Worry: A Mother’s Advice
As a parent, there are so many unknowns and sometimes those unknowns feel unbearable.
This past weekend, my family and I spent Saturday going apple picking and enjoying the outdoors. We had brunch together at a local farm, our daughters rode ponies, our son traveled through a corn maze, and then we picked apples. We shopped at the market and purchased our delicious (and obligatory) kettle corn and apple pie. We had quite the New Englander’s weekend.
Later that night, my wife and I watched the movie The Hate U Give with our son who is almost 13. We were thirty minutes into the movie when my wife said, “We haven’t had the talk with him yet,” to which I reply, “You’re right and it’s time, we need to.” Our night ended very differently than our day began. Waking up that Saturday morning, I was hopeful, grateful and excited about what lay ahead for our family. By the time bedtime came around, I was worried, fearful to close my eyes, and scared of what lay ahead for our family. Scared of the unknowns for the futures of my brown children in their various shades of blackness and South Asianness.
The talk. Our brown boy who will turn 13 this November, we need to sit him down and explain to him how different he is. We need to tell him that not only does he go through the same growing pains as every other child, he must also have “the talk” with his parents…
