Nothing to See Here

by Kevin Wilson

This was how you did it, how you raised children. You built them a house that was impervious to danger and then you gave them every single thing that they could ever want, no matter how impossible. You read to them at night. Why couldn’t people figure this out?

That was my plan, to let them control themselves until they couldn’t control themselves.

Maybe raising children was just giving them the things you loved most in the world and hoping that they loved them, too.

And I knew a secret to caring for someone, had learned it just this moment. You took care of people by not letting them know how badly you wanted your life to be different.

How did people protect themselves? How did anyone keep this world from ruining them?

knew kids, just like adults, wanted to win at everything they ever did, but I thought this was good child rearing, to show them how difficult it is to be good at something, to rejoice when you made small improvements.

I had been so smart, and then when things didn’t work out exactly how I’d hoped, it was like I pushed that curiosity way down inside myself. I’d wasted so much time.

“Who would judge you?” she asked. “Who do you know who’s done a good job? Name one parent that you think made it through without fucking their kid up in some specific way.”