Pretend You're Good At Talking to Kids About Hard Things
Pretend You're Good At Talking to Kids About Hard Things
An MLK Day story + why I draw out the hard questions even when they're hard to answer.
Hi, it’s me.
I’m here in your inbox on a Monday to share a story for Martin Luther King Jr Day that some of you may have read last year when I first posted it. As I work on my parenting memoir, these stories of the past are all so close to the present for me. And yet, the chapter I drafted three years ago on talking to the kids about racism sits untouched from when I first approached the subject.
Because of fear, partly. Fear of telling the story wrong, fear that I parented wrong, fear that I’ll come across as self-important or some kind of expert when clearly I am not.
On my good days, I lean into the fear as a continuing motivation for writing this book. If I’m afraid, surely other parents are afraid, too? Maybe if I’m honest about my flailing in the dark, other parents will feel less alone? It’s kind of the point of my book.
We should start a club! We can be The Pretenders. Only band members from the actual Pretenders and people who are winging it are allowed.
If that’s you, let’s go!
This was originally posted January 11, 2023.
On MLK Day in January 2015, Bryan and I took the kids to see the movie Selma, which was playing at the Uptown Theater on Lower Queen Anne. It’s an old, independent theater that lacks the comfortable reclining seats most theaters have today, but it’s been taken over by the nonprofit Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and plays independent films alongside mainstream releases. At the time, we had a membership that included free popcorn 🍿.
This is something we do often as a family – we go to movies together and have conversations about what made the story compelling or implausible or forgettable. Sometimes these conversations last as long as it takes to walk to the car, or drive home, or occasionally, we grab a meal after the movie and keep the conversation going.
Last year after we saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in the theater, we all agreed on the car ride home that we were done with Marvel movies because the franchise had spiraled into its own multiverse of madness. I actually fell asleep in the middle of it (hello, reclining theater seats), and during the awake times I wondered why a movie called Doctor Strange had so much Wanda Maximoff in it.
That’s when I realized I didn’t care.
Anyway, if you’re interested, you can listen to a formalized family movie conversation our son Thomas recorded for his podcast about Dune. He and I read the book together for his chapter-by-chapter breakdown podcast, then we reviewed the 2021 movie together as a family. You can listen to it HERE or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we went to see Selma in 2015, it was Thomas who asked the hard question: Do things like that still happen today?
It was the question I hoped one of them would ask, and yet I dreaded the asking. The kids were on the verge of turning ten and twelve years old. We had already lost Tamir Rice and Michael Brown. We had already adopted Eric Garner’s I can’t breathe as a rallying cry for justice. Tamir was only twelve years old when he died, the same age as our daughter.
Every parent wants their kid to hold onto innocence for as long as possible, like a belief in Santa Claus or the Land of Oz. I can’t say for sure when is the right time to show your kids what hides behind the curtain, but I know most Black parents have conversations about racism with kids much younger than Thomas. For them, having “the talk” can be a matter of life and death.
So here we are in the kitchen of our rental duplex at the time, surrounded by laundry and garbage and questions. I captured this photo in the middle of Thomas’ What do you mean the cop didn’t get in trouble? face when he learned about Eric Garner’s death. In this face, I can see him questioning everything he thought he knew about justice and fairness. This might be the moment his innocence began unraveling.
(The gentleness in Bryan’s presence makes me swoon.)
This is a story that will eventually make its way into my book, which is a yet-to-be-named parenting memoir about navigating hard conversations with our kids. Many parents don’t feel equipped to talk about this kind of stuff. We’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, of reality being too scary, of not knowing the answer. Sometimes we’re embarrassed. Most of us didn’t grow up talking about stuff like sex, death, or racism with our own parents, so we don’t have a template to work from. And we’re afraid to talk about these things with each other because parents can be so judgy.
I’m not an expert at parenting or decision-making or staying on top of things. In fact, I’m pretty good at covering my eyes at the scary parts and hoping for the best. Despite my lack of expertise or even proof of a positive outcome, I decided to write this book because parenting is hard, the stakes are high, and I think we should normalize talking about the messy things.
Until next time,
Jen
News + Notes 🌼
The book Raising White Kids, by Jennifer Harvey is a great resource for parents, aunties, uncles, teachers or anyone who wants to learn how to talk about race with white kids and help them learn how to recognize and respond to racism when they encounter it.
I don’t hold myself out as a complete parenting expert. But I’ve worked with hundreds of parents, and mostly moms. I generally defer to their experienced wisdom. I’m pretty sure that these challenging talks fall into similar categories. Tailoring a developmentally appropriate response to these questions requires us to know where the kids are in their understanding first. Moms usually know their kids best, so I don’t give cookie-cutter answers. The general rule of thumb is not to give more information than they ask for because they ask for what they can handle, and they’ll ask follow up questions if they want to know more.
Such a great post, Jen. Thank you. xxx