Explaining War to My Son: Fatherhood in a Burning World

The Emotional Journey of Fatherhood in a Chaotic World

It’s quite emotional seeing how the milestones creep up on you. Lorenzo recently finished preschool and is about to start first grade. This time, though, I was struck more by León’s end-of-year preschool play. This isn’t just about the boys—it’s about me, as much of fatherhood is. It brings up questions I ask myself: Should I write about fatherhood in a world that seems to be collapsing? Is it better to focus on the dissonance between the intimate and the global? I’ll try to address both, with some digressions.

The End-of-Year Play and Unexpected Emotions

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Let’s begin with the end-of-year play. León crawls on to the stage against the soundtrack of "To the Moon and Back." To my surprise, I catch myself crying for the entire three minutes he’s on. Where did these tears come from? What triggered them and what spaces did they open up?

One of the triggers was obvious: a child with his parents in the row in front, shouting “Granddad, Grandma! Here! Here!” calling them over to sit with them. My late parents will never know my children. It’s emotionally obvious, and it doesn’t make it any less real.

The Weight of Global Conflicts

I had also been following the news more closely. Wars, missiles, conflicts. Deaths, many deaths. Images and videos of babies and children dead, bloody. What do you do with all of this anxiety? It’s horrible to look at the reality, especially when you’re doing it out of the corner of your eye or mindlessly scrolling on the sofa, or on the beach.

I thought of León’s innocence and luck being on that stage. It pierces my heart to think of other children like him, or younger, crawling through the dust of the ruins created by the bombs which keep exploding on them, around them, killing them every day.

Babies and children assassinated every day, killed with their friends, parents and siblings, for an unhinged battle for power, land and geopolitical madness where the chaos masters are plunging the world into a spiral of conflicts.

Fear and Innocence

It’s night when we come home. Lorenzo says he is afraid of robbers grabbing him from behind. If he looks back, he is worried they will appear from the front. He feels there is no escape: that no matter where he looks, there is this possibility in his little head that a robber will appear and take from him, take him. Where does this fear come from?

The nanny was ill for a week, and so was León, so Irene and I looked after him. “The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced,” said Kierkegaard. The continuous experience of learning, losses and joys. They’re discovering the world every day.

The Power of Connection

Lorenzo is happy at the summer camp, a new place with children he does not yet know. “I like it more than kindergarten,” he said. “I made a friend on my first day. We were playing all day.” It’s something that we all need to do more: meet up in person, play, connect. At least, those of us who can.

I saw a post on Instagram where a father is juggling triplets and a small girl. He attaches a wooden plank to a cot on wheels which he maybe custom built to fit their four small bikes and water bottles. The spirit of the post and the comments under it celebrate this heroic man (who “looks for great solutions to great problems”). The epic as a horizon of fatherhood. Insufferable.

The Limitations of the Nuclear Family

In any case, the post makes me think of the limitations of the nuclear family, the isolation and the loneliness of those who have or care for children, and the lack of care networks. Four children (especially three very small ones) is a LOT for a sole adult. It’s something symbolic which speaks of the structures of how we care for ourselves and raise others, and what we prioritize.

The Risks of Parenting

I spend a bunch of time with my two children out on the streets and I can affirm that the risks are very present. Today, for example, I stopped to drop Lorenzo at summer camp, and I had walked some 50 metres away from the car when León decided to unbuckle his safety seat and open the car door.

León is two and a half years old and can’t get out of the car onto a street with minibuses, motorbikes and cars. I ran, yelled and arrived before he managed to get out. Very little needs to happen for my boys to get hurt. I am not saying this to stoke fear — I’ve spent the past six years with my children traveling around the world — but I speak from the experience of having been to the hospital far too many times and having had too many scares. I also know that many parents, without help, prefer to stay at home rather than go out with their children.

The Crude Duality of Life

All these complaints are quite ridiculous in many ways. My children are alive, they’re not dying, nor are they dodging bullets or tanks of war. It’s a parallel reality which sets me worlds apart, but it hurts nonetheless.

The Normalization of Disaster

I read about bombed and destroyed hospitals, about people murdered while they queue for food to not die of starvation. One click later, and I am following Lionel Messi’s games, replaying goals from the FIFA Club World Cup and paying for another week of Lorenzo’s summer camp. It’s a cruel duality.

Disaster is being normalized, like a film which makes us sad but in the end finishes and we turn it off and carry on with our lives. This, we follow. “The World is Burning but I’m Still Getting Slack Notifications,” as said in a recent newsletter post by U.S. journalist Liz Plank. In it, she describes feeling like she lives in two completely unrelated worlds.

The Concept of Hypernormalization

In another post, Brazilian futurist Daniela Klaiman asks: “How do you describe this feeling that everything is bad, but at the same time, the world acts as if everything is normal?” They say that the word we are looking for could be ‘hypernormalization.’ This term describes life in a society whose institutions are decaying, where there are wars and global conflicts, extreme climate events which are becoming routine, humanitarian crises which are intensifying. Nonetheless, everything looks like just another average day.

A Moment of Connection

I’m driving back from dropping the youngest at kindergarten, and I get stuck at a traffic light. I fear I am going to be stuck in this traffic jam, but a guy in a red car puts a hand up and lets me pass. I feel desperately grateful, and so I raise my hand in thanks. Did he see me? To be sure, I stick my hand out of the window, thumbs up. I am smiling. The guy drives past, lowers his window, honks in greeting and smiles.

For a moment there, I felt like both of us generated a feeling of joy or wellbeing in the other which only depended on us. Maybe we lead shitty lives, who knows, but if we all shared more moments like this, moments which are as contagious as the downers and bad moods, I am sure we can create bubbles which — and sorry for my Little Prince style innocence — create better moments for everyone.

The Importance of Collective Wellbeing

It sounds naive, but I’ll say it anyway: we can be stronger together in a collective, down to just a smile from far away. It’s not one thing or another, you see. In life, in relationships, and in the world, there’s a whole that needs to be integrated.

Living comes with enjoyment, with the smiles of our children and with the wise choice (or not), but it also comes with injustice and the madness of each era. We don’t have to ignore or stop caring about what’s going on. We can refuse to be desensitized.