by Charlie Brooks posted in Parenting

I?m decent (not great) at avoiding profanity around my kids. But I tend to have loose lips with other topics that I never considered to be a potential issue. For example, after a bad week at work, I made an offhanded comment to some friends that I?m lucky I didn?t get fired.

My son immediately asked me to rewind in my conversation and go over what I had said again. He really looked worried. By this point in his life, he not only realizes that money provides him with safety and comfort, but that my job is the primary source of money in our household.
A family trip to Hawaii introduced my son to the concept of money. He now knows that such a big trip can?t happen often because we have to save up for it. He also understands that his beloved video games also cost money. Now it?s time for me to pay more attention to my language. A careless comment from me thus put me in a more complex position than I anticipated. I could explain that I won?t actually get fired, but that?s not entirely certain ? anything can happen, and layoff patterns are beyond my control. Suddenly I had to go through a nuanced discussion about employment with my 6-year-old.
There?s nothing necessarily wrong with discussing my job with my kids, of course. I?m not in a classified field, so it?s not like I?m breaking some ironclad nondisclosure agreement by speaking freely. But if there?s no actual danger of me getting fired, I don?t need to start worries where none curren...