There are two rather foolish ways of raising a child in a dangerous world.
The first is to tell him that there is no danger.
The second is to tell him that danger is everywhere.
The first produces innocence without wisdom.
The second produces fear without peace.
Neither is particularly useful.
We have become strangely uncomfortable with the existence of evil. We either turn it into a monster under the bed or insist that the monster is imaginary.
But evil has never required our permission to exist.
Children do not need to be taught that the world is safe.
They need to be taught that they are not alone in an unsafe world.
That distinction matters.
A child should know that some adults lie.
Some people manipulate.
Some people hurt children.
Some people will use kindness as camouflage.
Some people will tell a child to keep a secret that should never be kept.
These are not pleasant things to teach a child.
But neither is teaching a child to cross the street.
We do not tell our children, “Cars are lovely things and nobody would ever dream of running you over.”
We teach them to look both ways.
This does not make them afraid of cars.
It makes them capable of crossing a street.
The same principle applies to evil.
We should not raise children who believe every stranger is a predator and every adult is suspicious.
That isn’t discernment.
It is paranoia wearing a little hat.
But neither should we raise children who have been trained to obey every adult simply because he is an adult.
Children need to know that authority has a purpose.
Adults are supposed to protect children.
When an adult uses authority to frighten, manipulate, isolate, exploit, or harm a child, that adult has violated the very thing authority exists to do.
Children should know the difference.
They should know that their bodies belong to them.
They should know that they can say no.
They should know that some secrets should never be kept.
They should know that a safe adult will not demand secrecy about touching, gifts, conversations, photographs, or relationships.
They should know that if someone tells them, “You’ll get in trouble if you tell,” that is precisely the sort of thing they should tell.
And perhaps most importantly, they should know what happens when they tell.
We believe you.
You are not in trouble.
This is not your fault.
I will help you.
Those sentences may be more protective than a thousand frightening speeches about strangers in vans.
Because the greatest protection a child has is not the ability to identify every possible evil person.
It is the knowledge that when something is wrong, there is somewhere to go.
This is where adults sometimes make a terrible mistake.
We think protecting childhood means protecting children from knowledge.
But childhood does not need to be protected from reality.
It needs to be protected from carrying reality alone.
There is a difference.
A child can know that death exists and still delight in a butterfly.
He can know that evil exists and still sleep peacefully.
He can know that some people cannot be trusted and still learn to trust good people.
He can know that the world contains darkness without believing that darkness owns the world.
In fact, perhaps this is one of the great duties of raising children:
Teach them enough about darkness to recognize it, and enough about goodness that they are not fascinated by it.
We have sometimes confused innocence with ignorance.
But innocence is not the inability to recognize evil.
Innocence is the refusal to become evil.
That is a much stronger thing.
A child who knows nothing about darkness may be shocked when he encounters it.
A child who understands that darkness exists, who knows where to run, who knows whom to trust, and who has been taught that evil is never his fault to carry, has something better than naivety.
He has courage.
And courage requires something to be courageous about.
So perhaps we should stop trying to build childhoods where evil is never mentioned.
Build homes where evil can be named without becoming the center of the story.
Teach children discernment without suspicion.
Boundaries without fear.
Courage without recklessness.
Trust without naivety.
And above everything else, teach them that evil is real, but it is not sovereign.
Because a child should grow up knowing that the world contains darkness.
But he should also grow up knowing where the light is.
B🤍
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