Last weekend, my brother-in-law brought Toby a book. A book he’d had when he was a kid. But a book from when he was an 8- or 9-year-old kid.

It’s a book about the Titanic. Which I’m not sure is appropriate reading for a 5-year-old, but Toby saw the picture on the front and decided the book would be his new favorite. So, we’ve been reading Robert Ballard’s account of the demise and finding of the Titanic—with the description of the sinking written in pretty stark detail—two pages at a time each night.

For the first few nights, things were fine. Toby really enjoyed hearing about the construction of the ship, asking questions and perusing the illustrations and photos. He loves boats, and this was a BOAT. He was fascinated.

Then they hit the iceberg, and we had a ton of explaining to do about physics and how a ship that big could start to sink. Let’s rewind a minute and mention that Toby’s in a “particularly prone to bad dreams” phase. Thankfully, his dreams seem pretty mild, but they wake him up enough for him to call for me and need a reassuring hug in the middle of the night. And at this point, we were just at a slight list with the first few watertight compartments filling with water.

As one can imagine, a nightly tale about mass death + bad dreams = a bit of a worry. I had some reservations about, you know, the pages with hundreds of people freezing to death and drowning to come.

I was chatting about this this morning at exercise class, and someone had a great and hilarious suggestion. “He can’t really read yet, can he? Well then make it up!”

A bit of revisionist history. BRILLIANT. “The boat sank, but everyone made it off safely and was picked up by another ship.”

Then I thought about a friend of mine whose mother told her, in adolescence, that her period wasn’t actually blood, but some other substance, to avoid her being creeped out. And it wasn’t until she was in COLLEGE that the grim truth became clear to her.

I didn’t want Toby going through his younger years with the content conviction that everyone on the Titanic lived happily ever after then get brought up to speed with reality that hit like the cold water that turned Leonardo DiCaprio into an icecube. I don’t think he’d forgive me! That kid likes him some truth.

And I pictured the moment when as a teenager, Toby makes a reference like, “And it has a happy ending. You know, like the Titanic,” and then realizing my deception. The teenage years are going to be hard enough. I don’t need to add in any more awkward moments.

So, page by page, we’ll factually convey the Titanic’s true fate. I’m sure there will be a lot of questions. And perhaps some bad dreams. It won’t be my finest parenting moment. But he’ll at least be accurately informed.