My Son Walked Out of School Today. Here’s What It Taught Me About Being a Dad.

Today my son walked out of school. In Reno.

He’s in middle school, and today there was a student walkout in protest of ICE. Whether you agree with that or not isn’t really the point of this post—but I’ll be honest, it made me stop and think more than I expected it to.

Last night, he came to me nervous. Not about getting in trouble, not about missing class, but about what it meant. He told me he had never seen a protest in real life before. He didn’t know if it would be peaceful or if things could get out of hand. He didn’t know how teachers would react. He didn’t know how other kids would react.

And that’s when it hit me: this wasn’t about politics to him. It was about uncertainty. About standing in something unfamiliar and trying to decide what the right thing to do was.

I don’t consider myself a hardliner on either side of the political spectrum. I’m not interested in shouting matches or tribalism. I consider myself a patriot. Someone who believes in this country, in the Constitution, and in the idea that freedom only works if we’re willing to protect it for everyone, not just ourselves.

My son is half Black. That matters here. I told him something very plainly: there are going to be experiences in his life that I will never fully understand, because I haven’t lived them. And that doesn’t make his experiences less valid—it makes them his.

We talked. A lot.

At first, I’ll be honest, my instinct was to steer him. To explain my views. To give him my perspective of the world and how I think things work. But I caught myself. Because that’s not parenting—that’s programming.

So instead, I told him this:

“If you believe in your heart that walking out today is the right thing to do, then you should do it. You won’t be in trouble with me. I’ll stand by you either way.”

This wasn’t about whether I agreed with the protest. It was about whether I trusted my son to think for himself. And I do.

I told him something else too—that being an American doesn’t mean we all think the same way. It means we protect each other’s right to think differently. You don’t have to agree with someone’s protest to defend their right to protest. If you can’t do that, then you don’t really believe in freedom. You just believe in comfort.

That goes for both sides.

The truth is, modern media doesn’t help much. No matter where you stand, you’re usually getting half a story, filtered through outrage or fear or clicks. That’s why it matters more than ever that our kids learn how to think instead of what to think.

Do I agree with everything my son believes? No.

Do I disagree with everything? Also no.

But I am proud of him.

Proud that he asked questions. Proud that he felt something strongly enough to act on it. Proud that he made a choice instead of waiting for someone to make it for him.

That’s how you build character. That’s how you build conviction. And honestly, that’s how you raise someone who might actually make this world a little better than the one we handed them.

Today wasn’t about politics.

It was about courage.

And I’ll take that lesson any day.