By Laura Spiegel

“I used to have bad dreams,” my six-year-old daughter confides in me one day. “But now I think about unicorns jumping over rainbows as I fall asleep. And my dreams are good!”

“You should try it,” she prompts. “It could help you.”

At thirty-four years my junior, my daughter’s mind is a beautiful mix of unfiltered, curious, and always running. Like many of us, her mind heats up the closer she creeps to bedtime. “I have a question,” she’ll begin.

“What does my heart look like”

“What are colors made of?”

“Why is a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow?”

“Why does God make us love him?”

There is only one question that I feel even remotely qualified to answer. And it’s flimsy at best.

Hours later, I find myself again receiving advice from my daughter. The day has not been, how shall we say, “good.” I am huddled in my bedroom, Coors Light in hand, door locked. I’ve just delivered a fine performance that I’m pretty sure all the neighbors have heard. I don’t just yell; I scream. A piercing shriek that flies out the open kitchen window and into the night.

I’ve had it.

The kids aren’t kids at all; they’re wild animals with selective hearing at best.

The kitchen isn’t a kitchen at all; it’s a restaurant and I a short-order chef. My patrons’ eating habits are perversely fickle. Yesterday’s love is today’s discarded.

My husband has dared to close his eyes. His company has announced imminent layoffs. He has slogged his way through call after call as the minutes and hours have ticked by.   

He needs to rest, but in my mind, he has abandoned me. It’s 7 PM, and I have to negotiate a days’ worth of respiratory therapy and schoolwork on my own, with a daughter who is having none of it.

So I let loose my shriek, grab a cold one, and head upstairs for some alone time. Adult coping at its finest…

My nine-year-old son comes to me moments later. “It’s going to be okay,” he says. “You just need to relax.”

Spoken by an adult, these words would be infuriating. Spoken by a child, they are simple and true.

My daughter snuggles next to me. We say prayers and sing songs. One is Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

“Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright, child.”

I inhale my daughter’s soft mane and rub her back. “I needed that,” I tell her.

She turns my way and begins to sing again.

“Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright, adult.” She replaces every “child” with “adult” as she comforts me, her voice sweeter than any bird.

Our kids have a wisdom beyond their years. They hurt, they fear, they worry. But they also trust that everything is going to be okay.

That night, I sleep more soundly than I have in months. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, but sometimes, it does help to imagine them.

One day may we all have the wisdom of a child.