Small Talk: Learning from My Children About What Matters Most

Almost every day, one of Amy Julia’s children says something or asks something that prompts her to think more carefully:  “What ‘lasting’ mean?” William wonders when he hears a song about God being an everlasting God. "If the children who died went to heaven, then why are we sad?” Penny asks, when she passes by a funeral for a victim of the Sandy Hook shootings. "I don't wanna' get 'tized!" says Marilee about baptism. These conversations deepen her relationships with her children, but they also deepen and refine her own understanding of what she believes, why she believes it, and what she hopes to pass along to the next generation.  

Small Talk is a narrative based upon these conversations. It is not a parenting guide. It does not offer prescriptive lessons about how to talk with children. Rather, it tells stories based upon the questions and statements Amy Julia’s children have made about the things that make life good (such as love, kindness, beauty, laughter, and friendship), the things that make life hard (such as death, failure, and tragedy), and what we believe (such as prayer, God, and miracles).

Amy Julia moves in rough chronological order through the basic questions her kids asked when they were very young  to the more intellectual and spiritual questions of later childhood. Small Talk invites other parents into these same conversations, with their children, with God, and with themselves. Moving from humorous exchanges to profound questions to heart-wrenching moments, Amy Julia encourages parents to ask themselves―and to talk with their children about―what matters most.

Amy Julia Becker is a writer and speaker who tells true stories that offer hope in the face of distorted humanity and social division in order to help people move towards healing both personally and in society. She covers topics including faith, family, disability and culture. She is the author of several books including the award-winning A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny. A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, Becker's essays about faith, family, disability, Down syndrome, privilege and culture have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Christianity Today, the Christian Century, and online for The New York Times, ABCNews, the Atlantic, Vox, and The Huffington Post. She lives with her husband Peter and three children, Penny, William, and Marilee in western Connecticut.