One of the guiding principles behind Rainbow Roots is pretty simple: Children should never have to carry adult uncertainty.

That doesn’t mean parents have to know everything the minute our child tells us something new. We are going to have questions. We’re going to be surprised sometimes. We may need to rethink things we have believed for a very long time. All of that belongs with the adults. 

Your child should not have to comfort YOU through your reaction to who THEY are. They should not have to build a PowerPoint presentation explaining why they deserve your support. They should not have to become the family expert on sexuality, gender, neurodivergence, disability, or anything else because the grown-ups have decided learning is somehow THEIR assignment. They're already busy being a kid. We can handle the homework.

I learned this in my own parenting because there were absolutely moments when my kids told me something and my brain immediately went, “Okay... I have seventeen questions.” Fine. I can have seventeen questions. I can write them down. I can look things up. I can talk to another adult. I can find somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about instead of wandering through the internet until I find an answer that makes me feel better.

What I don’t need be doing is handing all seventeen questions back to my kid and then making THEM responsible for getting ME comfortable again. That distinction matters. A child can have a parent who is still learning and still feel safe with that parent. Safety shows up in the way you respond while you are figuring things out. It is in whether you listen long enough to understand what your child is actually telling you, whether you stay curious instead of becoming defensive, and whether your kid leaves the conversation knowing you are still somebody they can come back to.

A lot of us learned very early how to function without talking much about what was happening underneath the surface. We got good at compartmentalizing, pushing through, and handling things privately until we could make sense of them. Useful skills sometimes. Less useful when your kid is standing in front of you trying to figure out whether they can trust you with something important.

One thing we should always remember: Our kids now have a language for things we didn’t have a language for. They understand nervous systems, boundaries, identity, consent, mental health, and emotional safety in ways many of us were never taught to think about at their age. That can be uncomfortable.

Good. Discomfort is not an emergency. Realizing you got something wrong is uncomfortable. Hearing information that challenges what you were taught can be uncomfortable. Apologizing can be uncomfortable as hell. You can survive discomfort. Your kid should not have to become less safe while you avoid it.

Sometimes the safest thing you can say is, “I don’t understand this yet, but I’m willing to learn.” Sometimes you need to apologize because your first response was terrible. Sometimes you learn something new and realize a belief you have carried for twenty or thirty years needs another look.

You’re allowed to revisit your words as you grow. You are allowed to change your mind when you acquire better information. Frankly, that is one of the more useful things an adult can learn how to do. Rainbow Roots exists because I am much more interested in helping parents become safer than I am in asking kids to become easier for adults to understand.

So when something new lands in your family and you feel yourself getting scared, defensive, confused, or overwhelmed, give yourself a second and ask a very practical question: What does my child need from me right now? You can deal with the rest once everybody is safe.

Curiosity is enough to begin. What you do with what you learn is where the parenting starts.

That’s all for now. For more, please visit rainbowrootsmedia.com. And don’t forget to take good care of yourself today.