During a family vacation in Brighton, we joined a playful, British-themed Halloween parade. My daughter dressed as Queen Elizabeth, my son as her royal guard—complete with a plastic rifle. Locals smiled, clapped, even handed them biscuits. It felt like a parenting win—until we met her.

An older woman pulled me aside and asked coldly, “Are you really teaching your children to celebrate the monarchy?” She called it a symbol of oppression and colonialism. I was stunned—this was just a costume parade. But her words stuck. Back at our rental, I couldn’t shake it. Later, I looked up the monarchy’s history. Colonialism. Inequality. There was more to it than I’d considered.

I hadn’t meant to make a political statement — I just wanted my kids to have fun. But maybe fun and history weren’t so separate after all. A few months later, my daughter asked, “Why do people still like the queen if she wasn’t nice to everyone?” And just like that, the real conversation began.

That day at the parade taught me something unexpected: sometimes, joy and discomfort coexist. And as a parent, my job isn’t to shield my kids from hard truths — it’s to help them make sense of them. We don’t always get it right. But we can keep learning.