I've got no problem talking to my kids about sex. Race is a different story. Like so many (white) parents, I thought not talking about it was the best way to make race a nonissue, but a new book—and news items from Skip Gates to Serena Williams to Joe Wilson—says I was wrong. Race—and all the issues encompassed in that one tine word, from equality to prejudice to culture and history—should be tackled head-on—but how?

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's Nurture Shock (a highly readable Malcolm Gladwell-esque look at the social science of childrearing) includes a chapter on talking with kids about race that reaches the seemingly inescapable (if probably slightly facile) conclusion that not talking about race doesn't teach our kids that it's not important. It teaches them that we don't want to talk about it. Meanwhile, they're drawing their own conclusions.

At the same time, race is becoming an increasingly more visible part of our national conversation. James Carroll pulls current events together in an essay in The Daily Beast to argue that "America's New Racial Reality" has freed prominent blacks from what he calls their old "contract with America"—one that forbade any open display of anger. Carroll considers the events and arguments surrounding Gates, Serena Williams, and the response to Joe Wilson evidence of a new freedom to react to the racism that still lurks in the "shadowy corners" of the country. I'm not sure I fully agree (at least about Serena Williams), but I do agree that both blacks—and whites—seem to feel more free to talk about race, or at least to attempt it, than we have in a long time. For blacks to be silent out of a fear of seeming (justifiably) angry, and whites to be silent out of a fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, strikes me as every bit as ridiculous as my belief that not talking about race at home would somehow make the issue go away. It's not going to work—not on the playground, and not in the Senate chambers, either.

The truth is, I'd still like to "wait for an opportunity" to talk about race with my kids. A bald, random announcement seems artificial, and like putting too much weight on something I don't want to have much weight for them at all. But I suspect that even if we're not talking about it, they're thinking about it—and if they're thinking, we should be talking. My oldest kid is 8, and ready to talk about his (only!) black classmate, or why some people think the president can't be a good president just because his skin is black. My three youngest probably still need an explanation of why people with brown skin are called black, except when they're called Asian, or Latino, or something else. And they all need to hear, from us, that some people may expect their extraordinarily athletic sister to be a brainy mathlete just because she's Chinese, and that plenty of people will assume she's not their sister.

I can start simple, but if we do it right, the conversation won't stay simple. "We're all the same on the inside" isn't enough. The experience of being of a different race in this country can create its own differences, and I have no idea—yet—how to talk about that. But if I can have endless conversations with my preschoolers about what a tampon is, and what I'm doing with it (and would they please get out of the bathroom now), I'll eventually come up with a way to talk about this, too.

Tags: James Carroll, Serena Williams, skip gates, talking about race

Jess, there have always been politicians who have fathered out of wedlock children. Grover Cleveland more or less acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock (who might not even have been his), and during his lifetime Jefferson was accused of fathering some of his own slaves—a charge that’s now generally believed. However, I agree the dragging out of this drama only makes John Edwards more of a public joke. Perhaps there have been delicate legal and financial negotiations that have held up his acknowledgment—but he can’t really be thinking he can rehabilitate himself politically. Humiliating a terminally ill wife is hard to spin. Hanna, the detail that struck me most in the Times story was the news that Rielle Hunter is moving to North Carolina! Is this with the Edwards’ family reluctant acquiescence or is she making this territorial move in order to demand recognition that her child has to be part of her father’s life?

Photograph of John Edwards by Chris Graythen/Getty Images.

Tags: John Edwards, rielle hunter

Jess, here's what interested me yesterday. (Besides the Dave Matthews band detail. Now that's a way to abuse your power in bed: "No, honey," he says seductively. "I didn't mean the CD. I meant the actual band.") This story seems to be breaking open new legal territory, with the argument that hush money to a mistress might have to count as campaign donations. But then there's this other Bleak House twist. At the end of the Times story was this interesting passage:

It could also shift Ms. Hunter’s image from that of a predatory celebrity stalker (Mrs. Edwards told Oprah Winfrey that Ms. Hunter met her husband after waiting for him to come out of a New York hotel and telling him, “You’re so hot.”) to that of a mother concerned about her child’s rights.

Several questions: Do we believe that's what she's after? And is this common legal territory, seeking "rights" for your child from a father who won't acknowledge her? And does "rights" mean something more complicated than financial support. Legal ladies, please advise.

Tags: John Edwards, rielle hunter

Emily, I agree that modern women don't really want a Don Draper, but at least he's a way better fantasy than fellow affair-havers Mark Sanford and now John Edwards. First, Sanford had that lame Appalachian Trail excuse and the even more embarrassing press conference. In a New York Times article over the weekend, it was revealed that Edwards promised mistress Rielle Hunter that he would "marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band." What is wrong with our chronically unstylish philandering politicians?

Say what you will about Don, but at least he was discreet, and embarrassing Betty is the last thing he'd ever want to do. Both Sanford and Edwards have maximally humiliated their families with their dalliances. It now appears as if Edwards is the father of Hunter's child, as people have been speculating all along. If Edwards had been honest when his affair with Hunter had first emerged, if he had said, yes, this is my child, it would have been awful for Elizabeth and his children, but at least it would have been only briefly in the public mind. But he didn't do that. Instead, this farce has been drawn out for months on end. If Edwards didn't come clean in order to save his political career, it was a stupid move. Americans hate being lied to, especially repeatedly and over moral issues. Has any American political career survived an out-of-wedlock child?

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, mark sanford, mark sanford affair, rielle hunter