Help! My Kid’s Beloved Nanny Was Just Arrested for a Horrific Crime. I’m Speechless.

Each week, exclusively for Slate Plus members, Prudie discusses a new letter with a fellow Slate colleague. Have a question for Prudie? Submit it here.

Our son had a nanny in his early years. She took magnificent care of him, loves him, and he loves her. Though he aged out of needing a nanny, we still see her on occasion for meals and celebrations. We were scheduled to see her for dinner recently but the day before, well, she murdered someone.

It was all over the news and social media, and we are shocked and heartbroken. Our son doesn’t know. He isn’t likely to learn about this from anyone or from the news and he isn’t on social media. Our city has its share of murders, so this won’t stay in the news beyond initial reporting. We know we’ll have to tell him eventually, but we don’t know when or how. It will devastate him more than anyone.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: Wait a minute, I want to defend my client here! If this was “recently,” it sounds like she’s only been charged, not convicted. She’s still innocent!

Lizzie O’Leary: See, only one of us went to law school and it’s you. As I messaged you yesterday, “Holy shit.” I am going to operate as if this letter is real, for the sake of advice-giving. I tried to think about this from a child’s perspective. Do we have any idea how old this child is? Because that informs a lot of what I will say next. There is a big difference between how one might deal with this with a 6-year-old, and, say, a 10-year-old.

Jenée: Right, if this is real (editor’s note: Lizzie just sent me a link and I think it’s real! And therefore feels much more serious), the response will depend on the age. I’ll just start with a first draft for each range:

Under 5: Yes, we love Nanny! We haven’t seen her for a long time. She lives in a different place now. What’s your favorite construction vehicle?

5-7: We’re not going to be seeing Nanny anymore because she made a bad choice and hurt someone. I feel a little sad about it. If you have any questions, you can ask me.

7-10: This is really sad news I have to tell you: Nanny hurt someone and she went to jail.

10 and over: Pretty much the whole truth?? (Including, if appropriate, whether she had mental health issues, etc.)

Lizzie: I think this is the way. It is obviously NOT the same, but when I was diagnosed with cancer when my son was 3, we told him I had a “bad lump” that needed to come out and that the doctors took it and everything was fine. Now that he is 5, he knows I had cancer. We made that choice because we didn’t want some older kid on the playground to hear the word cancer and tell him his mom was going to die, because cancer is such a varied thing. But two years on, we use the real word for it. That’s a long digression to say that there are ways to have age-appropriate conversations and then revisit them when kids get older and can comprehend a little more. I also think that, like a lot of important conversations with kids, this will not be one-and -done. You will return to it when your child has questions, which they will.

Jenée: “A bad lump” was such a good choice. I know the conversation still must have been really hard though. Tell me if I’m right about this: Do you think kids kind of have a way of self-editing the overwhelming information they get so that it makes sense to their little brains? I just remember watching Dirty Dancing as a kid and part of the plot involves someone having an abortion, but somehow, I just decided she had been stabbed and made it work in my head. I also sincerely believed (until it hit me at like age 15 that this was bullshit) that any girlfriend my Dad had was a “friend” because that’s how they were presented, and I did not take any context clue that would have challenged that into consideration. And kids often believe that their dead dogs have gone to live at a really nice farm, right?

Lizzie: I think that is absolutely true. They both somehow understand emotional tone better than we give them credit for, and cognitively let narratives fit where they are in their development. I do think, though, that this is a conversation where it’s important that a parent’s delivery be calm, matter of fact, and provide the emotional cues that a kid needs. They will key off you, and the nonverbal messages you send.

Jenée: Yeah, I feel like if you give your son enough to tell himself a story that makes sense, and present it clearly and with a certain amount of confidence, he’s not going to press for the gory details. Also, I’m really sorry you have to deal with this tragedy. The terror that comes with imagining that someone in your family could have been the victim is probably another, more complicated layer. If either of you have feelings about that, turn them over to a professional.