The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily 1384: I do not mention the war in my birthplace to my six-year-old son but somehow his body knows by Julia Kolchinsky
Oct 29, 2025
A mother reflects on her young daughter's profound, unanswerable questions about life and war. She grapples with the challenge of discussing difficult truths with children while protecting their innocence. Poetry emerges as a powerful tool for navigating these complex emotions. Today's featured poem delves into a child's intrinsic awareness of conflict, exploring the silence parents often maintain. The conversation highlights the intersection of parenting, existential queries, and the emotional weight poetry can carry.
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Booster-Seat Existential Questions
- Maggie Smith recalls driving with her preschool daughter who asked enormous existential questions from her booster seat.
- Those childhood questions shaped how Smith learned to think on the fly as a parent and poet.
Parenting Requires Improvised Moral Answers
- Smith notes that parenting includes navigating how to tell children truths without terrifying them.
- Parents rarely get training for these conversations and must improvise moral and emotional explanations.
Poems Hold Unanswerable Questions
- Maggie Smith says poems act as containers for questions without easy answers.
- Poetry provides a fitting form to hold complex parental conversations about big ideas.