I wrote about being a Black parent in this moment, and how my children are both respite from all the tragedy transpiring in the world, and a reminder of how high the stakes are to build a better one. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Something so many of my friends have been thinking about is how our young children, mostly babies & toddlers, are perceived as cute & adorable now, while reckoning with how quickly that will end for them. How quickly they'll go from being seen as child, to being seen as threat.
We're in our late 20s/early 30s, and we experienced "the talk" from our parents not that long ago. Now we're in the position our own parents were in w/ us & the stakes feel so much higher. It's one thing when it's your own wellbeing, it's wholly another when it's your children's.
As Black parents w/small children, we're so new to this feeling, this indescribable joy mixed with this profound fear. As my homie said in the group chat, it's the "juxtaposition between the joy of seeing the world through his eyes and knowing how the world will see him one day."
I didn't have kids when Michael Brown was killed in 2014. I have a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old now. The stakes have always been high, but they feel so much higher now.
