Portraits of Two Dads at the End of the Day

It’s been a long day.

If I’m being honest, all days feel long lately. Last week was a doozy, one for the history books. The anti-trans legislation that FL and AL introduced seems so…20 years ago? Horrible and inhumane? A violation of human rights and extremely homophobic? All of the above.

And the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is heartbreaking and devastating. On par with the last two years, last week felt like the world was ending.

But it’s not ending, and we’re still here, and somehow it will be okay. Things at home have been business as usual, and by business as usual, I mean that in just one day, one of our kids went to the bathroom on himself at school but was too embarrassed to tell anyone, so he sat in it all day. My heart broke when he told me that on the walk home from school. And speaking of the walk home, just as we were coming up to our house, our other child fell down on his scooter and busted his top lip and scraped his knee pretty bad.

I’m learning these are normal occurrences and daily happenings in the life of little kids, and to not beat myself up too much when they happen. We like to think we, as parents, can control every little thing that happens to our children when they’re young; like everything is our fault (whether it goes right or wrong).

But the truth is, most of the time, and much like the crisis in Ukraine and the situation in Alabama and Florida, we can only control how we react to what’s happening around us. And in those moments, I believe, is when our true character comes out. Will we help those who need it most? Or will we leave them stranded, forced to face their obstacles alone?

Sometimes it helps to think of others as if they were your family. Your children. Would you leave your children to fend for themselves when they’re the most vulnerable? When they need you more than ever?

So no matter how long the days feel or how tired we are at the end of them, I would like to think we all would do whatever it takes to keep the ones we love safe, and help them when they have nowhere else to turn. That’s parenthood, and that’s life.