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 Maura Dunfey Hwang in Cloghane (An Clochán), Ireland By Maura Dunfey Hwang Everyone has a story. We should all be so lucky to tell our own. My Dunfey story is not the story of the hotels. It isn’t about being the most charismatic person in the room, and it certainly isn’t about being the funniest. My story is about being a steady observer, someone who has watched generations gather around tables to talk about things that matter. Fifty-two years ago, New England Circle, now Global Citizens Circle (GCC), was founded around a simple but radical idea: that bringing people together across differences could change the course of history. I grew up on the edges of those tables. I never worked at the store on Broadway in Lowell, MA or “#7,” the restaurant at Hampton Beach. But at times, it feels like I’ve been hanging out at the end of the counter for 75 years, looking up from the Editorial page of the Boston Globe, with a cup of coffee and a donut, to say good morning to my cousins. GCC hosted its first Circle in 1974 at the Parker House in Boston, after more than a decade of civic unrest in the United States. In the ensuing decades, GCC convened conversations on Northern Ireland’s Troubles, apartheid in South Africa, nuclear proliferation, homelessness, AIDS, immigration, and women’s rights. Presidents and activists may have attended, but the power was never in proximity to fame. It was in proximity to one another. While I likely absorbed some of the content and spirit of social justice, I also quietly observed the invisible architecture beneath those conversations. For every public gathering, there was a person who extended the initial invitation — who opened homes, made introductions, nurtured relationships long before anyone stepped up to a podium. For every hour spent on diplomacy, there were many more spent laying the relational groundwork beneath it. The Circle did not stand on charisma alone. It stood on genuine care. Last year, I bought a used, round wooden table for our kitchen sunroom. We could have bought something new, but I wasn’t sure we really needed another table. My husband and I grew up in homes where things were repaired, not replaced, and money was spent carefully. We borrowed a friend’s truck and hauled it home ourselves. That table has held homework, card games, family dinners, birthday cakes, some arguments, and many cups of coffee. It has also wobbled from the start. It’s not structurally unstable. But if you lean on it, you feel it shift. Actually, it spins. My husband and I manage complexity for a living. But we don't know how to fix our wobbling table. Some people can assess the wobble and trace it back to the loose joint. It’s not that we couldn’t learn. It’s just not in our skill set. Fortunately, we know that the table is structurally sound. Solid. Worth keeping. Global Citizens Circle feels a bit like that at times. It was built with intention. It has held extraordinary conversations for over fifty years. And it has always required tending. In the preface to her memoir, "Counter Culture," my great-aunt Eleanor wrote about the responsibility of telling our family’s story. The calling to steward something meaningful is a blessing. And it can also be a burden. To inherit something is to decide whether to keep tending it. In 1999, when accepting the Solas (Light) Award from the Irish International Immigration Center, Eleanor reflected on the immigrant generations who came before us: “There’s a vast world outside your own door -- so be sure when you set your table — there’s always room for one more.” During COVID, I became captivated by genealogy. Historical records require skepticism and belief in equal measure. Family stories matter, but so do census records, immigration documents, and newspaper clippings. You learn to look closely. To question and to discern. Discernment runs quietly through my family history, alongside songbooks, shared tears and laughter. The work of extending a personal invitation, welcoming others, and creating a sense of belonging was never ornamental. It was structural. In many ways, it was survival. It's how families, communities, organizations, and even democracy endure. At the end of "Counter Culture," Eleanor writes that the world has changed so much in the hundred years since her parents, my great-grandparents (Kate and Roy), had their first child. “What has not changed, though, and what our parents knew instinctively, is that people will always need to belong – to be invited, welcomed, included, respected. Around tables of inclusive, diverse conversations locally and globally, we continue to honor their lived lessons.” And so here we are, 50 years later, asking: Who will help set the table? Maura Dunfey Hwang, D.O., is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in the Philadelphia area and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves in leadership roles with the Regional Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Eastern Pennsylvania & Southern New Jersey and the Delaware County Medical Society. Her work bridges children's mental health, education, public health, and advocacy, with a focus on systems, belonging, and community. She has served as a Global Advisor to Global Citizens Circle since 2025. Please note: We invite members of the greater Global Citizens Circle community to contribute to GCC Voices. The views and opinions expressed in each blog post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Global Citizens Circle. Fifty-two years ago, New England Circle, now Global Citizens Circle (GCC), was founded around a simple but radical idea: that bringing people together across differences could change the course of history." - Maura Dunfey Hwang
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 By Casey LaMarca In May 2020, my wife and I had to cancel our oldest daughter's first birthday party. The world was closed, and we couldn't give her the normal experience she deserved. The experience she deserved to look back on later in life when she needed comfort, knowing she had a big celebration surrounded by family and friends. Where she could have laughed at the fashion choices of the time and the questionable decision to choose a brewery for the party’s location (listen, first birthday parties are also for the parents). For almost two years, my wife and I worked from home during the pandemic without proper child care. I still get stressed thinking about all those days when we had to use the TV as a babysitter or risk missing a meeting. We didn’t have the luxury of living off one salary. People were losing their jobs; how could we risk it? And our village, while powerful, was relatively small. So what did we do instead of that big 1st birthday? We signed off work for the day, did a cake-smash photography session, and just unplugged. We lived off that day for a while, but what we would have given for that normal, right-of-passage birthday party. In 2026, birthday parties are back, but they still don't feel normal. Our oldest daughter is in first grade now, and our youngest is close to starting kindergarten. We’re fortunate and grateful to be in that “birthday party almost every weekend” phase. It gives our kids something to do during these frigid winter months.  But what should feel like celebrations are merely temporary distractions. This should be the time in our lives when we stress over little things, like whether our kids find a sport or a hobby they love. Wondering when they will meet their first real school friends. Watching them try to break those final baby habits like bedtime routines, meltdowns over whose toy is which, and balancing work and personal life to sneak in a date night or two with your significant other. But those are not the times we live in. The times we live in fill us with these daily questions: Will today be
Because I see you. And you are not alone. You are not crazy. You have every right to feel like things are not okay. Because they are not. But, and I can’t stress this enough, you still have the right to feel joy while also feeling dread. You have the right to fight for the happiness you deserve. And it’s okay to do that right now because we do not have another choice. If the last 10 years have taught us anything, it is that the next 10 years may be our last chance to show our kids that we said, "Enough is enough." That doesn’t mean we always need to attend every protest as the only way to fight back. In fact, I think of the scene from the extraordinary 2025 film, "One Battle After Another," when the character Bob Ferguson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, tries to remember a password given to him by a fellow revolutionary so he can find his missing daughter. When the revolutionary finally tells him, it’s “time doesn’t exist, yet it controls us anyway.” A frustrated Bob replies with, “You obviously don't have kids, you f****** idiot!” What Bob knows that his fellow revolutionary doesn’t is that a parent’s time is surviving one day at a time, and within that time, our children come first. And sometimes, it isn’t always at the birthday party we envisioned. In fact, lately, it mostly consists of play dates that are half making sure your kids are having fun and the other half having side conversations with other parents that go something like this: How old is your kid now? Six. Wow. So the world is falling apart, huh? You ain’t kidding. It is within those moments of whiplash that we must try not to lose our sense of joy. We deserve to hold on to these memories without doomscrolling and heartache. We will need them later in life to keep going. That said, we need to acknowledge for our own sanity that the world is indeed trying to rob us of the most core time of our lives. To wit, I say to millennial parents: How resilient are we? Every time we think we’ve passed a historical event, another comes right at us. And you know what we do? We fight back by being decent. By calling things out. By saying, "This is not okay, and it never will be." It’s okay if you’re not okay. But what’s also not okay is that we have to wake up every day thinking that our children may not come home because our gun laws are asinine. It’s not okay for ICE agents to come to our neighborhood and terrorize our neighbors. It’s not okay for our children to wake up one day in a fascist state to wonder, “Why did my parents let this happen?” It’s not okay that we have to spend time Googling (yes, we millennials still Google things) “how to move to Canada.” But here we are, trying to stay decent while still finding joy. If anything else, for the millennial parents out there raising young children right now, just know there isn’t a generation I would want to go through this terrifying and magnificent moment with more. Casey LaMarca is a creative director and adjunct faculty at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). He has over 15 years of experience in digital video production, communication, and marketing. A graduate of Emerson College, where he earned his bachelor's in visual & media arts, concentrating on writing for film and television, LaMarca also earned his master’s in communication with a concentration in new media and marketing at SNHU. He co-founded a production company and created his first documentary film focusing on America's student loan crisis. Dedicated to his work at SNHU and volunteering with TEDxAmoskeagMillyard, LaMarca is a father of two daughters, Audrey and Ava, who inspired this blog contribution. Please note: We invite members of the greater Global Citizens Circle community to contribute to GCC Voices. The views and opinions expressed in each blog post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Global Citizens Circle. You are not crazy. You have every right to feel like things are not okay. Because they are not. But, and I can’t stress this enough, you still have the right to feel joy while also feeling dread." - Casey LaMarca |
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