8pm is also when I start my child’s bedtime routine.

While headlines refresh and the world holds its breath, I will be standing next to a little stool in our bathroom, helping tiny hands squeeze toothpaste onto a brush. I will remind her to spit, not swallow. I will wipe her face with a warm washcloth and kiss her warm, rosy, damp cheeks. I will tighten the clump of messy curls on top of her head.

She will pick out a book. Probably one we’ve already read a hundred times. She will interrupt me halfway through to ask questions that have nothing to do with the story. I will answer anyway.

We will sing a song while I help her into her jammies. The same one, every night.I will tuck her in just like a big in a rug. I will whisper, “I love you to the moon and back.”

And tonight, I will hold on a little tighter during our group hug.

Because in the back of my mind, a quiet question will be echoing:Is my country bombing Iran right now?

Night is already falling there.

Somewhere across the world, another parent is beginning their own bedtime routine.

They are brushing teeth. They are smoothing blankets. They are telling stories in a language I don’t understand but a rhythm I would recognize instantly.

They are loving their child in the exact same way I love mine.

And what are they wondering?

Are they listening for sirens?Are they watching the sky?Are they trying to sound calm when they are anything but?Are they holding on just a little tighter, too?

The symmetry of our hearts and the dissonance of our circumstances is staggering.

Because motherhood does not change across borders. Love does not need translation. Bedtime rituals do not belong to one country or another. They belong to all of us.

And yet, the safety wrapped around those rituals can be so uneven, so fragile, so dependent on decisions made far away from the quiet moments where children rest their heads on their parents’ shoulders.

Tonight, at 8pm, I will do what mothers have always done.I will create a small pocket of peace inside my home.

I will choose softness.I will choose presence.I will choose love.

But I will not pretend the world outside does not exist.

I will feel the weight of it.I will carry the awareness that while I am turning off a nightlight, somewhere else a parent may be bracing for something unimaginable.

And still, I will whisper the same words:

I love you.I love you.I love you.

Because if there is anything that connects us across oceans, across fear, across uncertainty, it is this:

We are all just trying to tuck our children in safely at night.

And tonight, that feels both heartbreakingly simple and impossibly profound.

Hug your babies tight. Hug your loved ones right. 

Shit is fucked up, but we’re all gonna be okay. I hope.