The Quiet Before the Ask
Kitchen light flat on the table. Just after dinner, the kids cleared the dishes, left me with the last plate. My youngest, Maya, 12, sat hunched over her math homework, pencil tapping. Not the usual frantic scratch. Just... tapping. Waiting.
She’d been quiet all evening, but this was different. She kept glancing at me, then away. Like she was trying to decide if the air was thick enough to hold a question. I knew that look. It’s the same one I get when I’m standing at the door of a new neighbor’s house, wondering if they’ll even open it. Wondering if I’m too much, or not enough.
She didn’t ask. Not for help with the problem, not for a snack, not for anything. Just sat there, pencil tapping, the silence between us thick as the dust motes in the afternoon sunbeam. I didn’t say a word. Didn’t offer. Just sat there, watching her wrestle with the fear of being wrong, of being seen as not smart enough.
Look, I’m no expert on kids. But I’ve been on the other side of that door. I know how it feels to stand there, heart hammering, afraid the answer will be no. Afraid the silence will say, You don’t belong here.
She didn’t ask. But she didn’t shut down either. She just kept sitting there, in the quiet, with the fear. And I realized: maybe the bravest thing isn’t asking. Maybe it’s just… being there, in the quiet, when the asking feels impossible. Maybe that’s how you learn it’s safe to ask later.
You just do the next thing. Even if it’s just sitting in the quiet with someone else’s fear. Especially then.
— Jimmy Hawkins, just a dad figuring it out