What are you gonna tell her?
Guiding principles for talking to kids + a playlist
A few years ago, after I read Her Country by Marissa Moss, I made a playlist called “Her Country,” [LINK FIXED] that started with a lot of the artists in the book (Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton) and has now grown to be over seven hours long and includes (of course) Beyonce, Dolly Parton, Maggie Rose, Allison Russell, Chappell Roan’s new song, and Amythyst Kiah, to name a few.1 Every time I listen to it, I’m like, “Wow, great song!” as if I did not choose each and every song. Yes, some of it is more Americana than country but it’s my playlist and I can call it whatever I want! If you try it, put it on shuffle and enjoy.
On a difficult day a few weeks ago, I was driving and Atticus (my 14-year old) was in the front seat, and I was not letting him choose the music, so we were listening to my playlist. (Every song? Was great.) Mickey Guyton’s song, “What Are You Gonna Tell Her” came on, and as he heard the lyrics, Atticus looked over at me in actual alarm.
She thinks life is fair and God hears every prayer
And everyone gets their ever after
She thinks love is love, and if you work hard that's enough
Skin is just skin and it doesn't matter
And that her friends older brother is gonna keep his hands to himself
And that somebody's gonna believe her when she tells
But what are you gonna tell her when she's wrong?
Will you just shrug and say it's been that way all along?
What are you gonna tell her when she figures out
That all this time you built her up just so the world can let her down?
Yeah, what do you tell her, what are you gonna tell her?Do you just let her pretend that she can be the president?
Would it help us get there any faster?
Do you let her think the deck's not stacked
And gay or straight or white or black
You just dream and anything can happen?Do you tell her not to fight?
Is it worth the sacrifice
Can you look her in the face and promise her that things will change?
What are you gonna tell her?
Maybe you can't, 'cause there ain't a way you can explain what you don't understand
What the hell do you tell her?
I have to admit that I didn’t think he’d be listening or (especially on that day) I might have skipped it. At the same time, I appreciate that he knew how the message of this song would resonate with me.
This is a question that a lot of us are asking ourselves these days, what the hell do we tell our kids about any number of things? Many of us have friends and family who have lost jobs because of government cuts. Perhaps you have a family member who is a veteran who has lost services or know someone who was cut from a medical trial. The librarians I know are worried about book bannings. The educators I know are worried about the Department of Education. The women I know are worried about birth control and reproductive healthcare access. The kids I know are worried about their immigrant friends and especially about their friends’ parents. The parents I know are worried about their LGBTQ kids, especially the trans kids. The farmers and the families and the small businesses are worried about tariffs. The list goes on and on. Depending on the age of the kid, they do absorb some of this, whether we are talking to them or not.
I grieve that the people who are in charge (I hardly want to call them adults) are acting so carelessly with human lives with so little consequence, and I struggle with knowing how to speak with both rage and hope about what I see and feel. I do not want to spread despair but neither do I think it is appropriate to completely obscure that many of the decisions being made are hurting people, and that it is frightening.
I am certainly not an expert on talking to children, but I have a middle schooler, I worked in middle schools a long time (the QUESTIONS I was asked as a middle school librarian would TERRIFY the legislators who do nothing to actually protect our kids from harm), and I was a kid once, and these are the principles that I recommend when talking to kids of all ages about difficult things.
Tell the truth. When we talked about setting out values for our family, one that we have repeated constantly and that is deeply rooted in our faith is that we are a family that tells the truth. (Does Atticus tell us the truth always? No he does not.) We have always tried to tell him the truth as we understood it. It has not been easy. We had conversations about some things before we had imagined we would. Now, of course, depending on his age we have not given him the entire truth (like the time we tried to skip telling the part about where Jesus died, and it didn’t end so well for us) but we do not change the story because it is too messy or it is more convenient. At the same time, I don’t advocate trying to explain the intricacies of our immigration policy to a six-year-old. There is a balance there, and I have found it helpful to simply be as honest and age-appropriate as possible.
Answer the question they are asking. We adults know so much more than we can say sometimes. When I worked in a school library, after I explained where we would go in the case of a lockdown drill, a 6th grader once asked me, “But we are right in the front of the school, won’t they [meaning a person with guns] come here first?” Correctly spotted, sir! That is, in fact, what the adults were worried about. I could not honestly tell that kid that he was wrong. I also did not want to tell him not to worry about it. I said, “That is why we practice. So we would know what to do if something like that happens.” I believe that kids ask the questions they are ready for you to answer honestly and that they will let you know when they are satisfied. When my own kiddo asks questions, whether about faith or the world or about what we are eating, I have practiced really listening to what he was saying so I could answer the question I thought I understood that he was asking. As much as I want (and I really want) to overshare, I always try to answer the one thing, and let them tell me if they need to know more.
Let the kid guide the conversation. There are of course times we have to drive a conversation or we have to have a conversation about a pressing issue. But even then, as much as possible, show kids respect. Honor the risk that they take by asking questions. That same 6th grader pushed more and said, openly but not disrespectfully, “I don’t think you could keep us safe if there were guns.” To be honest, he probably knew, at that age, over 15 years ago, more than I know about guns now. I did not want to belittle his observation (which was probably correct). I said something like, “I don’t know if I could but I know that I would try very hard to. This is a grown-up problem and your job is to know where to go so that the adults would be able to do the other things that would keep us safest.” Not BSing him seemed to satisfy him. This is closely tied to the point above, but it is also helpful to let kids know, “If you think of more questions later, we can come back to this.” Maybe they will think of more questions, or be ready to ask the questions they already have at a later date. I have been surprised how many times this invitation has been accepted when I was sure the conversation was over.
(A small side note: I wish everyone who refuses to do anything about school shootings and the idolatry of guns would have to face our children and answer these questions.)
None of this is easy, but I think it has built trust in our family and between me and my students over the years. They know that I will do my best to tell them what I can. And so I hope that it won’t come as a surprise to the kids in my life that (as Mickey Guyton says) life is not fair. That people are not treated equally. That I cannot promise them that things will change. And that I am with them when they choose to fight.
When I hear Mickey sing, the little girl who is still inside of me wants to be consoled because she does feel like the world has let her down. As I have listened to the playlist more over the past few weeks, I have also found a bit of a response in some of the other songs, not necessarily to tell children, but at least for myself.
Hold on
'Cause somebody loves you
You know trouble's always gonna be there
Don't lеt it bring you to your knees
Look up
Allison Russell and Brandi Carlile:
In the cradle of the circle
All the ones who came before you
Their strength is yours now
You're not alone
All that I want is one who knows me
A kind hand on my face when I weep
And I’d give back these things I know are meaningless
For a little fire beside me when I sleep
'Cause I don't want a theocracy
Or some idol ideology
We're all made from stars from above
I pledge allegiance to my soul
I'll follow where she needs to go
I'm a pilgrim for the empire of love
These ladies of country (and Americana) have been reminding me that I’m not alone. I appreciate that they aren’t telling me it’s going to be okay. Thankful for the women in my life and the women in my ears who help me keep going.
What are some of your guiding principles for talking to kids? What songs are missing from my playlist?
To the best of my knowledge, they all use she pronouns at least some of the time.
Thank you Kari! Just faced a loaded question from my 7 year old last night.