Why Did You Get Quiet?

Dr. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi Licensed Psychologist | Consultant | Educator | Writer | MOM This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. We were in the car, driving home, when my son told me something that had happened during the school day. Some kids at school, he said, had been calling other Black kids names — ugly, racialized names. He wasn't the one they were aimed at, but he'd heard it more than once, and it stayed with him enough that he told me about it. He said it so matter-of-factly that it bothered me even more. Then he looked at me in the rearview mirror and asked the question again, slower this time. 'Why did you get quiet?' I did not get quiet because I didn't know what to say. I have built a career knowing what to say. I got quiet because for half a second, something old moved through me before the professional in me caught up to the mother in me. That pause was not about him. It was about me. And that is precisely what new research says we need to talk about The hesitation my son noticed in the rearview mirror wasn't about him. It was about me. Since 2021, PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in U.S. public schools, with roughly 6,870 recorded in the 2024–2025 school year alone, disproportionately targeting books about race and racism and books by or about People of Color. At least 17 states have introduced or passed bills restricting how teachers can discuss American history and current events. What advocates call 'gag orders' nearly always aim at conversations about race and identity. This stood out to me at our school's annual curriculum night, when teachers made it clear that some topics students may bring up are off-limits. When this happens, they will redirect students to talk to their parents. The message was softened, but clear. Whatever one believes about the politics of any single book or lesson plan, the practical effect on our children is the same. Missing information. Paused units. Teachers like my son's are doing their best within constraints they did not choose. The research on ethnic studies curricula is crystal clear about what is lost when this happens. Students who see themselves reflected in what they are taught show stronger identity development, more positive multicultural attitudes, and greater civic engagement. When that mirror is taken down, children do not stop needing it. They just stop finding it at school and have one less opportunity to exist in a system that validates their existence. This means that many families of Color will continue to do what they have always done. More of this work is landing at home. And that raises a question that deserves more attention.What happens for caretakers when that weight lands? A study published this year in theJournal of Black Psychologygave me language for what happened in that rearview mirror. It also mirrored some of my own experience working with parents of Color. Sheretta Butler-Barnes and colleagues surveyed 681 Black mothers and fathers as part of an ongoing, NSF-funded study of Black families in Missouri, examining how parents' own daily experiences of racism relate to their confidence in talking with their children about race and racism. Black mothers who reported more frequent daily racism showed greater confidence discussing race and racism with their children, not less. Fathers, however, showed a more layered pattern. Those who reported both high racism and high racial trauma also reported more confidence, while fathers with low levels of both actually reported less. The researchers frame this through the Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization Theory, which treats a parent's felt confidence, not just their skills or their stress, as its own ingredient in whether racial socialization happens at all, and how well. This finding is noteworthy. It challenges an assumption some might carry that experiencing more racism, or carrying more racial trauma, would leave a parent less equipped to have this conversation. For many parents in this study, it did the opposite. Lived experience, painful as it is, can become the very thing that facilitates a parent's ability to intervene at the exact moment their child needs it. As a psychologist, this makes sense to me. Increased experiences of racism can make it harder to deny its existence. As such, that level of awareness may be what parents need to start conversations with their children about racism as a precaution. Our children are entering a school year with fewer institutional supports for understanding who they are racially, at precisely the moment their psychological need for that understanding is necessary. Therefore, a gap exists and potentially gets filled by those who encounter our children. That includes us as parents and caretakers. The thing that concerns me is the knowledge that many parents and caretakers are walking around carrying our own unresolved racial stress and trauma. More often than not, People of Color are positioned to survive a racialized world. Rarely are we allowed to heal from the harms perpetuated by racism. The Butler-Barnes findings tell us something clinically important. For many parents, their personal history with racism can become source material to help build the confidence needed to initiate conversations preparing future generations to live in a racialized world. The transformation, however, is not automatic. It happens when a parent has done enough processing to bring their history into the conversation instead of letting the residue of their harm guide the conversations. That distinction is the difference between a parent who remains silent and one who takes a deep breath and speaks. This is also why I am wary of racial socialization advice that treats parents as a neutral delivery system for the 'right' messages to children. We are not neutral. We bring our own racial history into every one of these conversations whether we name it or not. Naming it is what gives us more choice in what we pass down. Before You Answer Them: A Parent's Pause Protocol 1.Notice the pause.If you feel yourself hesitate, that is data, not a failure. Something in you responded before your child did. 2.Take inventory of what your reaction is about.'That reminded me of ___.' You do not have to share this with your child. You have to know it yourself. 3.Separate your history from their moment.Their experience is real, and it is theirs. It does not have to carry the full weight of yours to matter. 4.Answer from your values, not your wound.'Here is what I want you to know' lands differently than an answer delivered from raw hurt. 5.Come back to it.If you froze, a follow-up conversation later that day can repair more than most parents realize. What gives me hope is that this study did not find that racial trauma silences parents. For most of the Black mothers surveyed, and for a meaningful share of the fathers, their history became fuel rather than an obstacle. Confidence, the researchers note, is something distinct from skill or from stress. This means it can be built, practiced, and strengthened even in parents who are still carrying real pain. I have watched this happen in my own clinical work, and alongside the thousands of professionals I have trained. Awareness of your own racial story requires awareness and is intentional. Our children need parents willing to let their history remain present as a guide, without dictating the moment. That evening, I picked my son up from the after-school program, and we drove the same three minutes home. I told him I had gotten quiet because his question reminded me of my own elementary school experiences, a long time ago. I told him that feeling never fully goes away. Then I told him what I believe. Others' thoughts and beliefs do not dictate who he is. He does that. We do that. Our family does that. Our children need parents willing to let their history remain present as a guide, without dictating the moment. Think back to the last time your child asked you something about race and you felt yourself pause, even for a second. What was moving through you in that pause, and what did you do with it? Your answer might be exactly what another parent needs to read this week. Share! This piece draws on PEN America's ongoing documentation of book bans in U.S. public schools (2026 report), reporting from the Center for American Progress on curriculum-restriction and 'divisive concepts' legislation across states, research on ethnic studies curricula and adolescent identity development and civic engagement (published in the Journal of Adolescence), and new findings from Butler-Barnes, Leath, Cheeks, Peoples, Smith, Sargent, Arthur, and Johnson (2025, Journal of Black Psychology) on Black mothers' and fathers' racial socialization confidence, drawing on the Racial Encounter Coping Appraisal and Socialization Theory (Anderson & Stevenson, 2019) and the Racial Socialization Competency Scale (Anderson et al., 2020). It also reflects my own published work and clinical framework on racial trauma (Jernigan & Daniel, 2011; the #racialtraumaisreal framework, Jernigan et al., 2015) and background context from KFF's Survey on Racism, Discrimination, and Health on children's experiences of unfair treatment. If this resonated, share it with a parent, educator, or caregiver who needs it. And if you are not yet subscribed to this Substack, join the community below. More evidence-informed, practice-ready tools for the adults in children's lives are on the way. — Dr. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.