My son Soren is about to turn fifteen. His father was his age when he left Iran.
I've been sitting with that for the past few weeks.
What does it mean for him to look at his dad right now and realize, maybe for the first time, that his dad was his age when his whole world changed. When he walked away from everything he had ever known, came to a country that wasn't his, and built a life from nothing.
Soren has grown up hearing stories. Friends' parents and grandparents who escaped. His dad talking about hiding in bomb shelters as a child during the Iran-Iraq war. These were not history lessons. They were dinner table conversations. They were the stories that have quietly shaped who he is.
And now those stories are the headline.
Around the same time the war started, my kids lost their grandfather. Their Baba Joon.
He was a big part of their lives. The kind of presence that fills a room and leaves a mark on everyone lucky enough to be in it. He would come to the house at 5 a.m. when they were babies, helping to feed and change them. He would kiss their forehead and tell them how much he loved them. They loved him deeply, and gosh, he loved them right back. And now they are grieving him.
While they are grieving him, I am watching Soren watch his dad grieve, and I wonder what that does to him. To see his father carry that kind of loss, layered with the country he left behind, a life he can't fully return to, and a family his children have never been able to touch.
That's not something I can explain to Soren. It's something he's going to have to sit with and make sense of slowly, over time. All I can do is make sure he knows it's okay to feel the weight of it.
But, somewhere in the middle of all of that grief, my kids started asking me questions I didn't know how to answer.
I've been thinking a lot about how to hold all of this with them. How to answer questions I don't have clean answers to. How to honor the grief of losing their Baba Joon while also navigating what it means that the country his family still calls home is at the center of something so frightening and so contested.
Here's what I've come to understand.
The difference in our house isn't about politics. It's about love.
My kids want a different government in Iran so they can one day stand on the ground their father stood on. So they can meet the family that is still there. So they can experience a part of who they are that has always lived just out of reach.
That's not a political position. That's a child wanting access to the full story of who they are.
At the same time, we don't believe the reasons given for why we are there are genuine. We don't believe US military intervention is the answer to their freedom.
We hold both of those things at once.
The longing for a free Iran. And the deep discomfort with how this is being pursued.
That complexity isn't confusion. It's what it looks like to love something fully without pretending it's simple, and that's exactly what I've been trying to teach my kids.
You are allowed to hold two true things at once.
You are allowed to grieve your Baba Joon and feel anger toward a government that kept you from visiting his country and meeting family. To feel scared about a war, disagree with how it's being handled, and still not know what the right answer is.
All of that can be true at the same time. And none of it has to be resolved tonight at the dinner table.
What I told my kids this week is this….
My grandchildren will read about this period in history. This moment we are living through right now is history, and that's both sobering and steadying.
Because it means people before us have lived through moments this heavy and found their way through. And it reminds me that the most important thing we can do right now isn't to have all the answers. It's to stay present for each other while we look for them.
I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know when it will be safe to visit. I don't know when the questions my kids are carrying will have answers that feel complete.
But I do know this.
They need to see me stay steady even when I don't know. Not performing certainty I don't have. Not pretending the ground isn't shaking.
Just still here. Still showing up. Still willing to sit in the hard questions with them without running from the weight of them.
That's what steady looks like when the world feels genuinely scary.
Not having the answers. Being the kind of person your kids can bring their questions to.
So if you're a parent navigating a world that feels heavy, complicated, and hard to explain, try this.
Sit down with your kids. Not to give them information. Not to explain what's happening or why.
Just ask them one question.
What is something about the world right now that feels confusing or scary to you?
And then listen. All the way through.
Without fixing it. Without explaining it away. Without rushing to make them feel better before they've finished feeling it.
Let them know their question matters. That you're sitting with it too. That's enough.
What's a question your kids have asked you recently that you didn't know how to answer? If you want to share it, I'm here. I read every one.
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Stay Steady. Angie B.