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< Give me the birds and the bees talk any old day. That’s child’s play. Penis, vagina, uterus, vulva, nutsack roll off my tongue with ease. I got puberty in the bag and am happy to share my script with you —
< For boys: you get hairy, smelly and horny.
< For girls: you bleed and develop murderous tendencies towards your family. Easy breezy.
< Explaining the great hereafter to young, curious, impressionable humans, however, is not my forte. This was recently put to the ultimate test thanks to my sweet, anxiety-riddled 10-year old who saves all of his curveballs for bedtime.
< His latest nighttime obsession is death — leaving me wondering just how badly I’m screwing up this parenting gig so far. Is it the video games? The weird YouTube memes? The omnipresence of my ailing mother who just moved to the area and looks like The Walking Dead?
< We are not a religious family and we don’t talk about Heaven or Hell because we fundamentally do not believe these places exist. Joke could very well be on us, but in my mind, Hell merely exists as a concept to scare the living crap out of us mortals. It’s dangled before us in all its fiery glory to scare us into submission. It’s working wonders. Just look at how kind we are and not at all murdery!
< CLASSY HUMANS EARNING A SEAT IN THE PEARLY GATES — (Jan 6 riot footage courtesy of The Telegraph)
< Heaven exists to soothe our fears about our inevitable fate as worm food. I can philosophically understand why people believe in it, particularly young children. The idea of nothingness after life is terrifyingly abstract, not to mention rather bleak.
< So my husband and I agreed — after too many dirty martinis one night when our best ideas emerge — that regardless of our beliefs or lack thereof, we’d employ the Heaven ruse when asked about death by our children.
< Why you may wonder? Because we’re chickenshit and not at all creative.
< So when our 10-year old was hyperventilating through uncontrollable sobs, and asked the question — my husband calmly explained that when we die, we go to Heaven and it’s very beautiful and lovely. We’ll be reunited with old relatives and friends and we get to enjoy an eternity of bliss. He was ready to turn out the lights and kiss him goodnight, but we don’t live in a movie.
< “But how do you know that, dad? How does anyone actually know that?” he pressed on, clearly unsatisfied, which is completely fucking fair.
< My husband dribbled on with some gobbley goo about how people all seem to recount the same story when they have a near death experience. There’s a bright, warm light and some creepy, distant relatives standing at the ready with a welcome casserole. We’ve seen them talk about it on 20/20, so it must be true, damn it.
< I was pretty impressed with his ability to improvise. After more explanation about this fabled land, he seemed able to quell the fears consuming our child, at least temporarily.
< I’ve been blessed and cursed with a smart kid who knows how to look for inconsistencies in our stories. It’s how he concluded that Santa is as real Kylie Jenner’s lips.
< So when he asked me the same question, several nights later, I pulled out the Heaven script from the reaches of my minimally functioning hippocampus and recited what my husband and I had agreed upon.
< I was not prepared for his sheer terror at the idea of a place where you go forever.
< “You get stuck there forever! I don’t want to be stuck anywhere forever mom!! That’s so scary! I love earth and being alive with you guys!” Goddamn, maybe I am a good parent after all.
< After I calmed down from the high of feeling like parent of the year for giving this kid such a fun life that even Heaven can’t hold a candle to it, I realized I actually had to answer the question.
< I paused the fantasy of my future bestseller,“How to Make Your Kids’ Lives so Fun They Think Heaven is Dogshit,” and racked my brain for a cogent response.
< I panicked and tried to google something on the sly with my back turned, but his sobs grew louder leaving me trying to unscramble the first words that exited my mouth.
< “I think we all get to live multiple lives!?” I yelled as a question, confused by my own words.
< “Huh? What do you mean, Mom?” he asked.
< I have no fucking clue what I mean. Please go to sleep.
< And thus began the most nonsensical journey down reincarnation lane — all because I completely choked. It’s not that I necessarily think it’s all bologna. Maybe we do come back in various shapes and forms. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be John Mulaney’s scrotum.
< I’m just very green on the topic. To clarify, I have zero knowledge and made up so much random stuff on the fly, further confusing his sweet little mind.
< Son: “What if I come back as a girl?”
< Me: “Everyone should have to experience that.”
< Son: “But I like being a boy.”
< Me: “Who the F wouldn’t?”
< Son: “How will I find you in my next life?”
< Me, palms now dripping: “Oh buddy, moms always find their kids — okay, except for JonBenet Ramsey’s, but that’s because the dad probably did it and — ”
< Son: “Who? What if my new family doesn’t let me find you?”
< Me: “I’ll find you bud, I promise.”
< Son: “What if my new family is mean and they don’t let me have a PS5?”
< Me: “Did you seriously just ask that?”
< We volleyed back-and-forth as his confusion about my random musings on reincarnation mounted. I looked at the time and realized I had to get him out of this downward spiral somehow.
< I pulled his blanket up to his chin, looked into his bloodshot eyes and told him there was a high likelihood that he’d come back as Taylor Swift and that I’d be at every single one of her(his?) concerts as long as he promised to make me a super cool friendship bracelet.
< He grimaced and used colorful language to express his disdain for Swift, as he does whenever her music comes on. I kissed his forehead and turned on a station that happened to be playing her music, which is every station all the time. He groaned and rolled over.
< We didn’t finish the conversation that night but lucky for me it comes up every couple of weeks and I’ve finally mustered the courage to tell him the honest truth — we simply don’t know.
< Nobody knows. People have different ideas based on their belief systems and all of those ideas are valid, but no one knows where we go with any morsel of certainty and that is a hard concept to swallow as an anxious, curious child — or anyone, frankly.
< So, the next time your kid asks you an awkward question — just remember there is no right answer! Just 62,835 very wrong ones.
< Thank you to the wonderful
< Debra G. Harman, MEd.
< for not sending this one to an early grave.