When My Daughter Called Me In
Jul 04, 2025Dismantling Whiteness Without Dismantling My Presence
The other night, my 13-year-old daughter said something that stopped me cold:
“Where am I supposed to go with my feelings?”
She wasn’t just asking a question.
She was naming a truth.
She was letting me know that in a home where I try so hard to hold space, she was still feeling crowded out.
“I hate your tears, because there’s no room for mine.”
That one hit hard.
I believe in transparency. I let my kids see my grief, my outrage, my heartbreak over the injustices they face and the systems that harmed their birth family.
But she was telling me something deeper: My tears, no matter how well-intentioned, were filling up the space she needed for herself.
“You are not the villain, but you are definitely not the victim.”
That was the moment I knew she was calling me in, not calling me out.
She wasn’t shaming me.
She was holding a mirror.
She knows I love her. She knows I’m proud of her. She knows I would do anything to protect her and her brother. She also knows I carry a deep grief—about their early trauma, about their birth mother’s addiction and abandonment, about how society failed her and so many other Black mothers.
And she knows that I am angry—about centuries of white supremacy, about how Black children are so often seen as threats before they’re seen as human, about the microaggressions she faces that my white skin will never have to navigate.
She knows all this because I don’t hide it. I’ve chosen to parent with truth. With feeling. With transparency. But transparency, when unchecked, can easily become emotional flooding.
She wasn’t telling me not to feel.
She was asking me to make room.
I think if I were parenting with a partner, some of this would land differently. I’d have someone to share the load with—someone to cry with in private, someone to talk through the emotional toll of waking up to whiteness every day.
But I’m a single mom. And sometimes, what I would process with a partner ends up spilling into conversations with my kids. Especially with my daughter, who is emotionally wise beyond her years. But she’s still just that—13 years old.
It’s not her job to carry me. It’s mine to hold her.
And I’m realizing something else:
My awakening to whiteness isn’t neutral.
It’s important. It’s necessary. It’s part of being a responsible white parent to Black children.
But it can also take up parenting space if I’m not careful.
It can become a preoccupation.
And, paradoxically, it can make my children feel more burdened—not less.
Because while I’m learning about injustice, they’re living it.
While I’m dismantling my privilege, they’re trying to build a sense of self.
While I’m grieving systems, they’re growing up inside them.
That night, what I heard in my daughter’s voice wasn’t just frustration. It was wisdom.
She was telling me:
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I live with racism every day. You’re waking up to something I’ve never had the luxury to sleep through.
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I need more than your sadness. I need your presence.
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I want to be seen not as your reason for grief, but as the full, beautiful, creative person that I am.
So here’s what I’m learning:
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My kids don’t need my guilt. They need my groundedness.
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They don’t need my emotional overflow. They need my emotional containment.
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They don’t need me to be perfect. But they do need me to be self-aware.
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And they definitely don’t need to hold space for me while I’m trying to hold space for them.
I’ll keep dismantling my whiteness.
But I will not hand that work to my daughter.
She already carries enough.
I will keep showing up.
I will keep learning how to hold my grief without dropping hers.
And I will keep making space for the powerful, beautiful, complicated person she is—beyond the injustice, beyond the trauma, beyond the pain.
If you’re a white parent raising a child of color…
Ask yourself:
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Are my tears taking up the space my child needs for their own?
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Am I asking my child to carry my awakening?
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Do I talk about justice more than I embody presence?
Our kids need more than our awareness.
They need our steadiness.
They need our humility.
And sometimes, they need us to shut the hell up and let them speak.
Need someone to think out loud with?
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Marion Van Namen
Founder, White Awake Parenting
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