Parents
(January 2023)
Parents: I Grew Up in a Haunted House—Here’s What I Tell My Child About Ghosts
by Lavinia Spalding
by Lavinia Spalding (google+)“Ghosts are real, right mommy?”
It was the second time my son asked. He was four at the time, and we were curled up with a Paw Patrol book.
The first time, a year earlier, I’d paused to construct an appropriate response, and in that two-second silence, my husband had answered. Ghosts were not real, he insisted. Our son was barely three then, so instead of arguing, I’d raised an eyebrow. My husband shrugged guiltily. He knew it bothered me, the line he’d fed our son. He knew I disliked even the word “believe” in reference to ghosts. To me, saying “I believe in ghosts” is like saying, “I believe in mice.” There should be no question. And my husband knew why this mattered.
Read the whole essay HERE
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