My four-year-old daughter, Emma, stood completely still for a moment—then suddenly rushed toward the pastor, shouting something that brought the entire room into stunned silence.

Because too many people keep saying “but she was his grandmother” as if kinship cleanses the poison.

He doesn’t clean it.

Sometimes it makes it easier to manage.

And I’m also telling you this because of something even more uncomfortable.

Because I want other mothers, other fathers, other aunts, neighbors, pastors, teachers, and cousins ​​to learn to be wary when a child describes the world with words that are too careful for their age.

Children almost never invent the structure of fear.