THE NEW YORK TIMES: Journalists share how they discuss the sensitive topics they cover with their young ones

When my 6-year-old recently asked me to explain why “Israel was fighting Lebanon,” I stammered through a digressive account that probably confused him more. My answer ended, mercifully, when our cat got the zoomies and my son’s attention shifted.

The role of a journalist is to provide clarity for readers, no matter how complex or fraught the subject. But how do journalists talk about the topics they cover, like war or school shootings, with their children?

After some more delicate discussions about the news with my son, I decided to ask four of my colleagues at The New York Times, who have covered Mexican drug cartels, the war in the Middle East and other topics about what they tell their children when they ask about their work, and the news more broadly.

Here’s what they told me.

Be real …

Honesty is paramount.

“I always think it’s better to tell children the truth, as long as you’re doing it in language that is kid-friendly,” said Debra Kamin, an investigative reporter with 10-year-old twin daughters.

Ms Kamin has written about high-profile sexual assault cases, among other subjects, for the Metro and Real Estate desks.

“When they ask me questions, it’s my job as their mom to answer them as honestly as I can,” she said. “The truth is just as important in parenting as it is in journalism.”

As a White House correspondent, Erica L. Green covers the Trump administration’s actions on everything from foreign policy to civil rights.

Ms Green said she sees sharing the news with her 8-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter as a duty, “just like we inform the public.”

“It feels almost hypocritical to not prepare your children for the world they’re navigating,” she said.

Maria Abi-Habib covers corruption and drug cartels from Mexico City, where she lives with her husband and their son, 10, and daughter, 7.

“I think that oversheltering, it doesn’t really help them at all,” she said.

Ms Abi-Habib added that the desire to be open with her children stems from her own upbringing: She visited family in Lebanon every summer in the 1980s, during the country’s civil war, and had several close calls.

Years later, she wrote in an article for the Times of how, in 1985, seconds after her mother pulled off a highway, “a giant explosion ripped through where our car had been idling, killing at least 50 people.”

Ms Abi-Habib said that her family constantly listens to news on the BBC and NPR, and on podcasts like “The Daily,” and that she “can’t think of any point where we’ve actually said, ‘You can’t listen to that.’”

Her son, who joined his mother for a video interview, said that avoiding unpleasant topics means “you’re not ready when something bad happens to you.”

David M. Halbfinger, now on his second tour as the Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief, said obscuring the truth wouldn’t be helpful for children who sometimes spend nights hunkered down in bomb shelters, as his do.

“I don’t really shield anything from my kids,” Mr Halbfinger said about his three children, adding, “Living over here, it would be a little pointless to try.”

… But appropriate

“You have to find that balance between using language that is accurate and doesn’t lie to them but also doesn’t scare them,” Ms Kamin said.

When describing topics like sexual harassment or sexual assault, she said she simplified details that might upset her daughters and used “words that I would feel comfortable with them using in their own conversation.”

She has, for instance, described people convicted of criminal behaviour as “bullies.”

School shootings were particularly difficult for Ms Green to discuss with her children, she said. Her husband, also a journalist, covered the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.

They chose to talk about Uvalde and other shootings with their children, sparing them the graphic details.

The uncomfortable conversation proved a useful lesson: Ms Green’s daughter called her mother immediately when she saw what appeared to be a weapon in the backpack of another student at her school.

Ms Green followed up with school officials and confirmed that safety precautions were being taken. (Everyone was OK, including the student who brought the weapon, which turned out to be a BB gun.)

“If we had not been really candid about the fact that these things can happen even in school, I don’t know if she would have been as vigilant,” Ms Green said.

And of course, families have their own lives to talk about. Mr Halbfinger said that he did not always “rush to talk about some of the things I write about around the dinner table.”

“There’s a lot of ugliness that I have to write about, so I leave a lot of work at work,” he said.

Describing dangers and explaining absences

Reporters often take calculated risks, which can mean travelling to a war zone for a story.

“He used to get really worried,” Ms Abi-Habib said of her son.

“Every time he would see body armor, he would immediately say, ‘You’re going to war?’ And I was like, ‘I’m not going to war, I’m just going with the police for a ride-along.’ But now I think he’s more used to it.”

Ms Abi-Habib said she would describe to her children security measures being used to protect her, like travelling with the police or the military.

(The Times has a robust security team to prepare and protect its journalists, and reporters are never required to travel to dangerous areas.) Her son said that he had learned to evaluate the specifics of his mother’s assignment before getting upset.

“I get stressed, but then I also remember that the military is helping,” he said. “So it’s not that dangerous for my mom to go to dangerous places.”

All four of my colleagues said that their work meant they sometimes had to miss important family moments, and their children did not always understand why they skipped recitals, games and birthday parties.

When Ms Green is on call at the White House, as reporters are for a week at a time, she has little time for anything else.

“When I say ‘Mommy’s on duty,’ they immediately know that that means for seven days, you might see me, you might not,” she said, adding that “they know that I am responsible for the president that week, and they’re proud of it.”

Verified sources

The upside to being honest about the news is that parents have some control about what their children learn.

“I want them to hear it from me, because I know the information I’m giving them can be trusted,” Ms Kamin said.

“If the kids are anything like I was,” said Mr Halbfinger, withholding the truth would “make them seek out more about that information elsewhere. I’d rather that they come to me and my wife as their primary source.”

All four reporters said that their children recognised the value of their work, even if they occasionally chafed at the sacrifices it entailed.

“I think it’s a very important job,” said Ms Abi-Habib’s son, who is about to complete the fourth grade, “because you’re telling pretty much every person in the world the truth.”

As for my son, he has learned something from our discussions. He told me he preferred getting the news from an article to a lecture from his dad.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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