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You know what nobody really prepares you for as a parent.
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It's not the sleepless nights when they're babies, when you're
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walking the halls at three in the morning, bouncing and
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shushing and praying for just two hours of uninterrupted sleep.
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It's not the diapers, though let's be honest, some of
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those are memorable for all the wrong reasons. It's not
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the chaos of too many bodies in one house, or
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the noise level that would make a rock concert seem peaceful,
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or the mess that multiplies faster than you can clean it.
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It's not even the teenage years, though those have their
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own special brand of terror and beauty mixed together. No,
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it's the moment your kid looks at you with that face,
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that face where you can tell something inside them has
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just cracked. Their eyes are different. There's a weight there
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that wasn't there yesterday, a sadness that feels too heavy
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for someone so young to carry. They're not trying to
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be brave. They're trying not to cry in front of
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you because they think they should be stronger than this.
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They're holding their breath hoping you won't notice the trembling
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in their voice, and all you want to do is
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fix it, but you can't. You can't punch the pain away.
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You can't write a check to make it disappear. You
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can't reason it out without logic or parenting wisdom or
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life experience. You can't go back in time and prevent
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it from happening. All you can do is show up.
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And today we're talking about what that really looks like,
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what it means to hold space for a broken heart,
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what it means to parent through pain. You can't fix
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what it means to watch child suffer and resist every
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instinct to make it stop. Because sometimes the most powerful
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thing we can do as parents is nothing at all
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except stay. Welcome back to We are the Hansons. If
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you're new here, let me introduce ourselves. We're a big family,
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and I mean big, thirteen kids ranging from thirty one
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all the way down to eight years old. We're a
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whole lot of life, a whole lot of love, and honestly,
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a whole lot of learning as we go, because nobody
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hands you a manual for this kind of chaos. My
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name is Maya Hanson, and this podcast is about all
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of it. The family dynamics, the relationship struggles, the parenting
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victories and spectacular failures, the marriage maintenance, the laughter that
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saves us, the mistakes that teach us, the grace we
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desperately need, and the messy, complicated, beautiful reality of doing
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life together with people you love. And today's episode, this
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one hits deep because at some point, no matter how
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much you protect them, no matter how carefully you monitor
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their friendships, no matter how intentional you are about building
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their confidence, your kids are going to get their hearts broken.
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Friendships end without explanation. Trust gets shattered by someone they
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believed in. Someone says something cruel that lands in their
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soul and stays there. Someone leaves when they promised they'd stay.
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Someone doesn't choose them back when they were brave enough
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to choose first. And when that happens, it doesn't just
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hurt them, it hurts you. Sometimes it hurts you more
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because you can see the whole picture. You can see
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the manipulation they're too young to recognize, You can see
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the pain coming before it lands, and you're powerless to
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stop it. So this episode is for every parent who's
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ever sat on the edge of their child's bed at night,
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listening to them cry, searching for words that don't feel empty.
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This is for everyone who's wanted to go to war
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for their kid but didn't know if that was the
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right call. This is for the parents who are tired
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of being told they'll get over it, when right now,
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in this moment, it feels like they never will. Let's
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talk about it. The first time one of your kids
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gets their heart broken, it's almost shocking because up until
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that moment, you were the buffer between them and the world.
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You are the safe place, the protector, the one who
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made everything okay. You are the fixer. You fixed booboos
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with band aids and kisses, You fixed hunger with snacks,
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you fixed tired with naps, you fixed scared with hugs.
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You fixed everything. And suddenly there's a pain that didn't
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come from scraped knees or missed naps or monsters under
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the bed. It came from words or rejection or betrayal
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or disappointment or loss, and you see it land in
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a place you can't bandage. I remember the first time
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one of our kids came home from school and just collapsed,
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not physically but emotionally. The whole walked from the bus
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stop to the door. I could see them holding it together,
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shoulders up, face neutral, But the second they got through
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the door and saw me, everything crumbled. Their best friend,
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the one they'd had sleepovers with, the one they've made
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elaborate plans with for the summer, the one they talked
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about constantly, had decided they weren't friends anymore. No explanation,
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no conversation, just done. And my child couldn't understand. Why
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what did I do wrong? Mom? That question, That question
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will wreck you every single time, because often the answer
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is nothing. You did nothing wrong. The world is just
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sometimes cruel for no reason. People sometimes hurt us, not
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because we deserve it, but because they're hurting too and
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don't know what to do with it. But how do
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you explain that to a nine year old? For us,
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with so many kids, we've seen heartbreak in a hundred
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different forms in every single age. A best friend who
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suddenly decides they don't want to be friends anymore because
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someone cool came along. A kid who wasn't invited to
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the birthday party everyone else got invited to and has
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to sit through Monday morning at school hearing all about
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the fun they missed. A child who trusted someone really
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trusted them with their secrets and their feelings, and that
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trust got stepped on, crushed, turned into gossip. Teen heartbreak, Oh,
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teen heartbreak, that first real love that felt like it
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would last forever, that fell deeper and more real than
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anything they'd ever experienced, and then it ends and they're
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convinced they'll never feel whole again. The child who tries
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out for the team and doesn't make it, the child
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who auditions for a play and gets passed over, the
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child who works so hard on something and watches everyone
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else get the credit. The child who gets excluded, overlooked,
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and forgot. And every time there's this instinct as a
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parent to jump in and fix it, to call the
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other parent and explain what actually happened, to defend your
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child's character and intentions, to correct the misunderstanding, to make
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it fair, to force an apology, to demand justice. But
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here's what we've learned. Fairness doesn't heal heartbreak, Justice doesn't
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mend trust. Revenge doesn't restore innocence. Presence does simply being
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there with no agenda except love, that's what heals. Let's
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be brutally on us for a second. When our kids
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are hurting, there are things we desperately want to say,
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because they make us feel better, even though they do
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absolutely nothing for our kids. It wasn't that serious. You
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barely knew them. You're young, You'll get over it. This
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won't even matter in a year. They weren't good enough
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for you anyway. You deserve better. Just ignore them, don't
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give them power over you. Be tougher. Life's going to
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throw worse at you than this. At least it's not
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as bad as what so and so is going through.
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You're being too sensitive about this. This is a good
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lesson for you to learn. And while some of those
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things might technically be true someday, when enough time has
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passed and the wound has scarred over, they're absolute poison
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in the moment because heartbreak doesn't care about logic. Pain
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doesn't respond to lectures, and grief, yes, even small grief,
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even childhood grief, needs to be felt, not minimized. When
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we've rushed them past the pain. When we try to
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logic away their feelings, when we compare their suffering to
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someone else's or tell them they're overreacting, we teach them
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something dangerous. That their feelings are inconvenient to us, that
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their pain is less important than our comfort, that they
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should hide what they're really going through, that they're too much,
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too sensitive, too emotional, and you know what happens. Then
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they stop coming to you, not all at once, it's gradual,
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but eventually they learn that when they're hurting, you're not
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a safe person to tell, because you either minimize it
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or try to fix it before they've even finished crying.
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I've watched this happen in other families, kids who used
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to share everything becoming teenagers who share nothing, and the
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parents are confused, wondering when their child stop talking to them.
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But the child didn't stop suddenly, They stopped slowly every
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time their feelings were dismissed or rushed. So what do
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our kids actually need when their hearts are broken. It's
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not advice first, it's not perspective, it's not solutions. It's safety.
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They need someone who will sit with them in the
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dark instead of immediately turning on all the lights. They
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need someone who won't rush them toward feeling better. They
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need someone who won't judge their reaction, whether it's crying
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for days or going completely silent, or getting angry or
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pretending they're fine when they're clearly not. They need someone
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who won't make their pain about themselves, about how worried
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they are, or how stressed this makes them, or how
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they're suffering watching their child suffer. They need someone who
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can actually hold space without filling it. Sometimes that looks
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like silence, just sitting there, being present, breathing with them.
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Sometimes it looks like tears, crying with them, not for them,
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but with them. Sometimes it looks like anger, letting them
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be mad without correcting it or explaining why they shouldn't
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feel that way. Sometimes it looks like shutting down, respecting
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that they need to process alone for a while and
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they'll come back when they're ready. In your job, your
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only job in those moments isn't to correct the emotion
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or redirect it or speed it up. Your job is
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to contain it, to be the vessel that holds what
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they can't hold themselves, to say without words, You're allowed
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to hurt here. This is a safe place for your pain.
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I'm not afraid of your feelings. I'm not leaving. Take
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all the time you need. One of our kids, when
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they were about twelve, went through a friendship breakup that
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devastated them, and for weeks they would barely talk about it.
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They'd just come home, go to their room, and you
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could feel the sadness radiating through the walls. I wanted
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so badly to go in there and extract the pain,
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to talk it out, to make them feel better, but
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my husband said something that changed everything. Let them grieve,
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Just check in, let them know you're there, but let
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them grieve. So that's what I did. I'd knock softly
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and ask do you want company or space? Sometimes they
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wanted space. Sometimes they wanted me to just sit there
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while they stared at the ceiling. Sometimes they wanted to talk,
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but not about the friendship, about anything else, just normal
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life continuing around the pain, and slowly, not quickly, but
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slowly they came back to themselves. Not because I fixed anything,
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but because I didn't try to. In our house, with
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thirteen kids and all the complicated dynamics that come with
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that many personalities and relationships, we've had to develop some
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ground rules, some principles we come back to again and again. First,
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we don't mock emotions ever. No eye rolling when someone's crying,
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No sarcasm about being dramatic. No you'll laugh about this
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someday when they're clearly not laughing today. No dismissive comments
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disguised as jokes, because maybe they will laugh about it someday,
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maybe in five years, this moment will feel small and
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silly and completely manageable. But today, right now, they're crying,
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and today matters. We have a rule in our house.
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All feelings are allowed, but not all behaviors are. You
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can be angry, but you can't hit. You can be sad,
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but you can't be cruel to to others because you're hurting.
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You can be scared, but you can't let fear turn
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into control. We separate the feelings from the action. The
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feeling is always valid, always, but what you do with
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that feeling that's where parenting comes in. Second, we don't
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rush recovery. Healing doesn't run on your schedule. It doesn't
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run on mine either. Some kids bounce back fast. They
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feel intensely for a day or two, and then they're
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ready to move on. Others need time, weeks, sometimes maybe
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months for deeper wounds, and some kids need to revisit
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the pain over and over before it finally loosens its grip.
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They'll seem fine and then something will trigger the memory
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and they're back in it again, and that's okay. We've
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stopped saying things like are you still upset about that?
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Because that contains judgment, It implies they should be over
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it by now. Instead, we say, how are you feeling
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about it today? That question leaves room for wherever they are. Third,
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we normalize heartbreak. We don't treat it like it shouldn't
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have happened. We don't say why is this happening to you?
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We say this is part of loving people, This is
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part of being human. Heartbreak doesn't mean they've failed. It
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doesn't mean they chose wrong. It doesn't mean something's wrong
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with them. It means they were brave enough to care,
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brave enough to be vulnerable, brave enough to give someone
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access to their heart. And that's not weakness, that's courage. Fourth,
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we share our own stories, not to make it about us,
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but to show them they're not alone in this feeling.
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I'll tell them about the friend I lost in high
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school who I thought would be in my life forever.
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Husband will tell them about the girl who broke his
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heart when he was sixteen and how he was convinced
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he never recover. We let them see that we survived.
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Our heartbreaks, and we're honest about what happened and what didn't.
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We're honest about the fact that some of those old
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hurts still aches, sometimes even decades later. Because healing doesn't
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mean forgetting, it doesn't mean the pain never happened. It
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means you learn to carry it without it carrying you.
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Let's talk about that instinct, the ancient, absolutely ferocious instinct