05/15/2026
I saw a post today that made me decide to finally share this. I originally wrote it a couple months ago after my son opened up about how hurt he was that the adults who were supposed to care were acting like everything was normal… like nothing had changed, nothing had happened, and nothing affected him.
Not once did someone stop and truly ask my boys:
“How are you feeling?”
“Are you okay?”
“What’s going on in your heart?”
Instead, the answer was always:
“They’re kids.”
Yeah… and we were kids once too.
And the truth is, most of us remember far more than people think we do. We felt the tension, the anger, the silence, the betrayal, the careless words, the pretending, the avoidance. We saw it even when adults thought we didn’t.
Children are not stupid.
They are observant, sensitive, and deeply affected by the emotional environments they grow up in.
A lot of us became adults carrying wounds we didn’t understand because nobody helped us process them in healthy ways. We learned to survive through dysfunction instead of grow through healing. We learned unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy communication, unhealthy love, and many of us spend most of our adult lives trying to unlearn what silence and avoidance taught us.
That is exactly why I refuse to pretend with my children. It's real here. 🤍⛰️✨️⚖️
We pray here.
We heal here.
We grow here.
But more than anything… we tell the truth here.
I refuse to raise my boys believing life is perfect, painless, or untouched by mistakes. Life is messy. People fail. Hearts break. Trust gets tested. Anger wounds people. Careless mouths leave scars that can last for years. Betrayal cuts deep. Addiction destroys trust. And sometimes the deepest pain comes from the people we love the most.
But no wound is “greater.”
Mine is no bigger than yours.
Pain is pain.
One day my children will experience both sides of it, they will be hurt, and at times they may hurt others too. That is part of being human. What matters is whether we face it, learn from it, take accountability, and grow through it instead of hiding from it.
We don’t avoid hard conversations in this house.
We don’t pretend ugly things don’t exist.
We don’t bury truth
