The Making of a Parent: The New Parent Talk “Birds & The Bee’s” in 2016

I sat down and wrote this on Father’s Day 2016. Trust me; this was not planned or intended to be important for the day, although it is.

A week ago, on June 12, 2016, I woke up like it was a typical Sunday morning. My wife, son, and I were getting ready and heading to the 11:00 am church service. When I turned around, my wife said very quietly. “Did you see about the shooting?” I blinked and tried to orient myself so as not to wake up. “No,” I mumbled and looked at my phone. I started scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling, as all the news apps on my phone had sent notifications early in the morning. All I saw were words, and my stomach felt like it might throw up. “Shots fired”, 30+ dead, “42 Dead, 36 Injured”, “Gay Club”, and I stopped and turned off my phone.

Although I am a news junkie, I did something that no one who knows me would believe. I turned off my phone, started getting dressed for church, and got ready to go out. I didn’t look at an article, blink or turn on the news. Any.

Physically, I couldn’t force myself to watch a news article or turn on any news station. I couldn’t read another article that described and explained the “new” American mass shooting. My Facebook “Cover Photo” is still set to “Enough” in remembrance of the San Bernardino shooting, for God’s sake.

It wasn’t until I was driving home from church 3 hours later that I looked down and saw that my phone said, “50 dead, 51 injured in Orlando.” My heart aches like never before.

I looked back at my son, watching the cars go by and dancing to the music playing on the radio. He sighed and my wife, who was driving, asked me what was going on. I muttered: “50 dead, 51 wounded.” But, it is what happened next that shocked. My wife, she looked in the rearview mirror and started spelling out, “THE MASS SHOOTING in Orlando?” And I nodded. I looked at my son, three years old and smart as a whip.

Even though I have a book 95% ready to be published, and a blog that I haven’t posted on in over a week, from last Sunday to this Sunday, I haven’t written a word. Not with pen and paper, on my phone or on a keyboard,

Why? Physically I didn’t dare to do it. The words I wanted to write, I couldn’t conjure up and get out. The words I needed were heavily repressed beneath many swirling feelings, thoughts, questions, and sentences.

It wasn’t a revolutionary realization, but it was for me. As I sat with my wife spelling out “Mass Shooting,” I realized a reality of the country I live in. I’m not disparaging or badmouthing my home in the slightest, but it was something I never imagined I would have to prepare for growing up. It was something that I never expected to be required of parenthood in the year 2016 in the United States of America.

As a kid, the biggest “talk” I ever had was with my dad in Red River, New Mexico, overlooking a little creek where he explained, oh you know, “Birds and Bee’s.” But driving home a week ago, I realized he was going to have one more “talk” my dad didn’t have to have with me. “Mass shootings.”

I began to think more and wonder. “Am I making this up?” Then I realized, it wasn’t. No problem. It was a talk he needed to have at some point, or else there would be more confusion and panic on the way. Because with any of these “talks” it is about reducing the fright, explaining the subject correctly to reduce the disorder, and making it “normal” even if it is more unusual.

How to turn the “talk” of birds and bees into the theme of “mass shootings”?

Although my dad had the daunting task of explaining sex to his son in a way that made sense, he explained how it worked and answered any questions that might come up (you did great, by the way, Dad). I realized that I received one more “talk” that will be necessary. I’ll have to figure out what age is “appropriate” to explain how in our country, from time to time, one, or maybe two, people will get big guns and kill a lot of people.

Excuse me?

No offense, but if you ask me, that’s a horrible end to the deal. But, for those of you scratching your head and wondering if I’m right, welcome to the year 2016. I guarantee you I’m not the only person my age. having the same understanding that first, we had to explain to our children about “School Shootings” and then “Theatre Shootings”, and now we have progressed to just “Mass Shootings”. Without rhythm or reason. It can be day or night. A gay club or a hospital for disadvantaged people. No logic or red flags. But know that it will happen unless there are significant changes. Reality? I’ll say it again: Welcome to 2016.

How many years? At what age do I sit down with my son and begin to explain this topic to him and build a fictional moral landscape? Going deeper and trying to explain that some people are very confused. And explaining exactly how these people can kill such a large number of people. Now, that part is done and explained. But the hardest part? Follow up questions. Questions that a young, vibrant and inquiring mind will evoke that most of us may not be “ready” or prepared for.

“Why do they do that?”

“Why is no one stopping them?”

“How do they get a gun to do that?”

“Can someone not sell them that gun?”

“Where will the next one be?”

“Did they kill children?”

“Did they kill the mommies and daddies?”

“Did they kill the grandparents?”

“Do we have a weapon?”

“Why do people need weapons?”

Trust me, this is a small list and it’s just the tip of the iceberg of “possible” questions. And to be honest, I have no idea how to answer one of those questions. I’m not even going to pretend. Why?

Because I can’t answer them for myself.

I know how I would love to answer them, but it’s not even remotely the country we live in. It should be very clear, but it is not. At least we haven’t made it clear. We as Americans have made it harder than it should be.

I’m not going to bore myself digging up facts, statistics, and rhetoric that you can find in millions of thousands of places directly after a mass shooting. But, I leave you with a question that I hope will stimulate some seed in you.

Do we want to continue to grow a country that in 2016 a parent of a three-year-old child has to decide and find out what age is “appropriate” to explain what a “Mass Shooting” is? That there is no “Gun Control” and what should you do if, God forbid, you find yourself in an active shooting situation?

Today that is not being “dramatic” or somehow “overreacting”. No. That is being an involved, informed father and preparing his son for what awaits him at the door of his house.

Maybe… Just maybe… Is it enough at last? Let’s do something with the weapons. No one needs a gun that can kill 50 people in less than five minutes. That is not right”; that’s crazy