On a beautiful, sunny morning, I was with mama friends and all our kiddos. Between the five of us, we had two to four kids each, the oldest at six years old and the youngest had just learned to walk.

I had my daughter in my lap as I sat squished in a toddler chair at a small table. She was picking up Goldfish crackers one by one, and I was talking happily with my friends. But then someone brought up a recent Daniel Tiger episode with a tang in her voice that concerned me. I recalled the exact episode she was talking about and could remember liking it and being proud that my daughters had watched it.

“Daniel and his friends are talking about Band-Aids and how unfair it was to one of the kids that the Band-Aid didn’t match her skin. His friend’s skin is darker and the Band-Aid was lighter.”

My heart started beating faster because I wasn’t sure what she would say next.

“A Band-Aid, really? I mean, do we really want our kids to care about hurting each other’s feelings over something so insignificant as the shade of a Band-Aid? Why is everyone all of a sudden so sensitive?”

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I froze, my eyes laser-focused on the Goldfish crumbs in front of me. We are an adoptive, multi-racial family, and I am well aware of the “Band-Aid argument” concerning racial equality. There are so many issues in our society with what “flesh-toned” should mean. Makeup, Band-Aids, and undergarments are all topics of discussion, as they should be. With a red face, I wanted desperately to point out the blended skin color in our family but suddenly became very obsessed with being as quiet as I could.

I did not know what to say. The words couldn’t formulate fast enough for me to defend my family in front of my friend. Other moms in the room nodded and laughed and said they picked out patterned Band-Aids for their kids anyway. It seemed to be the consensus that Daniel Tiger was encouraging kids to be offended easily. They all quickly moved on to a different conversation, and no one asked me what I thought.

In the days after, I did more research and continued to stew over how I could have spoken up and what to share with my friends. The best way I could have addressed it would have been to say, “The Daniel Tiger episode wasn’t about Band-Aids. It was about racism. And how better to introduce kindness and compassion than with a simple illustration that kids can understand.”

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is a show based on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, and we all know how that man promotes kindness and compassion to everyone. What I want is for my kids to learn to ask how their friends are feeling so they can make them more comfortable. I don’t want my kids to feel like I did that morning—alone, ignored, and dismissed. I want to teach them empathy no matter what.

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I know if I would have said something to my friends, we could have had a great conversation. We could have shared our personal viewpoints and still agreed on the main thing: our kids being taught to be kind is always a good thing. They might have really valued my input even if it wasn’t as well thought-out as I would have liked. Even if I didn’t feel ready or brave to have that kind of confrontation with my friends.

It’s not my job to blame them. It’s my job to learn from my mistake of being silent. While I understand why I was hesitant, next time, I will be ready. My heart will be bold enough to say, “This is important enough to talk about, even if it is uncomfortable.”

I am not always going to do it right. I am not always going to be kind and compassionate because the frazzled moments in motherhood sneak up on me like a haunting ghost. But my promise to my kids will always be to do my best and make sure they are heard, loved, and valued right where they are.