Preorder The Long Tail of Trauma by Elizabeth Wilcox here: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Trauma-Memoir/dp/1950584623

As a child of the 80’s this is the second pandemic my generation has lived through. The first was, of course, the AIDS pandemic. The generation who grew up in the 70s has a completely different relationship to sexuality than my generation does. As a kid, I was taught that having sex was risking death. And of course, it was. Now as a parent I can see the trauma of that experience impact my parenting.

Right now, as of this recording, there are over 617,000 deaths worldwide from the current pandemic. My children are coming of age in a time where being less than 6 feet from a person might kill them, and might kill the people they love. This is an ongoing traumatic experience. I do not know what the long term effects will be, but I do know that what’s happening now will probably be the most defining event of their generation.

We know that effective learning very often MUST be a social experience. What happens when the social experience is also a potentially deadly experience? How might this trauma play out for our kids? And what does it mean for how they might parent their kids?

I’m Jason Gorman and I’m very excited about this episode of An Imperfect Map. In this interview, I talk with Elizabeth Wilcox who is the author of the upcoming book, The Long Tail of Trauma. The book will come out in November with Green Writers Press and is a look at the inheritability of trauma and its effects across three generations of women, ending with Elizabeth’s own mother.

I read the book and loved it, and recommend you pre-order it today. The story is honest and raw, and gave me a lot to think about with regard to our current situation and the future it could create.