Grace, Tolerance, and Showing Up
I have to go potty!
No, you don’t. We just stopped fifteen minutes ago.
I do. I have to go! I’ll go in my pants!!!”
We’re not stopping again. If you really have to go, we’ll pull over and you can nature pee on the side of the road!
... Fine. Ok. I don’t have to go!
A road trip with the family is a whirlwind of memories with moments you’ll remember forever, and those you’d sooner forget. And as I was having this exchange with my six-year-old son, I sat in the passenger seat with a terrible head cold and a raging headache. My patience was tested, but in the back of my head a very quiet voice reminded me to show grace and tolerance. It was something I had been thinking about in the week leading up to our trip to Wisconsin.
Earlier in the week, we had our annual parents’ Thanksgiving meal at the school cafeteria. You squeeze yourself into tiny chairs at tiny tables and suddenly remember just how small elementary school furniture really is. First came the wave of Kindergarteners, all energy and excitement. Then thirty minutes later came round two with the third graders.
The teachers and administration always do an amazing job, and the lunchroom staff and PTA make it feel like a real holiday moment. Someone from the neighborhood played guitar this year, giving everything a warm, homey feel. The mashed potatoes were even on point (I would have gone back for seconds if allowed). Kids whose parents couldn’t make it were pulled into other families’ tables, and within minutes these little “extended Thanksgiving families” formed in the middle of twenty-five minutes of pure chaos.
Parents also get a front-row seat to what lunchtime actually looks and sounds like with a room full of little humans. It’s loud, messy, unpredictable, and watching the teachers and staff navigate it all with calm voices, patience, smiles, and genuine kindness was a real reminder of grace and tolerance. I honestly don’t know how they do it so gracefully. It gave us parents yet another thing to be grateful for heading into Thanksgiving.
Jump to the next day. It was the morning of our road trip to Wisconsin, and the kids had been waiting for this day for weeks. Nothing bursts an eight-year-old’s bubble faster than being told she has to go to school first. Teeny, our daughter, spent all week trying to convince us school was cancelled. Then at breakfast she revised her story: “The school said we could all leave early.”
We had a quick talk about why showing up matters: how if you listen, teachers pretty much tell you all the answers to the tests, and how the school only gets paid if you actually go. (More on that in a minute.)
So off to school they went, slightly defeated but still buzzing about the trip.
As I pulled up to drop the kids off, I saw a bunch of parents gathered on the front lawn. “Oh yeah… PTA meeting.” Even though I had a million things to pack before we left town, after lecturing my kids about showing up, it felt only right to park the Jeep and join the meeting.
We’re blessed with an incredibly well-run and well-supported PTA. The meeting started with great news: we exceeded our Fun Run fundraising goal, which meant extra budget for student programs. Then I learned something I never knew, our school garden grows the tarragon used in a signature drink at Odd Duck, a cherished Austin farm-to-table restaurant that actually has some of its origin story starting in Wisconsin.
There were the usual program updates, and then we got to the heavier topic weighing on schools across Austin and across Texas: funding cuts, closures, and consolidations.
I wasn’t exaggerating when I told my kids that schools only get paid when students show up. Texas schools receive their budgets based on enrollment, but a portion of funding is tied to daily attendance. And the rules for accessing school funding have grown more restrictive, with more hoops and hurdles introduced over time.
Next year, our school will take in a handful of students from a school that will be shuttered. A parent shared insights from a recent conference on Texas’s new school voucher program. Regardless of where anyone stands politically, vouchers almost always lead to fewer dollars flowing into public schools as districts scramble to adjust.
My kids are lucky to be in this specific school, in a neighborhood that is affluent, engaged, and able to fundraise to fill gaps the district and state cannot. Not every school has that cushion. In many classrooms across the state, compassionate teachers are the ones who shoulder those gaps on their own.
Standing on the front lawn, listening to our Zilker PTA leaders and teachers talk through challenges calmly, creatively, and without playing the victim, I felt inspired. This community doesn’t retreat into frustration. They adapt, collaborate, and keep showing up for the kids. It was grace and tolerance in action.
Fast-forward to later that night. A good six hours into the drive north, somewhere just past Dallas, I was reminded again just how big and diverse Texas really is. Every time we pass through Dallas, I’m taken back to my first trip to Texas in 2001 when I was working with JCPenney up in Plano. Back then, North Dallas felt big but quiet and sprawling. Now it stretches endlessly, with miles of growth, development, and expansion in every direction.
Somewhere along that stretch, my head cold hit full force, and the drive became a blur of headlights. Through all of it, my wife showed more grace and tolerance toward me than I probably managed toward her and the kids. I was running on fumes, and all out of grace and tolerance.
The last mile on a trip up to Slinger, WI
As we head into Thanksgiving, I’ve been thinking about how many people around us might be running on fumes too. How many are carrying heavy loads: financial strain, job uncertainty, loneliness, rising food prices, or simply the exhaustion of a long year. Teachers stretched thin. Parents doing their best. Friends navigating change. People who don’t yet have the words for what they’re going through.
Maybe it’s not a cure-all, but there is something we can all give.
A little more grace.
A little more tolerance.
A softer response in a hard moment (or a Thanksgiving table debate).
So whether it’s your son in the backseat, a teacher in a crowded cafeteria, a spouse on a long highway, a volunteer holding a school together, or someone at your Thanksgiving table trying to hold it all together, a single moment of grace or empathy can make all the difference.
This year, that’s what I’m trying to practice more of: presence over perfection, patience over frustration, compassion over convenience. Supporting causes, movements, and groups that lift up communities and kindness.
And in case you’re wondering, and due to a kind reminder of my travel partner, I made my best attempt of presence, patience, and compassion. We did take the next exit to make an emergency stop at the closest gas station for what my son proudly announced would be “a quick pee.” It was.
Family first. Neighbors first. Humanity first.
Rooted in Wisconsin. Growing Forward in Texas.
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