The past few months have been the happiest and most peaceful of my life.

I know this sounds like a crazy admission, especially with the political state of the world and the United States being what it is (*waves hands erratically*). But the state of my world has been, in a word, miraculous.

This past September, at the age of 41, I became a mom.

It’s a title I often feared I wouldn’t get to claim. An experience I often feared I wouldn’t get to walk through. A love I often feared I wouldn’t get to live in.

And while it is everything everyone says it can and will and should be—beautiful and exhausting, brutal and joyful, heartbreaking and life affirming—one thing I wasn’t prepared for was how sad I would feel whenever I ventured out of my “new mom bubble” and looked at the world around me.

Reading or watching the news, scrolling through TikTok and Instagram, and seeing the news notifications popping up on my phone, particularly since November, has left me angry and scared and tiptoeing around overwhelming desperation.

My son is too young to know or understand why his momma feels so anxious but one day he’ll have questions.

How do I explain to him that some people in this country hate him and consider him less intelligent or worthy simply because of his skin color?

How do I explain to him that some people in this country were willing to sacrifice the basic rights of others because they were promised lower egg prices?

How do I explain to him that some people in this country can break law after law and suffer no consequences simply because they have money and white privilege?

How do I explain to him that I’ve watched rights I was born with be stripped from me simply because I’m a woman?

How do I explain to him that even though we have history and endless knowledge at our fingertips, too many people choose to remain willfully ignorant?

How do I explain to him that some people actually believe that diversity of thought, of experience, of people is a hindrance instead of how we grow and move forward and learn to co-exist peacefully?

How do I explain to him that sometimes I watch the news and cry because I feel like a failure for bringing him into a world that feels more f*cked up every single day?

Some days, I look into his beautiful, sparkling, innocent eyes and wish there was more that I could say. Today, I found something that filled that hole, if just for a moment.

These words from mother and poet Jessica Jocelyn are what I will whisper to my son when the world feels chaotic. May they be of benefit to every parent who is struggling to find the right thing to say:

 

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