Moral Hygiene for Kids
I believe we have two jobs: repair the world bit by bit and raise our kids to be good people. One is daunting and the other feels like a mystery.
Editor’s note
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In these early months of the second Trump administration, we are looking to publish personal accounts, rooted in a specific context and compelling point of view, of how this administration’s authoritarian push is reshaping life at work, at home, and in the public square. And in the case of the essay below, getting your kids ready for bed. Thanks for reading. -AZ
By John Houston
Most nights I stand under a shower of lukewarm water. Anything hotter and both my 3½ year old and my 22-month-old complain. They otherwise spend bathtime yammering on in elevated gibberish, haphazardly tossing toys, and playing with the soap dispenser like its whack-a-mole, creating a slip-n-slide while I attempt to clean us. They march around me like a maypole, bumping me, jostling me, and finally, intentionally shoving me when I restrict their parade route by getting too close to one wall or another. It starts off really cute and then I would like to get the soap out of my eyes, please. Sometimes patience and I are not partners, so tonight I stand outside the shower, watching them play.
While they are bashing, thrashing, and trashing, my mind wanders. There’s a lot to wander to; I can’t finish thinking a thought before some other worse news is on the news.
My kids live in a different world than the one I grew up in. I don’t know if it’s worse, but it’s certainly new. And while I’m over here worrying about how to raise them in this new world, my kids are out there loving it. They don’t know anything about it, but they love it. They smile big and eat fistfuls of cheese and strawberries and cuddle with our dog and ask a lot of questions about where the moon happens to be at any given moment. Instead of spiraling into existential dread like dad, they enjoy every bit of living. I’m not sure if their joviality is born of privilege or because they are barely sentient, but when I hear them giggle at bubbles, I’m not sure it matters. I want to keep them happy for as long as possible because I look out and I see a short horizon.
My son has started noticing when I’m lost in thought and asks me if I’m doing alright. I usually make something up because I don’t want to say I’m ruminating on why the world feels broken and why people suffer. He isn’t capable at his age of understanding and I pray by the time he can, he learns it as history and not the news. How do you tell a 3 ½ year-old you’re worried he won’t be able to remain awestruck for much longer? At what age do you explain there are little boys like him and little girls like his sister whose sense of awe was stripped away for no good reason because of some mean, greedy grown-ups?
In this new world fast approaching, I cannot see what lies just over the short horizon. But I have these two wonderful little kids and my whole heart just wants to bundle them up, to shield them from whatever is coming. My mind knows differently, that doing so would do them no favors. They need to be prepared, not protected. I need to find the balance of my heart and head, to shield them from the slings and arrows of the world until I have taught them how to wield a sword, to thrust, parry, and riposte. Self-doubt creeps in about my own strength and skill but I know, ultimately, they’ll have to fight the battles on their own, no dad to shield them. And what will that moment be like, for both of us, when we have to acknowledge that I’ve taken them as far as I can, it’s their turn now? That they are on their own, me in their corner instead of their cover.
Yet, easier said than done. I am overwhelmed by the task at hand. How do I teach them to be good people when everything feels hopeless? When the government is full of spineless blowhards. When faith is co-opted for power. When no good deed goes unpunished. When it seems like the bullies have the pulpit and the underdog gets shot. When there isn’t a value or ruling that can’t be bought. How do I teach them to stand up for what is right, even when no one is watching? To be a bulwark against hate and tyranny? To fight for the little guy? To find a moral center amidst the fray?
I believe we have two jobs: repair the world bit by bit and raise our kids to be good people. One is daunting and the other feels like a mystery.
My son knocks my daughter over. She cries. This happens often in our house. Who has time for lessons about character when you have toddlers? He is a wrecking ball with no sense of space or boundaries and she loves being near him, doing whatever he does, but her balance is iffy at best. I try to soothe her but he is still bouncing off the walls.
“Hey. Knock it off.” My tone startles him. “She is your little sister. She’s smaller than you. Look. You hurt her.” I snap at him.
It’s all coming at me so fast; the whole broken world, fatherhood, paying bills, responding to text messages, making dinner, finding clothes that aren't stained or too small, Where is your other mitten? I remind myself to breathe.
Both kids stand there, water dripping off of them, waiting for what I will say next. Tears well in my daughter’s eyes. My son, embarrassed and sad; he hates when I’m upset with him. They are so innocent, barely beyond babies, not warriors, and yet, I realize, you become a master swordsman one moment at a time. I take the edge out of my voice, but not the sincerity.
“In our house, we protect the people who are littler than us.”
John Houston is a writer on a journey of self discovery that has taken him across all fifty states, through law school, the US navy, the sound stages of Los Angeles, a farm in Vermont, and back home to Washington, DC where he gets to learn about life from and alongside his two kids.
Coming soon
Next week:
Thoughts from an American living abroad on observing Trump 2.0 from a distance, by comedian Elizabeth Leff
Next month:
Passover vibes from the editor
Notes on the meaning of home from a writer who lost her house, but not her picket fence, in the Pacific Palisades
One millennial grapples with truth and belief in the post-enlightenment age
To-do list
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