The graphic version is filled with colorful illustrations and advice on how we can work to preserve the institutions of democracy and valuable examples from the history of authoritarianism.
• Watch how we spend money and time—who and what are we supporting? 
• Strive to be a role model at work, at home, and in the community. This was an important theme of the ancient Roman Stoics, for example in the lives of Stoic political leaders including Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 
• Let others know that we won’t stand for violence and intolerance in our spaces, and if an open and respectful dialogue is possible, work towards understanding each other. Collaborate with other folks or community organizations, if possible, on this. Consider joining a group where we can meet people who are different from ourselves, or find a way to help facilitate a cross-cultural dialogue. I've done this in my workplace and plan to do more as a volunteer in the community, and I encourage my kids to do the same; there are opportunities out there.
• In a more general sense, try to keep an open mind about other people. Just because someone disagrees with me doesn’t make that person an enemy. On the other hand, we should not tolerate intolerance. 
• At the end of the day, keep a sense of perspective. Often the best we can do is to simply be there for our family, friends, and colleagues. Just being compassionate and supportive of others and bringing them positive energy makes the world better.

 
I turn back to my Stoic ideas to remind myself not to get swept along by fears and sorrows about current events. While I can’t dismiss all my feelings as mere impressions—I’m not a sage yet—I can take a deep breath and ground myself in the real here and now with my daughters and husband, with my community, and with those whose work I read and take inspiration from (both ancient and very modern).

​Stoicism is an evergreen philosophy that takes us out of judgment and hatred and violence, and into virtue and action and practical wisdom. Let’s make it our guide as we fortify our minds and energies, and seek to make a world that welcomes and supports human flourishing for all.

 One of the best decisions I made as a mom was to become a Girl Scout leader. Now, it is the end of an era… I’m retiring from this volunteer role with 10 years total service to the Girl Scouts (across 2 different troops).

After all these years, our troop finally disbanded after the girls got older, moved, left our school district, etc. We have now officially transferred the remaining girls out of our troop and into another one.
 
Over the years, I hope I’ve made a difference, even a small one, with this volunteering. It changed me, at least: Working with kids starting from first grade onwards helped me evolve as a mom and a volunteer. 
 
This effort is on my mind now as I write from the perspective of a Stoic parent—largely because of a critique I keep hearing about Stoicism. 
 
Stoics are blamed for not engaging in, or even caring about, the world around us. People say that Stoic life philosophy isn’t a good influence because Stoics just focus on themselves and their own inner peace… that they block themselves off from everything, and are heartless jerks, living without emotion or ties to others. In other words: Stoics are obsessed with their own “inner citadel,” at the expense of problems and issues in the world “out there.” That seems to be the argument of a recent article in Philosophy Now, among others.
 
To that I say: Wrong! (Perhaps my strong response is not particularly Stoic, but it is honest!)
 
Another leader and I launched our Girl Scout troop before I adopted a Stoic life philosophy, but this way of thinking has surely helped me as I moved forward in leading of young people.

How? Being a Girl Scout leader—like many forms of teaching and volunteering with younger kids—is about learning how to share control with young people. You need to engage the children you’re working with and provide a framework for girls to grow, while encouraging them to explore things on their own and figure out their way of making it fun or interesting. After all, this program is supposed to be "girl led." As a leader, you are tasked with ensuring that the girls start making decisions as soon as they can.

In the moment, lots of things will go wrong or just be plain messy. That’s OK, in the Stoic worldview. Those moments do not define you as a teacher, volunteer, or person. Just keep on going moment to moment, role modeling the virtues that Stoics promote—fairness, practical wisdom, courage, and self-discipline.
 
Beginning with first-graders in Girl Scouts meant LOTS of sticky glue projects and bickering over marker colors and antsy kids who didn’t always get along in the early days. There was a less-than-scintillating curriculum about animals that my co-leader and I worked through. There were songs that got endlessly stuck in our heads (even if they were cute at first) and loud carpools and camping trips resulting in sore backs. 
 
In fact, given that there will always be occasional adversity along the way, Stoic thinking actually makes me want to engage more with the world, and reduces my qualms or thoughts of “imposter syndrome” about having something to offer other people as a volunteer.
 
And now, I can see the payoff. Over the past year, and with the support of both co-founding leaders, the girls in our troop partnered together to complete a Silver Award. They created an online webinar designed for younger kids (2nd to 5th graders) during the pandemic. Their presentations, videos, quizzes, and website focused on health, with units covering Covid-19 safety, bicycle safety, and nutrition—all top-of-mind topics for young kids and their parents during lockdowns. 
 
In addition, a couple years back, a group of three girls in our troop did their Bronze Award project about how to be a good and safe pedestrian—a vital lesson here in California where pedestrians are in danger, even in seemingly quiet suburban neighborhoods. 
 
As a leader, I helped to guide these efforts. Working with the girls in our troop required less and less from the adults, and more and more leadership from the girls, with each passing year (though the amount of paperwork needed never diminished, and I owe a huge debt to the other leader who co-founded the troop for handling that!).

That evolution has been an important way of building the girls’ confidence and skills, as well as their desire to address real-world problems, as they now prepare for high school next year. It's been really remarkable to see them grow from young kids focused on drawing with their favorite color marker to adolescents who care about helping and teaching other people. 
 
To learn more about how Stoic-inspired living can inspire us to improve the world around us, check out the book Being Better by Kai Whiting and Leonidas Konstantakos. It highlights numerous opportunities to make a positive impact on our societies and communities. 
 
This counter argument against the anti-Stoic nay-sayers is quite clear when you look at famous Stoics from history, most of all Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor of Rome. He clearly could not just withdraw from public life and ignore making important decisions about the external world... nor did he shy away from it. We don’t either.