I Am Afraid of Monsters

The other night, my son told me there were monsters in his room. I told him to wait in the living room while I scared them away. I stomped my feet and hit my fists against his closet door and yelled gibberish for a few seconds. Then, I opened the door and called him in. I told him that they were gone, that I had scared them away, and that as they fled, I heard them say they would not ever come back to this house, this room, where this scary mama lives.

I cannot tell my son that monsters don't exist. I cannot lie to him. Monsters do exist. They are everywhere you turn. The woman arrested for beating her kids, or the man who stares a little too long at your child. The kid down the street who experiments on animals, or the teenager shooting up their school. Many of these monsters no one knows about. They go about their daily lives just as you do yours. They pass you in the store, brush your shoulder in the mall, and you have no idea that you were just touched by such a terrifying being.

It is these things that I wish my son would never learn. Something I will do my damndest to protect him from. But I will not always be able to scare the monsters away. I will not always be able to stomp and punch and yell gibberish into the empty air and make everything better. And it is this knowledge that sometimes crushes me, making me feel completely useless.

Parent's jobs are to protect their children, but we are set up for failure. We will not always be there to stop it when a bully shoves them, or their first love breaks their heart. We will not always have the right words, the right touch, the right answers.

It makes me sad to know that this is the world I have brought my son into. But I will do what it takes to keep him safe. I will do all that I can. But one thing I will not do, one thing I cannot do, is lie.

So somehow, I have to find a way to protect him without sheltering him. To calm his worries and his fears without lying to him. Somehow, I have to teach him to be strong, to stand up for himself, to be a kind and wonderful little boy - and then a man - without inadvertently turning him into a monster, the very thing we are all afraid of.

It is very scary being a mother, and there are days when the fear takes you over and leaves you feeling paralyzed in place, unsure of how to proceed. Today, for me, is one of those days. I am so terrified of making the wrong choice, making a mistake.

But while I am so terrified, I am also feeling so much love, so much joy. This little boy, the one who trusts me to keep the monsters away, he looks at me and knows that I am doing my very best, and he loves me for it.