Before heading out for dinner with a friend, I whipped up a quick meal of chicken nuggets, broccoli, and apple slices for my kids. I appreciated my husband’s willingness to hold down the fort for the night and didn’t want to toss any new food dilemmas into the mix that could lead to pre-bedtime meltdowns. As I rushed to kiss my 4-year-old son and my 20-month-old daughter goodbye, I caught my son mentioning something about chickens, but didn’t catch all the details. I told him to be good for Dad and to help his sister, and off I went.
Once I settled at the restaurant, I got a text from my husband. “Heads up. Our son just learned that people die. He’s not taking it well.”
Our little guy is sensitive—like, can’t watch a sad cartoon without bursting into tears sensitive. So, I braced myself for the storm that was brewing. My husband is a solid dad, so I figured he could handle this unexpected situation while I enjoyed my time out.
When I got home that night, the kids were already tucked in bed. My husband filled me in on the evening’s events.
That comment I missed earlier? It was about the chicken nuggets and their lack of feathers. We’ve always tried to be honest with our kids, so my husband told him that yes, they were indeed real chickens. We’ve had similar discussions before, where our son would seem to disconnect the meat on his plate from the animals they come from. Usually, he brushes it off and moves on to more pressing matters, like dessert.
But this time, something clicked. “But the chicken nuggets don’t have feathers.”
“Well, they take the feathers off before cooking,” my husband explained.
Our son chuckled, “So the chicken is naked when you cook it? Won’t it be cold?”
“The chicken doesn’t feel cold because it’s killed before they take its feathers off,” came the reply.
And that was the moment it all unraveled.
My son asked if all chickens get killed, and my husband explained that some do, while others just die, but eventually, they all pass away.
“Do all animals die?” he queried.
“Yes,” my husband confirmed.
Then came the gut-wrenching question: “Will my pets die?”
With two cats and a dog in our home, this was tough. Our son isn’t usually that interested in them, but they’ve been part of the family longer than he has.
“Yes, one day our pets will die.”
It’s hard to think of anything sadder than a 4-year-old sobbing at the thought of losing his furry friends. My husband tried to console him, but it wasn’t working.
“Do people die too?”
“Yes, people die.”
This was a concept we hadn’t prepared for him to grasp just yet. I felt tears welling as my husband recounted the story, not only because mortality is a heavy subject but because I realized this was the start of our son’s loss of innocence—over chicken nuggets, no less.
My husband continued, and both of us felt the weight of the moment. Our son asked if we would die, and my husband reassured him that not for a long time. But our son cried that he didn’t want us to “leave.”
“Did he ask what happens after we die?” I interrupted.
“No, and thank the universe for that because we’d be lost for words.”
We’re atheists raising our kids in a secular environment. We believe that when we die, that’s the end—no afterlife, no haunting people, just nothingness. It can be a bit daunting to think about, but we weren’t ready to share that with our 4-year-old.
I spent the night fretting about how to approach this topic when inevitably it came up again. I reached out to some friends for advice, and one mom shared how her daughter coped with her grandmother’s death. Her husband told their child that when we die, we become stars, and she could think of her great-grandmother whenever she spotted a star in the sky.
It was beautiful—non-religious, softened the harshness of death, and gave children a way to find comfort in loss. It also resonated with a quote from Carl Sagan: “We are made of starstuff.”
The next morning, our son woke up cheerful. I asked how he felt about the previous night’s talk.
“He told me animals die and people die.” His tone was calm and collected.
“Do you have any questions?”
“Do we have a video of the chicken dying?”
I was taken aback, suddenly imagining him wanting to watch some grim PETA documentary. My mind raced with thoughts of how I would manage the dietary changes if he decided to go vegetarian after seeing it.
“No, we don’t have any videos of that,” I replied.
“Can we buy the DVD?”
And just like that, my fears about his understanding of mortality were overshadowed by the whimsical nature of a 4-year-old’s curiosity. I switched from worrying about his grasp on the concept of life and death to hoping he would just become a vegan instead of something far more sinister.
In the end, it was just another day in parenting—full of surprises and profound lessons.
For anyone considering the journey of parenthood, resources like this guide on pregnancy and this article on home insemination can be invaluable. Also check out this authority on self-insemination for further insights.