I bought my 18-month-old a knife.

That statement sounds outrageous, but it is 100% true.

Legacy and leaving something to be remembered by has been really on my mind since I became a dad nearly four years ago. Those thoughts ramped up in particular this past year as my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and I visited my dad’s grave (only the second time in the past 25 years). I didn’t know what to do with these thoughts; I started writing letters to my kids for them to open at a future date. But I was searching for more.

The answer came from a not-so-unusual place. I was at a regular Boy Scouts meeting on a Friday night. A ritual I have kept up since I was only 10½ and has followed me into adulthood. That night our troop’s committee chairman Tom Dowd was running a program about knife safety.

Mr. Dowd, who I will always refer to that way out of respect, brought his collection of knives. Small ones, big ones, plain ones, and very ornate ones as well. The one that stood out to me was a small folding blade knife with a faux wood exterior that he said once belonged to his father. And it clicked. I needed to get a knife that I could pass along to my son when the time was right. I had recently lost a nice, simple locking blade Gerber knife, so it was an opportune time to purchase a new one.

Getting that unintentional advice from Mr. Dowd was exactly what I needed to hear from the male role model of my boyhood. Through the years Mr. Dowd has treated me and a few others who have gone under his wing as surrogate sons, both in the troop and in real life. Over the years our families had gone on vacations together, family weddings, and had many good times. But even in tough times he was there, after I lost my job last summer, I would run into him on the street and we would talk about strategies and ideas. Just brainstorming. He told me about times when he was out of work and that he eventually bounced back. And no matter how my career goes on from here, I know I can bounce ideas off him and that he has my back.

Years ago, when he got a job out of the city and could no longer fulfill his responsibilities with the troop as Scoutmaster, he picked me as his successor. There were older more experienced candidates, but he knew I could take the reigns and be successful.

It goes to show you that “dads” aren’t always related to you. And it’s a title that you have to earn from your kids; whether they are your own, or if they are ones that you find along the way.

So, I found a small knife, similar to the one I had lost. Sharp and true.  This would be the one that gets passed down to my son. I am sure that if he follows my footsteps into scouting he will have his own knives over the years. But even if he doesn’t, one day he will show off a nice modest knife and say, “This was my dad’s knife.”

This article was originally published 2012. Photo by Lum3n via Pexels.

Before I became a dad, I remember casually taking mental notes of the parenting methods used by my friends and family. Some things they did made sense. But there were other things I knew that, when I had children of my own, I would never do. And in some instances, I didn’t quite understand what their thinking was. 

Naturally, I just chalked the latter up to me “not getting it” because I didn’t have kids. 

In particular, whenever I would visit one cousin, I noticed she would immediately change the TV channel if the news came on when her young boys were in the room. To be honest, it was kind of annoying because, being a news junkie, I wanted to watch. After a few times of this happening, I couldn’t take it anymore and asked why she did it.

Her response was simple: she didn’t want her kids watching the news and seeing and hearing about some of the bad things going on in the world. Not yet at least. 

Logically it made sense. However, I wasn’t a parent then, so my brain heard that reasoning as “sheltering.” I even told my wife about it, confidently declaring those boys wouldn’t be ready for the “real world” as they got older. 

Little did I know that now, with a 4-year-old son and 17-month-old daughter, I’d be doing the same thing. If we’re all sitting around with the TV on and the news comes on, I grab the remote. I quickly flip over to the Disney Channel, YouTube or CoComelon. 

It’s funny how your outlook on life shifts once you become a parent.

Science on kids watching news

Unfortunately, in today’s age, most lead stories on the news are either related to violence, death, politics, vehicle accidents, or something bad going on with the weather. It’s very rare newscasts open with a “good” story. That’s not something I want the kids consuming. It took me becoming a parent to understand the importance of monitoring what they’re exposed to. It’s something I’m sure my cousin had to learn with her sons. And I learned from them.

Some research and children’s health professionals support this thinking.

A 2003 study published in the Annals of Clinical Psychiatry found that kids living within 100 miles of a terrorist attack (in this case, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks) who spent a lot of time watching news coverage of the event reported more symptoms related to trauma. A 2020 article in American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry notes that research has shown children and adolescents are prone to “copycat” what they see and hear in the news.

“Chronic and persistent exposure to such violence can lead to fear, desensitization (numbing), and in some children an increase in aggressive and violent behaviors,” according to the AACAP article.

Preserving childhood innocence

The innocence of children is a breath of fresh air. It’s a welcome change of pace from the problems we adults deal with on a daily basis. As I watch my kids every day running around, playing and screaming without a care in the world, it’s devastating to me to know that they’ll be affected by what they see, hear and read on the news. Even worse, I’m frightened by what they may experience themselves when they’re out of my sight. 

But I know a day will come when my children realize every day is not games, snacks and laughter. They will encounter people who are mean and purposely try to hurt their feelings. And I will have to explain to them the realities of the world.

I want my son to think the world is this fun, magical world for as long as he can. I want my daughter to always giggle and smile like she does when we play “peek-a-boo.” Those are luxuries I wish I had as an adult. But as it goes with parenting, deciding when to expose your kids to watching the news and dealing with the subsequent conversations that will come when they start asking questions, is yet another thing I’ll have to face in fatherhood. 

Until then, we’ll just watch CoComelon over and over and over again.

More about children and the news

For more information on this subject, read:

• How to Talk to Your Child About the News, Nemours Kids Health
• Helping Your Child Cope with Media Coverage of Disasters: A Fact Sheet for Parents, University of Missouri/National Child Traumatic Stress Network
• Should you let your child watch the news?, Superpower Kids
• What to Tell Your Children about School Shootings, Center for Parent and Teen Communication

Photo: © Vadim / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: June 12 marks the anniversary of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Forty-nine people died and 53 were wounded when a lone gunman attacked patrons of the gay nightclub. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time (it’s since been eclipsed). This article originally ran just two days later.

I woke up Sunday morning blissfully unaware. It was a rare opportunity to sleep in, not having to get up and hustle into action. When I did roust myself, I leaned over, kissed my husband good morning, and shuffled into the kitchen to pour my morning cup of coffee. And, of course, I checked my phone.

The first thing I saw: a text from a good friend of mine.

“When I saw the news this morning, I immediately thought of you and Chris, and wanted to express my sadness and outrage that even in the most powerful country in the world, we are so flawed, so full of hatred and fear,” it said.

She went on to let me know that she loves me and my family, and was thinking of us.

I didn’t know what prompted her message.

A quick web search revealed facts about the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. Forty-nine people gunned down on a Saturday night. During Gay Pride Month.

And, once again, I had to decide how to discuss evil with my daughter.

Nightclub shooting our latest tough conversation

It’s not the first time. She’s almost 15. Like so many other parents, I’ve been having conversations with her since she was a toddler, with horrifying regularity. Sandy Hook. Virginia Tech. San Bernardino.

When she was little, I consulted books about how to talk about death and violence with children. Do you avoid the topic, and shield them from it altogether? Should you mask real-life tragedies in analogies or fables? Or, should you stay honest, but use gentle language that minimizes the brutality?

Now that she’s a teenager, we talk about this stuff with more directness and clarity. Real-life violence has yet to touch her life directly, which is a blessing. So we did talk about the Pulse nightclub shooting, and I decided to go with accuracy and less emotion (which is always difficult for me, as someone whose emotions tend to be the boss in my head): Who the shooter was, what he did, what was known/not known about him at the time.

We had our talk, and it was briefer than conversations in the past. She hadn’t seen the news yet so I just filled her in on the latest Horrible Thing that had happened, and that was that.

Her reaction was difficult to read. Whether that’s because we were used to these talks by now, or because she’s at the stage where she’d rather process stuff on her own, it’s hard to say. I did realize, though, that this tragedy in Orlando felt different from other mass shootings for me, and possibly for her as well. Why?

Because the Orlando shooting was the deadliest in American history.

A horrifying loss of human life.

Fueled, in part, by a hatred of gay people.

And, because, I am gay.

How can she not worry?

I have been out for five years, and this is the first time such a violent act has ripped into this community I proudly call my own.

My daughter tends to be a worrier. She’s gotten a handle on it over the years, but she has the double whammy of having a very active imagination and a short anxiety fuse. So when my husband and I go out at night and she stays home, she still gets a bit nervous if I don’t text her to check in at least once. (Total role reversal. In another year or so, I’ll be the one asking her to check in.)

It’s not my teenage daughter’s job to worry about me. It’s supposed to be the other way around. That’s the way the universe is supposed to work.

And while our evenings out are usually pretty benign, my girl knows that every once in a while, we do love to go out dancing. Dancing is deeply important to us. It’s how we find our feelings, connect with the world, and thank the universe for everything that we have. We plan to keep on going out and dancing until we’re in wheelchairs. And hopefully, by then, science will have developed the technology to make robot legs and neural Groove implants so we can not only keep dancing but look even cooler than the young whippersnappers around us.

My daughter, the worrier, sees the news from Orlando about the Pulse nightclub shooting as such: people in a gay club — people there because they love their community, love each other and love dancing — being heartlessly killed. The gears in my girl’s brain turn, and she makes the connection.

Someday her dad and stepdad could be in a club, dancing happily, and be killed by someone evil, simply for being.

I know her. That’s how her brain works.

Evil will not triumph on the dancefloor

It’s not my teenage daughter’s job to worry about me. It’s supposed to be the other way around. That’s the way the universe is supposed to work.

But can I tell my daughter her worry is unfounded?

No.

Because the scary truth of it is, it’s sheer luck that I was never in a club at the same time as a monster with an AK-47. This was the killing of my people, in my house. There is no way to pretend otherwise.

So how do I talk about that with my daughter?

In this strange new world where some members of our nation are zealously clinging to their right to own guns, where any attempt at greater gun safety and regulation is met with an outcry of “You can’t take my guns away from me!”, where someone on an FBI watch list can still own a gun and carry it into a place of safety and sanctuary and act out his dream of being a vengeful god, where being gay can still result in persecution, shame and outright fear …

I don’t know what to say to my daughter about that. She’s afraid for me, and I can’t tell her that fear is unfounded.

All I can tell her is this:

Yes, there is a lot of hatred in the world.

That hatred tends to come from fear and ignorance of those we don’t understand.

That hatred can sometimes result in evil, violent action.

But there are far more people who believe in the value of love, and human life, than not. Evil doesn’t rule. It just gets more press.

Oh, and one other thing:

There’s no way in hell that evil is going to keep me from dancing. Ever.

Pulse nightclub mass shooting photo: ©  Alex / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: We’re digging into our ample archives to find some great articles you might have missed over the years. This one comes from 2014.

There’s a theme circulating on the Internet right now, mostly related to prom season – dads who threaten their daughters’ dates.

I’ve seen it on T-shirts, tweets, Facebook messages, and other places. The posts usually include a reference to the father’s guns, bullets, and, sometimes, boots. A list outlines the father’s expectations for the potential boyfriend and usually ends with a comment that if some boy mistreats his daughter in any way, then the above-mentioned guns/bullets/boots will be used on said guy.

These are well-meaning dads who want to display their devotion to their daughters, I’m sure. And as the father of a little girl, I get it.

I understand the love you have for your daughter, but let me be clear. If you mistreat any of my sons when they show up to your 1950s doorstep to take your daughter out on a date, you’ll have to answer to me.

I do not take disrespect lightly and that rings true from adult to child. I’m teaching my sons and daughter to respect others, so don’t be a jerk and act like a tough guy when my boys come around your girls.

Because you know what? If you act that way, they won’t come around and your daughter will probably sneak out to meet them anyway.

I get it. I get that you want to preserve your daughter’s innocence. That you want to be the only man in your daughter’s life. But you won’t be. So instead of bragging about how you’ll threaten your daughter’s dates with your guns and the “whooping” you’re going to give that boy if he breaks her heart or mistreats her, teach your daughter:

To stick up for herself and others.

To be wise and independent.

To be smart and courageous.

To value her own image and hold it in high self-esteem.

To make good choices.

To hold on to something that’s worth waiting for (and that means having “The Talk” with them). That’s what I’m teaching my girl … and my boys.

So go ahead and post your blah-blah-blah and that you have blah-blah-blah and you’ll do blah-blah-blah if some guy does blah-blah-blah.

But I suggest, instead, that you quit talking and start raising. (And encouraging, for that matter.) Throwing out ridiculous threats won’t stop boys and girls from doing anything. The best way to protect them is to raise them to make good decisions for themselves.  Have frank discussions about the risks of engaging in certain behaviors and the benefits of waiting for the one that may change their lives for the better. And you don’t want to risk scaring away the person that could do that.

Threaten daughter’s dates photo: © Mdv Edwards / Adobe Stock.

It shouldn’t be controversial to say an adult should never hit a child. That feels as reasonable as any statement could be, but a few might disagree. I can imagine eager fingers excitedly typing out varied scenarios and positing endless “what ifs” to find a way to work around this simple statement of fact: an adult should never hit a child.

Yet I’ve seen a spate of disturbing videos circulating on social media spaces of late. I’m disappointed these videos exist, but perhaps more disturbing is the reaction to them.

The videos depict adult, male teachers physically punching children. Each instance is a little different, but they follow a common formula. Student is misbehaving. Student is mouthing off. In short, the student is being a complete monster, and in one case, saying extraordinarily offensive things to the teacher.

In response, the adult, grown-ass male teacher physically attacks the student.

I’d like to think I’m pretty immune to the internet’s nonsense, but in this case, I find myself unable to shake the gross feeling these videos generate.

None of the behavior by the students is appropriate. Criminally underpaid teachers deserve honor and respect. The parents of these students have failed their kids. Past teachers have failed these kids. Society has failed them, too. And, yes, these kids do need to be taught a lesson. That lesson, however, should never be printed on the bony edges of a teacher’s knuckles – however smug that minor’s face may be.

Alpha Bros and toxic masculinity

I’ve been a father for a little more than 8 years. In all that time I have physically beaten my children zero times.

No swat on the bottom.

Not a pinch on the back of the arm.

Not even a slap on the wrist.

I never thought I would be that type of guy. My parents used minor physical deterrents to bad behavior, and I’m not traumatized, so I fully intended to use a similar strategy with my own children. When it came time to dole out corporal punishment, though, it never felt right. It didn’t make sense to hurt a child physically.

Have I gotten close? Sure.

Have I been beyond frustrated and had to assault an inanimate object? Yep – way more often than I’d like to admit.

But nowhere in me exists the desire to physically hurt my kids.

Part of me wants to dig into the teachers. I want to point out how weak and pathetic their actions are, but I’m capable of extending a little grace to these folks. These teachers have been through more in the last couple of years than I can fathom, and they finally snapped. I’m not excusing their actions, but I’m not looking to pile on. Their lives have been destroyed by these videos, and rightly so. I don’t need to add to that fire.

My issue is with the toxic masculinity crowd: The Alpha Bros sharing these types of videos to celebrate a child being physically dominated by a larger male.

This group of losers thinks it’s weak if a man kneels and hugs an angry child instead of screaming at him. These same folks think women are inferior. They behave as if any show of nonviolent emotion is a demonstration of weakness. They are desperate to be thought of as in charge and are likely to describe themselves as “an entrepreneur” while selling supplements online while living in their mom’s basement. These Alpha Bros have a 4Chan following, worship guns, and in general, have so little self-esteem, their only ability to feel good about themselves comes when celebrating the misery of others.

These are the trolls cheering on the teachers who physically attacked their students. They share these videos and talk about how soft society has gotten. “It’s good to see a real man finally standing up and doing something about it!” they type. In their world, a real man is one who is easily threatened by the words of an adolescent who poses zero physical threat.

If these are the hallmarks of a real man, I shudder to think how pathetic I am.

Define masculinity without the nonsense

I hug my children. I cried at the most recent episode of HBO’s The Last Of Us. My wife makes ALL the money. I must be pretty pathetic. I mean, how Beta is it to type angry words about all the big bad Alphas?

But you know what? I work on my own car – a German car, too. I mow my own lawn. Also, I use charcoal to grill large chunks of meat. I own firearms. I work out and even run ultra-marathons (OK, it’s been a while but still). My favorite sport is Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). But I also have an orchid collection and cry when Apple applies emotional music to rolling pictures of my kids. Soooo, there’s that.

Regardless of how we chose to define and measure masculinity and manliness, the pinnacle of manhood can’t be violence. A real man practices restraint. He knows the difference between wisdom and nonsense. These new Alpha Bros are devoid of wisdom and represent the worst of us men, not the best.

As fathers of the next generation, it is our duty to model healthy, masculine behavior. Yes, men do have specific needs. But there are healthy outlets for these feelings (sports, exercise, hard physical labor). Our job is to teach our young sons these healthy outlets. We need to point out the weak behavior of these imaginary Alphas, and lead with love and kindness.

Now, back to some MMA fights and my bourbon. I’ve had a long day of mending socks and cleaning the kitchen. This Beta life is brutal.

Photo: © Maria Sbytova / Adobe Stock.

It’s funny. We always complain about not having enough time to rest and relax yet, when we get a day off, we feel like we have to do something.

That was me on the Fourth of July. I usually would be more than happy to just hang around the house and do nothing. However, since I’d been traveling the previous two weekends, I felt I owed it to the kids to make this holiday extra special.

As special as can be for a 3-year-old and 6-month-old.

I thought a trip to the zoo would be a fun, family outing. So after I convinced my wife, I let my son know about the plans for our “adventure.” As excited as he was to go see the animals, I was just as excited to have this experience with them.

This was the first type of outing like this for us as a family of four. And while I tried to make sure I planned accordingly, what I didn’t factor in was the logistics of transporting two kids through the streets of Washington, D.C., and ultimately through the zoo. In 90-degree heat, I might add. Only packing one stroller was a major dad fail. Thankfully, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo provided extra strollers, cooling stations and plenty of food options.

As with any trip, the reaction from the kids, particularly my 3-year-old boy, was hit-and-miss. He loved some of the animals, was scared of the others and, in between, was pretty much indifferent. The highlights of the day, for my son at least, were the frogs and riding in the cool, blue rental stroller. Our baby girl just napped or watched people.

Father put on alert for family’s safety

About midway through our adventure, I received a text alert about the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. Seven killed, dozens injured, by a lone shooter taking aim at people lined up to watch a Fourth of July parade.

These types of alerts have, unfortunately, become pretty common, almost to a point of being expected. But this one hit a little differently. With it being a holiday, I’m sure the folks up there were just trying to get out of the house and enjoy a fun-filled day with their families. Just like we were at the zoo.

And that’s why it was different.

In the middle of trying to enjoy a family outing, my mind shifted into a defensive mode. I scanned my surroundings. I wondered what would happen if a shooting took place in this open area filled with hundreds of people.

How would I protect my family? Would we be able to take cover? How would I explain to the kids what had taken place?

That’s where we are now. It’s our reality, not based on any political leanings, just factual data. It’s yet another thing we have to worry about as parents. This is the world our children are growing up in.

Fortunately, my kids are at the age where they’re oblivious to the evils of the world. We have a few more years until we won’t be able to keep them in their little bubbles any longer. And then, I’ll have to be prepared to talk, to have some tough conversations.

For now, I have to deal with my own emotions. The concerns I have as a dad. Concerns about the world my kids will grow up in and how I can protect them for as long as possible. It’s a never-ending worry, and one that’s magnified whenever ever those breaking news alerts pop up on my phone. I hope I will never have to experience a tragedy of that magnitude. And, hopefully, the day will come when we can go out with our families and not have to worry whether we’ll make it home safely.

Photo: ©vchalup / Adobe Stock.

“I could make the jump.”

He was sitting across from me at a small bistro table sandwiched between walkway and railing.

We were sharing a pretzel, one of us more than the other, and speaking of the things that people do while shopping for shorts on a Saturday.

“I could jump to the escalator,” he reiterated against my disagreement. He mentioned his parkour training. He referenced his youth.

“There are better options,” I said.

We were in the same mall we always go to for back-to-school needs, having a new version of the same conversation we’ve had for years. The recent addition of a sporting goods store had made our previous plans all the more plausible. After all, they sell camping gear and baseball bats, not to mention food supplies and all the things required for anyone in the throes of a zombie apocalypse.

On one visit we had realized that bean bag chairs would fit perfectly in the giant iron chandeliers hanging throughout the mall, allowing enough room for our family of four to nest comfortably, assuming we could get into them.

“This mall needs a hardware store,” my oldest had said at the time, before deciding the maintenance department surely had the means of reaching such heights.

The leap to the escalator, however, was a twist, built not on the previous concept of hunkering down, but rather the fastest form of fleeing.

“It would depend where the shooter was,” he said.

When my wife worked in that mall, the shooter had been in a paper store. A man bent on murder found it in the card section, killing his former partner with a pistol like so many jilted lovers before him. Another life lost in senseless rage, just above the food court.

Meanwhile, thousands of shoppers went running.

My wife had been working in a restaurant. She had stepped up, as she is prone to do, and made sure guests and employees got out safely. The restaurant was deserted. There were bags and phones left on tables, strollers flat on their sides, the random shoe abandoned upon the tile.

The sound, she said, was stunning silence, save the distant hum of shouts and sirens, fans slowly spinning with Ed Sheeran singing in the background. She texted me that they were in lockdown.

We all know what that means.

Life in America is not needing to explain to our kids what is meant by “active shooter” or “lockdown.” Life in America is sitting in a mall, church, movie theater, school, office, restaurant, festival, concert … anywhere, and making sure you know where all the exits are should someone walk in and start shooting.

It is explaining to our children that the government cares more about money made from guns than the lives of its citizens, and it is a child’s quick “I know.”

Life in America is a stampede through Times Square over the eruption of a backfire, and it is 100 lives lost to gun violence daily.

It is publishing this piece and the comments sure to follow.

We all know what that means.

What if one fall night, as you’ve done on many other nights, you and your child decide to take a walk around your neighborhood. What if nothing happens but just fun memories and bonding time over discussions of chicken nuggets and the most recent episode of PJ Masks. But what if … something does happen?

This past October, my son, Peter, and I decided to take a night walk to spend some quality time together. We wanted to see the Halloween decorations outside the houses in our Queens neighborhood of Glendale. Our neighborhood is usually very quiet with the exception of local traffic but, on that night, I sensed something was off.

On our way home, I heard a car screeching down the street. Then I heard a pop.

Immediately, my left side under the shoulder blade started burning.

I had been shot.

I grabbed Peter, and ducked behind a car for protection. In pure panic, taking off my fleece jacket, I asked him, “Am I bleeding?”

Peter replied, “No, Daddy.”

I did notice a little bit of paint on my jacket, and thought that was odd.

We heard the car screech around the corner again. Terrified, we hid behind a van as they slowed down and then sped off again.

We walked home five blocks, moving very fast because we were both afraid. We didn’t know if our assailants were going to pass by for a third time. We were terrified.

We later found out that two young adults, ages 19 and 22 — out of boredom — were firing frozen paintball pellets at random people. The police caught them but not before they hit 10 victims, including a 2-year-old boy. Two people were badly injured: one who was hit in the head, resulting in a concussion, and one who was hit in the neck.

The next day, the night’s terror really hit me hard.

“What if?” I keep asking myself.

What if I was hit in the head and dropped to the ground unconscious or dead, my son screaming, “Daddy, Daddy!” Would he know to pick up my cell phone and dial 911 or my wife?

What if they hit my son, injuring or killing him? Would I forgive myself for taking him out that night or would I be able to live life without him?

What if we were both knocked to the ground? Would I be able to keep calm for the both of us?

What if it was a real gun with real bullets?

There are a few things I think about constantly, even before this incident, where I ask myself, “What if?”

What if I was not as involved in my son’s life as I am? What if I didn’t discipline my son? What if I didn’t teach my son to respect others or show my son lots of love? Would he turn out to be like these two guys who shot me?

One thing I learned from this experience is that I am not as prepared for an emergency as I thought I was. I panicked, and that made my son panic. I blame myself for this even though I know no one really knows how they are going to react in a situation like that one. Another thing I learned, most importantly, is that I really do cherish every single moment I have with my son. This feeling grows stronger daily because of that frightening situation.

As parents, we will always have “what if” moments, but in this case, I learned how to better react. My son and I have recovered, and our father-and-son bond couldn’t be stronger because he knows I love him and he loves me.

Longtime NYC Dads Group member Larry Interrante lives in Queens. A version of this first appeared on his blog Life with PC. 

She clings to the green monkey bar on our backyard play set with her little fingers. The nail on her right index finger is an angry purple-blue. The scar from a lost battle with the small iron trap door in the ground by our mailbox that conceals our water meter, which is as endlessly fascinating to a 1-year-old as it is hazardous to appendages.

I stand below the bars, my hands resting on her hips. She presses the souls of her pink and black sneakers against my chest, smiles her heart-melting smile, and giggles as she pushes herself up. Her waist at bar level, leaning forward to peak over the fence into our neighbor’s yard, she probably feels like she’s flying. Her eyes dance as she drops herself back down, dangles for a moment, and presses her body against me for support. For safety.

Despite her precarious position, six feet above hard ground covered with only a thinning layer of red rubber mulch, she is safe simply because of the strength of my arms.

If only it were always that easy to keep our children safe.

The Valentine’s Day school shooting that left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., some 200 miles south of our backyard in Orlando, hit close to home. The Pulse nightclub shooting here two years ago obviously hit our local community hard, but Parkland was equally terrifying. Not because of proximity but because it was yet another incomprehensible incursion on the sanctity of our children’s schools.

I was moving back and forth under the monkey bars on that Valentine’s Day morning. Lifting my daughter up and helping her drop down softly onto the ground. We kept at it for what seemed like an hour. I learned to comply with her instructions even if I never fully understood them. It was a lovely morning.

A couple weeks prior, my oldest son, a kindergartener, told me he almost cried while hiding in the bathroom at school during a Code Red, or school shooting, drill. On Valentine’s Day, after school while we were playing outside, just after I learned about Parkland, we heard the elementary school intercom in the distance: an electronic beep, then a voice.

“We have to be quiet and listen when the announcement comes on,” my kindergartener said as we waited. “In case there’s a bad guy and they are calling a Code Red.”

He said it matter-of-factly. Like he was reading one of those very boring kindergarten reader books: I saw the dog. The dog ran. We have to listen in case a bad guy is coming to kill us.

I didn’t feel anything at that moment. Maybe a whisper of sadness or anger, but I was too spent to muster any strong feelings. It’s the subtlety that gets you. The little injustices start to pile up and before we know it, they are just an accepted part of our existence. We let them slide because it is easier to forget. We don’t want to think about what we are doing to our children because we are too cowardly or apathetic to take meaningful action. Instead, we continue to place the weight of everything onto their small shoulders as they crouch in a darkened school bathroom.

Later that night, after the kids were in bed, I sat on the couch next to my wife. We each scrolled through our phones, searching.

I read that the Florida state legislature was introducing legislation that would allow teachers to carry guns during school hours. If something like that were to become law, what would we do? Home school? Move? Out of state? Out of country?

This is what we think about now. Until we don’t. Until the news fades and the pressure of daily life washes away the immediate fear. We go numb. And we wait.

In the mornings, while my oldest two kids are at school, my daughter and I amble around our neighborhood. She pushes herself around haltingly on her red three-wheeled scooter, stopping frequently to drag it along behind her. Bump, bump, bump, the scooter goes along the asphalt street. I hope that bumping is the only sound I hear. I hope I don’t hear the ding of the school intercom in the distance. Or sirens. Or something worse. I think, “Could I hear gun shots from here, half a mile away, if the shooter was inside the building?”

We keep walking in the warm morning sun of early spring in Florida. A car turns into our quiet dead-end street. It heads toward us slowly. I move beside my daughter and her scooter and place my hand on her head to hold her in place until the car passes. To keep her safe.

There are countless problems in the world. They can be found in Sudan, Syria, England, Brazil and Ethiopia, to name but a few. Everywhere there are terrifying acts of nature and unnatural acts of terror. They are here, in America, too: gender and racial inequality, a lack of common-sense gun laws, incurable disease (and the profiting from it), the demonization of poverty, a culture of violence, the celebration of ignorance, and a demagogue wearing hate as a brand who wants nothing more than his bully in the pulpit. The lists go on and on, all of them, and it can seem overwhelming. Some issues affect us personally in our respective daily lives, others anger us from a never-ending newsfeed, and together they build one upon the other, brick upon brick of everything wrong, mortared by our shared fears, adhesive as they are.

They keep me awake at night.

Speaking to kids about such things may seem daunting, and granted, the level of discussion should always depend upon several factors that will vary from child to child: age, maturity, want of knowledge, and other things that parents know best, but the talk(s) should happen, nonetheless.

Why?

For starters, why not?

Of course there are arguments against it, namely the wonder and innocence of childhood being compromised by concerns they can do nothing about. I get it. I have used this same argument for years. I champion the concept of wonder and innocence as a life philosophy that should be curated for as long as possible — forever if you can get it; however, I do not believe innocence and information need be mutually exclusive.

What I do believe, is that allowing a child insight into the worst of us may very well inspire the best in them. Providing children access, albeit with parental guidance, to the ills of the world, puts perspective to our predestined privilege, even preventing said privilege from manifesting itself too fully. Instead, children that have a greater and broader appreciation of the workings of the world become more invested in it, more susceptible to empathy and compassion, more willing to stand for what is right. Show a child a problem, and chances are they may see a solution.

That isn’t to say that I would expect (or ask) future generations to fix all we have broke. Rather, I think they will be better prepared to avoid additions to it. I think it clear that our children are better than us, and their generation already has the capacity to address the issues, to tear down the walls we are building from so much fear and rote.

Children need to be able to defend themselves and what they know as good and right. We can give them the means for protection with context and knowledge. Don’t (only) tell them why you are against something, but show them what that something is against. Don’t guilt them into overindulging on a side dish because children are starving, well, everywhere, but show them what hunger looks like. Show them the effects of bad decisions and greed, the favela, the refugee, the farmer and the broken unions of people.

There is no better teacher than failure, and with that we have taught our children well. We may be overwhelmed by all of the problems in the world, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t also solutions, and by including our children in the conversation we are investing in them and their ability. After all, they are the future, and the future starts now. The wonder is theirs for the keeping.

Child’s Insight into Trump Word drawing by Z. Honea.