Parenting Through the California Wildfires

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It was January 8th when everything reached peak surreal. Myself, my husband, our seven-year-old daughter Luna, another friend and her son, had fled the California wildfires in Los Angeles, and ended up in Irvine—a city about an hour away from the worst of what was unfolding.

We’d picked it at midnight the evening before, knowing evacuation from our home just minutes away from the worst of the fires in Altadena was imminent. It was a shot in the dark, somewhere to go that had a mall where we could get supplies and food for the kids, a somewhat affordable Airbnb that took pets, and most importantly was safe. But to the kids—whom we’d been trying to shield from the worst of what was happening—we’d sold it as an adventure.

We’d spent the morning by the beach, at Dana Point, and the afternoon at the mall. For dinner, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, because… well, no one was in the mood to fight the kids for anything else. Then, of course, both kids had a meltdown because the mac n cheese on the menu was “the wrong kind”. And then they spotted a ferris wheel, and begged to ride it. What other answer was there than yes? Because that’s what happens when you’re parenting through complete disaster. Even as our community was burning, even as we looked again and again at the fire maps which were like nothing we’d ever seen before, even as we had no idea whether our homes were safe, we felt the desperate and collective need to protect our children.

So while we looped round and round in the night sky of an unfamiliar town, and the kids were overjoyed, updates poured in from friends. Some were trying to carve out moments of normalcy. But others messaged with heartbreaking news, homes already lost to the fires. All the while, we stayed on the ride. Anything to distract the kids. Anything to stop them from asking questions we didn’t have the answers to.

When school emailed to say they would be closed again the next day, I realized I had totally forgotten it was a Wednesday.

That’s the thing about parenting: you often feel like a crisis PR manager. Even in the midst of chaos, you’re working to smooth things over, making your kids feel like you’re fully present and enjoying the moment with them, even when your mind is a million miles away, or you haven’t slept all night. Because no matter what’s happening, they still need the bathroom. They still complain about brown bananas. And they’re still bored.

Even when the first of the California wildfires broke out on Tuesday January 7th, my primary focus after keeping safe was how to keep any anxiety and fear away from my daughter. Initially, we offered up our home in Sierra Madre to friends who were fleeing from the Westside of LA, where the fires first ignited in the early morning.

But as the winds howled and it started to get dark. I got an alert about a blaze in Altadena, just a neighborhood away from us in the Eastside of the city where many had literally just sought refuge.

By early evening, the Eaton fire, the one close to us, was starting to look really scary, and now it was the folks closer to the flames in East LA, who I was suggesting come to us. I remember thinking, “Good thing I stocked up on snacks.” A single mom friend showed up with her 7-year-old son in tow. Our kids were thrilled at the prospect of a sleepover and disappeared inside to play, while the adults stood at the door, staring at the mountain ablaze in the distance. There was an unspoken agreement between myself, my husband and my friend that to get through the night we were just going to have to make it fun. So we let the kids eat all the leftover holiday chocolate. Dry January? That ended that night too.

I located our passports, and “Snuffle Bunny” Luna’s favorite toy, but I didn’t start a to-go bag, fearing Luna would start asking questions about why I was packing. We started to charge every device, downloaded movies to ipads in case we lost Wifi, and reassured the children we were totally safe because our house was “So far down the foothill”, even though we all feared it was about to get much worse.

When the power went out around 9 p.m., we rationed iPads. Eventually the kids crashed out. The adults stayed up all night, glued to updates as the fire perimeter expanded. By morning, with an evacuation order in place, we packed up the kids and three dogs and left to the Airbnb we’d found in Irvine. In some kind of weird trauma response, our first thought was to search for coffee, as if it was somehow essential to our evacuation. The only option for miles was a single Starbucks that had a generator. It was packed, the air was thick with ash, I was totally spaced out, but my friend, being the good mom she is, remembered to grab a donut for each of the kids.

The next few days passed in a haze. Our Airbnb in Irvine was fine for the night, but realizing we might be evacuated for a while, we headed to Palm Springs. We got a place with a pool, calculating the extra few dollars spent would be worth it to keep the kids feeling like they were on vacation, blissfully unaware. Occasionally, they’d ask if our houses were safe (ours were, thankfully, but the immense survivor's guilt is something I’m currently struggling with.) But mostly, they just asked for snacks. Meanwhile, as the fires still raged out of control, we were juggling work, each other's parenting styles, our grief, and fear for the safety of so many close friends and our whole community. What would happen to all the people and businesses that are the fabric of our everyday lives?

Meanwhile, our cash was being drained, and our credit card bills were climbing.

One afternoon we drove to see friends at the luxury Tommy Bahama resort in Palm Springs, where evacuees were being offered $99-per-night rates (in contrast to the usual $400 plus). It’s a stunningly beautiful place. But we found ourselves among a strange community of loss, full of parents trying to keep things together for their children.

One mom, sipping a drink as she held her toddler, shrugged when I asked how she was holding up. “Oh, I don’t know, really. The house is gone,” she said. “But here we all are, ordering food like it’s some particularly dark season of White Lotus.”

​​By our third evacuation spot in less than a week, this time back in LA county, Long Beach, the novelty had worn off for my 7-year-old. It was Saturday night, we were staying in another Airbnb, sharing it with her best friend from school and her mom. I found her crying and gently asked if she could tell me why. “Isn’t this fun?” I offered, trying to reassure her. She shook her head and said she didn’t want to talk about it but could write it instead. I handed her my notes app, and she began typing slowly, the way 7-year-olds do: I’M STREST HOME SICK.

At this point I questioned my own decisions about trying to keep the worst of the news from Luna. And although she knew that there were fires, it was time to share what had happened to the people we knew, that her friends lost all their toys, the preschool where she loved to feed goats, was no more. I actually still haven’t told her about losing the pizza place where she and I would have mom and daughter dates after school.

Once we were allowed back into our home, we decided to go through her clothes and offer them to friends who now had none. She selected stuffies of her own that could be offered up as comfort. We talked about how we could be extra good friends, and if I’m honest, that’s what I’m trying to do too. But life feels more surreal and overwhelming than ever. The sky is blue though apparently still toxic.

Just this week, Luna’s friend Edie turned eight. With Edie’s family navigating the loss of their home, a kindhearted mom friend stepped in to organize the celebration. The bounce house venue, “Fun Box,” generously donated the space for free. When we arrived, the adults were doing their best to hold back tears. Half of them had lost their homes. Luna was one of only two kids who still had a school to attend. Yet, amidst it all, the kids had a simple philosophy: “Bounce—it’ll make you happy.” So, we all joined in. Strangely enough, it did help, even if just a little. Maybe it’s a metaphor for what the kids are teaching us.

Here I spoke to five more moms on how they’ve coped while dealing with disaster and loss…

“I couldn’t help but let out a primal sob. I just knew that we would lose our house.”

Julie Sawaya, co-founder of Needed, lived in the Palisades with her husband and three children. Leni 4, Marlowe, 2 and Miles 4 months. She was on maternity leave when the evacuation order arrived. The family lost their home in the fires. She says:

“I woke up on January 7th with two weeks left of maternity leave, feeling a little sad it was coming to an end. After feeding the baby, my daughter’s school announced an evacuation due to a small brush fire nearby. By the time I got there to pick her up, the road was closed for emergency access, and I could see a large fire and thick black smoke near the school. It was terrifying.

Normally, we’re just seven minutes drive from school, but that day it took an hour and a half to get to and from the area. Traffic was at a standstill as the fire spread across the Santa Monica mountains, heading toward our house. When I got home, an evacuation order was issued for our neighborhood. Fearing another traffic jam, we left with almost nothing, not realizing we wouldn’t be coming back. We even left my husband’s car behind, just to stay together and get to safety.

We evacuated to a hotel that first night and were watching in horror as the fire map spread closer and closer to our home. We had cameras on the house but lost access around 5:15pm when the power was shut off. An hour later we started getting fire and smoke alerts from our alarm company. Then, the fire map updated to show that the fire had spread to the house next door to ours, and to all of the homes across the street. Our baby was asleep on me in the carrier at the time, and I couldn’t help but let out a primal sob. I just knew that we would lose our house. We got confirmation of it the next day from a neighbor.

I wish I had been able to collect myself before sharing the news with our kids, but we were all together in a hotel room–so we had to explain it to them right then and there. I told my daughters that I was sorry if I had scared them, but I was just really sad and scared for our house. I told them that we will always keep them safe, even if we can’t keep our house safe. And that we have everything we need with us, because we are together. However, the first few days felt impossible as I was exhausted and my milk supply dropped due to the stress.

I have been blown away and brought to tears by how our friends, family, the LA community, and even strangers have shown up for us. My sister in law is an artist, and she spent the day after the fire broke out painting us a beautiful piece to start replacing what we lost. Friends from my hometown gave me their frozen breast milk because I had lost my freezer stash in the fire. It’s incredible.

My eldest has asked us a lot of questions about the firefighters as well as about her room and her things and whether they are gone. But kids are resilient. We are staying with my parents, and she refers to the room that I grew up in as “her room” now.

It feels like losing a close family member in an unexpected way, paired with an overwhelming amount of work. Navigating insurance, responding to friends and family, finding a new place to live, checking in on friends and neighbors who lost their homes as well. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that we are just one of thousands of families who have been displaced or lost everything.”

“The most surreal thing about parenting through this disaster is still having to show up with energy, activities, and smiles.”

Willie Larson, a certified nurse-midwife, childbirth educator and co-owner of Pregnancy Pathways that helps provide newly pregnant people with resources to navigate pregnancy and birth, lived with her husband Max, their two year old daughter Della, and dog Gwen in Altadena. They lost their home. She says:

“I evacuated with my daughter on Tuesday afternoon because the winds had been so bad the night before that a massive branch fell and landed on the roof. It didn’t cause damage, but it freaked me out enough that at 4pm I packed an overnight bag (one outfit for each of us, pajamas, and my laptop) and headed to my in-laws in West Hollywood for the night. Once the fire started in Altadena my husband and dog evacuated to be with us, but none of us could have ever imagined our house burning down so we didn’t pack anything important.

The next day we learned our house was gone. It was heartbreaking. This was the first house my husband and I bought and we were just really excited to raise our daughter in such an ideal place.

I feel fortunate to have a two year old and not a school aged child that really understands what’s going on, because the added stress of having to explain this massive loss to a kid or teen seems so challenging.

That being said I can see she has been affected by this. She is normally a very easy going toddler, but has been extra clingy, fussy, and angry. Which is completely understandable. She is out of her routine, not surrounded by any of the things that are familiar to her. I’m sure she can also sense the stress all of the adults around her are feeling despite our efforts to keep things fun. She has mentioned a few times that she wants to go home and keeps referring to things she has at home. I’m definitely trying to navigate the best way to talk to her about this.

We will be staying at a friend’s home for about a month and then looking for rental properties for my family while we rebuild in Altadena. It's home.

The most surreal thing about parenting through this disaster, especially with a toddler, is still having to show up for them with energy, activities, and smiles—knowing they crave consistency and trying to provide that during such a tumultuous time. That being said, my daughter has definitely seen me cry and there are times in the day where the overwhelm of figuring out next steps seems all consuming, and I need a family member to step in so I can take a moment to myself. But my wonderful daycare (the woman who runs it is an absolute angel) is gone and as any toddler parent knows you can’t just lay on the couch for hours in a daze (what I sometimes wish I could do), so I find myself doing more activities than ever with her. It takes my mind off things, but holy moly I am exhausted.

If you'd like to support you can find Willie Larson's fundraiser on GoFundMe.

“My daughter’s seventh birthday was the day after the fire.”

Emily Ulmer, a photographer and single mom to 7 year old daughter Clementine, lived in Altadena. She also lost her home and their school. She says:

“It had been a rough start to the year. First my 7 year old and I had the flu over the holidays. Then my boyfriend had a back injury so I was staying with him in Claremont which is about 45 minutes east of Altadena, and hadn’t been home in a few days. My daughter, Clementine, was safely spending time with her dad in Glendale. So I was looking forward to coming home, seeing her, getting her ready to go back to school which still wasn’t in session again after the winter break, and get back to our routine.

As I heard more about the fire I stayed in constant touch with my neighbors, Caitlin and Evan, directly across the street, who were giving me hourly updates. The winds were roaring, they could see the fire from their window, but they didn’t realize how close it was or how at risk our neighborhood was. I went to bed that night not thinking the worst.

I woke up Wednesday morning to a text from another friend to say my street had been evacuated. I called Caitlin. She told me her house was gone, my house was gone, and our entire street was on fire. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It didn’t seem possible for everything to happen so quickly. Because I hadn’t been back, I wasn’t able to retrieve anything from my home. I now only owned two dresses and a laptop. I lost everything, my life’s belongings, including all my camera equipment.

To say it’s been a surreal time is an understatement. My daughter’s seventh birthday was the day after the fire, on Thursday. We waited to tell her about what had happened. I was lucky that she had some things at her dad’s place, and it wasn’t a strange place for her to stay. So we were able to use that to prolong the inevitable. We pretended that a surprise trip to Disneyland was always what we had planned. It wasn't at all. But it meant I was able to give her a birthday that wouldn’t forever be the day the house burned down.

But the next day. Friday, we sat her down and explained everything calmly, including that her school, Odyssey South, had burned down as well. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. She was understandably upset and cried, but she’s a strong kid and is already looking forward to having a new bed, new toys, and a new room. We've done all we can to make it feel like an exciting opportunity.

But the scale of the devastation is overwhelming. We lost not only our home but also our entire community and town.

What matters most to me right now is ensuring my daughter feels safe and secure. I’m committed to reassuring her that this was a rare event and that her next home won’t burn down. We’re taking it one day at a time.”

If you'd like to support you can find Emily Ulmer's fundraiser on GoFundMe.

“I haven’t fully processed it emotionally. I feel like I haven’t had a complete response yet. Part of it is because of the kids.”

Emily’s neighbor, Catlin Chambers, a Humanities and Sciences professor, and her husband, Evan, an artist, are the parents of Edie, 8, and John, 4. She says:

“The fire swept through the entire neighborhood, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. It engulfed everything. We lived on Mountain View, near Mountain View Cemetery, and the devastation was total.

As for my reaction, I wanted to vomit. I think a lot of mothers might feel the same way. But even now, a week later, I haven’t fully processed it emotionally. I feel like I haven’t had a complete response yet. Part of it is because of the kids. Edie is eight, and John is four. I feel like I cannot break down because of them. I haven't been totally stoic, and I have shown some tears, but really my focus has been on them. Even so they knew something was wrong, even before we told them—four days after it had happened. I was researching ways to explain natural disasters to children in a healthy way.

I think they sensed the gravity of the situation, but they didn’t cry initially when we told them. Their responses actually surprised me. My daughter, Edie, 8, expressed the most concern, and this sounds trite but it's true, not for herself or her toys, but for her friends, our neighbors, and even the unhoused people who live in Charles White Park. She mentioned a man we know as Bone and his friends. These are people we see regularly, whose names we know, and she was worried about them. People still haven’t seen Bone. I really hope he's ok.

We had lived in that house for eight and a half years—it was everything to us. It was the home where we started our family, and it feels like an extension of our lives and marriage. Losing it has been profound. Probably more than I can understand yet.

Parenting through this has also highlighted the gendered nature of how labor gets divided during a crisis. My husband is very much a “take-charge” kind of person, Eagle Scout energy. He’s great in emergencies. But I find myself taking on more of the emotional labor, tending to the kids’ feelings and needs. He’s good at that too, but I notice the dynamic becoming more traditional as we navigate this disaster.

Right now, I think we’re doing okay. The kids are healthy, and we’ve received so much support. I feel like resources should go to families who are struggling more than we are. We hosted Edie’s 8th birthday party organized by friends. In that way, the love we have been shown means we are lucky.”

“For children like Waylon, the wait for medical equipment can take years—the thought of leaving behind those long-awaited essentials is devastating.”

Dawn McCoy, is a TV host, writer and founder of Loving Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization that fights child abuse. She is also a single mom to her son Waylon, 5, who is disabled. She says:

My son, Waylon is five years old and has extensive brain damage, blindness, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and developmental delays. He doesn’t yet talk or walk, sit or stand independently. And as a solo parent, to say that emergency situations leave you feeling powerless is an understatement.

We are completely reliant on medical equipment: Waylon’s wheelchair, gait trainer, bath chair, activity chair, leg braces, and arm braces are all essential. For children like Waylon, the wait for medical equipment can take years—so the thought of leaving behind those long-awaited essentials is devastating. The idea of evacuating under pressure with a child who cannot walk is beyond terrifying.

Although we were in the red flag zone, we were fortunate not to face a sudden, fast-moving evacuation like so many of our friends. At least 20 of them lost their homes. Given how complicated an evacuation could be for us, we decided to leave early, and went to Palm Springs for the week.

I talked to Waylon about everything that was going on and we stayed inside and just cuddled a lot and watched movies.

I also tapped into Waylon’s love of music to be a kind of therapy for us. I kept wanting to hear a slow version of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA”, so Waylon and I sat at the piano and came up with our own take on it with our own adapted lyrics.

Our home, located in Mid-City, ultimately remained safe. However, the smell of smoke lingered everywhere, and I noticed a notable uptick in Waylon’s epileptic seizures.

Honestly, the hardest part is just feeling the devastating heartbreak and loss of my friends and fellow Angelenos. We are a family who has survived trauma in our past, and I just know well that feeling of the ‘before’ and the ‘after’. But you’re right now in the middle of—where am I? You’re kind of in a purgatory.

Originally Appeared on Glamour