I’ve written many letters to Harrison here on my blog, and on my Instagram. Some time back, I shared that I had written him a letter before he was born. While I still keep that letter private, I felt compelled to share the subject of that letter.

I wrote to Harrison about something that I didn’t understand or comprehend until much later in my life, and still grapple with sometimes. It was a letter about the fact that the family he was born into, his birth assigned sex, and his race would afford him privilege and power that he did absolutely nothing to earn or deserve. And even more so than that, that while he could not control the fact that he was given that privilege and power, he ultimately has the choice to use them for good and change in this world.

Pretty heavy stuff for a kid that wasn’t even born yet. But as I felt moved to write over two years ago when our country was walking through the “Me Too” movement, I can feel it re-echoed again today as we are walking through another time of unrest and imbalance that is just now being fully fleshed out on the national stage for our black brothers and sisters. My children are lucky beyond measure for things that they did nothing to deserve. Just as I was in my own childhood, and Nathan as well.

They live and will live a privileged life. But I hope that we are developing in them and will continue to cultivate in them a heart for those that are not afforded the same luxuries. That they are brave enough to use their voice for what is right.

This is all to say that I hope to see change in the content of the character of this nation. That my boys will grow up with the recognition of how fortunate they are to have been afforded an easier path simply by birth and genetics, and that even though it may seem like their voice is small, every voice in a fight for what is right counts.