Why I Didn't Tell My Kids About This Shooting

I felt it come across me like an ocean wave. It’s so familiar by now; the shock, the tragedy, the sadness, the senselessness of another shooting, the disgust. The wave poured over me.

When you work in a newsroom, you are the caretaker of the news, and in this case, it hit very close to home in the Los Angeles area. It was wall-to-wall coverage in the newsroom. At least twelve hours or so the day the story unfolded and more the next day. And the wave will hit again… I know it.

So in the car this morning, I intentionally didn’t listen to news. I needed a break. I wanted to keep the wave at bay. And then, on a random radio station they started talking about it anyway and I flipped the channel. My daughter KNEW they were talking about something bad that had happened.

“What happened daddy?”

“Nothing.” I snapped back.

My wife said, “No, it was something. Something bad happened”. And then the wave hit again. The sadness. The disgust.
How many times have we had this conversation with our kids over the past few years… the past few WEEKS!? Bad people in the world. But good people too. And how we’ll always try to protect them. Always. How many times?

How many MORE times will we need to have this conversation?

I clarified to my daughter, “Something bad DID happen, but you are safe, and we’re here, and today in your world you probably don’t need to know all about it”. For today my girls can be 7 and 10.

Forgive me for taking a pass on telling them. I’ve told them so many times before. I’ve explained. I’ve reasoned. I’ve comforted. But today I was done talking and explaining. There’s no explanation. None. The weight of the world is heavy. We all feel it each and every day. I didn’t want my kids having to bear the load today.

We drove on our way listening to mindless holiday music in the car as I thought about the fourteen families who will never be the same again and so many others who were affected.

Today my kids can be kids. I’ll let the ocean wave hit me instead.

Pete Wilgoren is an Emmy award winning journalist who writes about his often surprising, embarrassing, and educational experiences surrounded by a wife and two little girls. Find Dadmissions on Facebook and on his blog Dadmissions.