The Safety Nets We All Need
“The times are urgent, we must slow down.” – Bayo Akomolafe
⚠️ Content note: This piece includes reflections on death and mortality. Please take care if you’re feeling tender around this topic right now.
A Morning Conversation About Death
“Mommy, I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to be without you.”
Her lower lip trembles as tears well up. We are supposed to leave for school in five minutes, but suddenly the school bell feels very far away.
Am I dying? Does she know something I don’t? How do I give her reassurance when I can’t promise certainty?
“I know you feel scared of me dying,” I say, “but I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon. I won’t tell you I know for sure, but I’m doing everything I can to take care of my body and mind so I can live to a really old age.” She is quiet, thinking.
“But even one day when I do die,” I add, “you already have me with you. When you listen to yourself and follow your own path, I’ll be right there cheering you on.” I put my hand on her chest.
“Mommy, I don’t even know how to drive yet.”
“Oh my love… I’m thinking I’ll probably die when I’m really, really old, and by then you’ll already be driving. But if something happens sooner, you are surrounded by so much love. You would never be left alone. That’s what community is, we fill the gaps for one another.”
I am talking to a four-year-old, yes. But inside this conversation I am trying to pass along the things I would want her to remember if I was no longer actually here: self-care, listening to herself, leaning into community, and most of all, allowing for there not to be answers.
“Will you come back after you die?” she asks.
“No one really knows,” I say. “But I believe we come back.”
She pauses, then whispers, “I just want to be a baby. Can I always be your baby?”
“Always, my love. You will forever be my baby.” She crawls into my lap, making herself small, and together we look at pictures from the day she was born until her breathing steadies. A moment of peace, held together against the weight of the unknown. In the distance, I hear the school bell.
How This Conversation Connects With the Work That We Do
Some of you may be wondering what relevance this conversation has to the work I do, but the reality is… this conversation with my daughter mirrors the very same themes I work around every day with leaders, teams, and communities: how to hold fear and uncertainty without rushing to fix it, how to create safety nets of care when clear answers don’t exist, and how to show up whole in spaces that often demand we fragment ourselves.
Our systems (like work and school) often prioritize compliance, urgency, and productivity over presence, belonging, and care. But people don’t leave their fears or grief at the door. They bring their whole selves with them. And when we pretend otherwise, we don’t protect them; we isolate them.
True leadership in urgent times isn’t about bypassing the hard, or offering false certainty. It’s about:
Slowing down enough to notice what matters most.
Naming the hard so no one has to carry it alone.
Designing safety nets of trust, care, and community, so that when fear arises, as it inevitably will, we are not left in isolation, but held in connection.
When Systems Punish Humanity
This became even clearer to me as I thought about my choice to keep my daughter home that morning.
She attends public school, where three late arrivals in a school year can trigger a truancy label, a label which can result in review boards, fines, even loss of social benefits. The intent – to encourage regular attendance (which is tied to better student outcomes AND funding for the school) – is understandable. But the system punishes families who are already under strain. And ultimately, that truancy label comes with an increased likelihood of youth incarceration.
For me, pausing to hold my child’s fear carried limited risk. We live across the street from school. For someone who lives farther away, however, who might be juggling multiple jobs and other stressors, it could mean lost income or reduced support. Punitive systems don’t just stress adults; they send a message to children that their needs for care and connection come second to compliance.
We’ve been socialized to believe that bucking these rules is entitled. But what if the real goal of education – and even leadership more broadly – was exploration, discovery, and connection? What if we designed policies that supported both attendance and humanity? What if the very structures meant to hold us were safety nets, not traps?
A Question for Us All
Take a moment today to look at your particular context: where are people being punished for being human?
What might it look like to shift your system – whether at work, in school, or in your community – so that it holds us through the unknown with care, instead of isolating us with fear?
Remember, if it’s hard to come up with an answer to the second question, that’s normal. In the words of one of my current clients, Nikole Nelson, CEO of Frontline Justice: “If this was easy, it would already have been done.”