Notes From Labor of Love: Susan Bruns

Telling Our Children the Truth About Heartbreak and Suffering

Recently a friend of mine shared with me that her son, new to junior high school, had started to cry at night when he went to bed. Alone in the darkness of his room, where he thought no one could hear, he poured out the emotion of a day spent trying to navigate complicated social systems, feelings of not fitting in, a deep worry that perhaps it would always be like this.

I listened to her grief that her son was struggling and understood her deep desire to take away his pain, to spare him the ordeal of junior high school—if only she could. There is something so primal in our desire to protect our children, an instinct once necessary for their survival. Now, however, we often seek to protect our children from the very heartache that is necessary for them to become whole people.

I wrote an essay about my efforts to protect my children from heartache for most of their young lives in Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Anthology. My essay, “The Truth Test,” relates how I had to tell my adult son his father and I were getting a divorce after thirty years of marriage, and the heartbreak I felt when he pretended the divorce wasn’t a devastating loss. I examine my complicity in his reaction by protecting him from hard truths for so much of his life.

This reluctance to speak the truth about feelings of grief and pain, happens, I think, not just in my family, but many families. We practice our family cultures of positivity and fail to make space for the equal reality that life often breaks our heart. Inevitably, it will break our children’s hearts, too.

In “The Truth Test,” I write about reading my son’s favorite childhood book, The Tale of Despereaux, after listening to an interview with its author Kate DiCamillo who explained why her books don’t shy away from heartbreak. Thanks to her inspiration, I began telling my adult children the truth about my deep grief at the loss of my marriage. It’s been weird for them, especially my son who does not want to talk about feelings, ever. But all I can do is model what I believe in my heart—that suffering cannot be avoided, but it can teach us how to reach for a deeper joy.

Near the end of the conversation with my friend, my new passion for speaking the truth about pain and heartache bubbled to the surface. “You have a son who is trying to work through his feelings by expressing them. That’s good,” I said. “Second, he’s crying—glory hallelujah! If only more men and boys let themselves do that. And finally, no matter what happens at school, he knows he is loved. He’ll draw upon that strength to get through this.”

It’s excruciating to watch our children suffer. But trying to pretend suffering doesn’t exist in the world will not prepare them for the day when they must confront some deep loss. Speaking the truth about our own heartaches may at first feel like a betrayal of our role as parents, as their encouragers and champions. But our most enduring legacy might be to give our children permission to acknowledge life’s duality of loss and love, and in doing so, invite them to live more alive.

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Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology was released on January 26th, 2024. Edited by Amanda Jaros, this collaboration with Small Harbor Publishing celebrates Literary Mama‘s twenty years of publishing the best writing for and by mothers. We asked the contributors, all Literary Mama staffers from across the years, to share thoughts about their writing process, their inspiration, or their work in the book. We’ll share those musings here on the Literary Mama blog.

Read Susan’s essay by purchasing Labor of Love, now available on Amazon.