Bedtime Conversations in the Dark

When I was pregnant with my son, I wanted to name him Atlas. I loved the way it sounded, like a name built for someone who would spend his life discovering things and chasing the horizon. But then I remembered the other Atlas, the one from Greek mythology condemned to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders. I couldn't put that on him. Not even as a name.

He's seven now. A second grader who processes the world quietly, the kind of kid who hears something at school and turns it over in his mind for three days before asking me questions that I am absolutely not prepared to answer.

I didn't name my son Atlas. But the weight found him anyway.

In the Dark

The most honest conversations in our house happen at bedtime, in the dark, with the lights off and nobody facing each other.

We started this when each of my kids began school. School is its own universe for children, full of dynamics and unspoken rules that they don't always know how to talk about when the house is loud and everyone is busy. So my husband and I take turns with each kid, laying down with them at bedtime and letting the silence sit until one of us fills it. There, tucked in under their covers with nothing but darkness between us, they'll say things they would never bring up at the dinner table.

Sometimes they ask the questions. Sometimes I do. Sometimes we have goofy "what if" conversations or talk about what life will be like when they're older, like the glorious day my daughter gets to call me from her cell phone (sorry girl, you still have a long time to go), or when my son finally gets to drive ME around. But sometimes the questions that come out of that dark room stop me mid-breath.

My son asked me once why people like Donald Trump. He said Trump is angry and mean and lies all the time, and he wanted to know why anyone would vote for him over "that nice lady," which is what he's called Kamala Harris in the wake of the election. I lay there next to him and realized I had nothing. How do you explain to a seven-year-old that millions of adults chose someone who embodies everything you've spent years teaching your child not to be? I couldn't make it make sense for him. It doesn't make sense to me. And in the dark, you can't fake your way through an answer. A kid hears that pause and knows.

Why I Don't Look Away

I think shielding your kids from what's happening right now is like handing them an umbrella with a hole in it. Sooner or later the rain gets through, and all you've done is make sure they didn't see it coming.

My kids go to school with, play sports with, and love kids whose parents are immigrants. Kids who have two moms or two dads. Kids my children don't think twice about, because why would they? But outside that bubble, people are screaming for deportation. Angry faces with spittle spraying out scream to take away gay and trans rights because drag queens are reading to children… and that’s somehow a bad thing? And the playground, the soccer pitch, the gym, and the lunchroom is where all of it eventually lands.

An older kid once said "your body, my choice" around my son. He didn't know what it meant, but something about it felt wrong to him. It felt wrong because we had already spent time in those bedtime conversations talking about body autonomy, about having the right to say no, about being the only person who gets to decide what happens to your body. That talk I gave him months earlier, the one I genuinely second-guessed because I thought he might be too young for it, is the reason those words felt wrong to him. And the reason he asked me about it that night.

He may not have seen the tears in my eyes, but he felt them. At first he thought he said something wrong, which I assured him he absolutely did not. Yes, the tears were from sadness, knowing that such a disgusting phrase got to MY son’s ears. But I was also so proud. He knew the words were wrong, and wanted help understanding and processing. So we talked about it. And I asked questions about what he thought it meant, why he thought it was wrong, and how he’d feel if somebody said that directly to him. I didn’t give him an answer, but talked through what HE thought. Gave him confidence in his gut feeling that these words “felt icky” and the context not just of how they’re wrong, but how they make other people feel.

That's what keeps me showing up for these conversations even when I'm not sure I'm saying the right things. If kids are yelling "deport so-and-so" at recess, I need my son to know what that means, to feel in his gut that it's wrong, and to stand next to the kid it's aimed at instead of standing with the crowd. He can't do any of that if I've kept him in a version of the dark that doesn't teach him anything. Not the good dark, where we talk and feel safe. The kind where you simply don't know enough to help.

The Night I Went Too Far

I need to tell you about the night I got it wrong, because I think it matters more than the nights I got it right.

The night Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent, I fell apart. The video was so clear. The hatred behind it, so palpable. And her last words before she was shot in the face were "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you." I think whatever thread of faith in humanity I had left snapped that night.

We were already having a rough evening with my son. Bad timing, but he was testing boundaries, acting spoiled, not listening. On any other night I would have handled it calmly. But my nervous system was so far beyond the ability to calm itself. I was gutted and grieving, and the words came out before I had a chance to stop them.

"You know what's going on out there in the world? Do you realize how good you have it? There is a little boy out there whose mom dropped him off at school this morning, and that was the last time he saw her because she was killed by federal agents who are supposed to be protecting us. THAT’S what OTHER kids are dealing with."

Yep. I said those exact words to my seven-year-old son. I wanted to grab the words out of the air before they reached him. Stuff them back into my mouth and pretend they never happened. They weren't his to carry. They were mine. But I handed them over anyways.

He broke down crying. He was afraid I was going to die. What the hell did I just do?

I wanted to promise him that could never happen to us. But the truth wouldn't let me. She wasn't in a bad part of town. She wasn't hurting anyone. She wasn't even raising her voice. "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you." And still, with video clear as day, people found a way to say she was a terrorist with a death wish.

So I didn't make a promise I couldn't keep. I pulled him close and told him I was sorry. I told him that I was safe, that I would always do everything I can to stay safe for him. I held him in the dark until he fell asleep.

That night taught me something I carry heavily with me now. My kids don't need my fear. They need me to process it on my own and bring them something filtered through love instead of panic. I failed at that, and I still feel that failure every day. But we talked again the next night, and the night after that, because stopping would have done more damage than stumbling. And you know what? Kids need to see us fail too. We’re not perfect, just like we don’t expect them to be perfect. Although honestly, I really wish I could be perfect for them.

What I Keep Coming Back To

I'm not writing this as advice. I don't know if what I'm doing is right, and there's no way to find out until my kids are old enough to tell me. But there are a few things I come back to every night in that dark room, and they're the closest thing I have to a compass.

I tell the truth. Always (okay, mostly) age-appropriate and careful, but always the truth. My kids know that bedtime is when they can ask me anything and I won't lie. That promise is sacred in our house, and it's the thing that keeps them talking.

I always end on something hopeful. A small taste of rebellion stirred in. We are standing up against Trump. We are standing up against all of them. We are not going to stay silent. I haven’t talked about her in this article, but my five-year-old daughter was born with fire in her heart and she lives for this. I can see her little fist under the blanket, ready to take on the world before she's lost all her baby teeth. My son is quieter about it. Sometimes I can tell it worries him, especially after Renee Good. He's the kind of kid who connects dots most adults wouldn't even notice, and sometimes those dots lead somewhere heavy.

But worry isn't always a bad thing. If nobody worried, nobody would speak up, or organize, or run for office, or start movements that actually change things. Worry becomes a problem when it has nowhere to go. That’s why Nikki and I started WATCH. But my job is to make sure my son's worries always have somewhere to land. At seven, I just try to make sure he's carrying concern and not carrying the world.

I almost named him Atlas. I'm glad I didn't.