I over-shared with my children about the presidential election, smugly convinced that our country would never elect a maniac like Donald Trump. Growing up, my family had always talked politics around the dinner table. I remember watching the Carter-Reagan debate with my parents in 1980, when I was 5. Their opinion — that Ronald Reagan would be an unmitigated disaster for the country — was hardly a secret. So why not educate my 5-year-old daughter and her 7-year-old brother, I thought.

The short answer is because this was a grossly abnormal election that was in no way appropriate for kids. I failed as a mother to grasp this basic fact.

Instead, I freely answered my children’s questions, convinced I was providing lessons in civics, honesty and common decency. It was perfectly fine to explain how awful and frightening Trump was. Because unlike Reagan, Trump could never win.

Hillary Clinton’s statement that “a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,” played on repeat. When my 7-year-old son asked what it meant, I explained that Trump was so unstable he might start World War III.

I even let my kids watch the “Saturday Night Live” spoofs of the debates. Oh, how we laughed!

My ex-husband and I had modest plans for election night — a family dinner at a local restaurant — but big expectations. We were going to be together with our son and daughter to celebrate the election of the first female president.

We all know how that ended.

Now I have to come to grips with my own blindness and bad choices. I have to find a way to make my kids feel safe again.

It hasn’t been easy. The night after the election, my kids starting insulting each other, as they are sometimes wont to do. My son told my daughter, “If you keep asking for sweet treats, you’re going to get fat.” She called him a “stupid idiot.”

First, I tried my San Francisco parenting. “Keep fat-shaming her,” I told my son, “and she’ll grow up with an eating disorder.” He rewarded me with a blank stare. “Don’t use those words,” I told my daughter, “they are mean and untrue and hurt his feelings.” She shrugged, looking thoroughly bored.

Frustrated, I told them, “The two of you sound just like Donald Trump.” Both kids spontaneously burst into tears. Turns out the worst thing I could say was to compare them to the person we just elected president.

That night, both kids asked to sleep in my bed. My daughter was out in minutes, sucking on her middle two fingers, her ever-present turtle lovey against one cheek. My son asked, “Is Donald Trump going to blow up the world?” I felt my eyes burning. “Donald Trump really, really likes being alive,” I told him. He turned away, twisting in the sheets, seemingly not at all reassured.

I grasped for a tendril of connection between Trump and my family. Finally, I said, “Donald Trump has a little boy not much older than you, and he loves him very much, just like I love you. It’s his job to keep his little boy alive, just like it’s my job to keep you alive.” My son fell asleep a few minutes later, still holding my hand. I lay there in the dark, brooding.

There is no turning away from the reality that Trump will be our president for the next four years. Like many people in San Francisco, I had been living in a bubble for too long. Now I face the daily task of explaining a Trump presidency to my kids in a way that does not scare the stuffing out of them. In the process, I must reckon with the fact that I fell down on the most important job I have: being a parent.

I am not suggesting we all raise the white flag. Nor should we whitewash the news, which feels like a daily body blow: Jeff Sessions, too racist to be confirmed by the Senate as a federal judge, will be our attorney general. Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, will head up the Environmental Protection Agency. I could go on. But I won’t. Not as my most outraged, impotent self. Not in front of my kids.

Parents who care deeply about social and racial and gender justice have to set an example for our kids. We need to show them that we will fight back, that we will speak out, that we will never, ever give up. But in doing so, we should not demonize our opponent as crazed, evil and nihilistic. We should not frighten our children with images of the apocalypse.

In some ways, I sank to Trump’s level during the election, insulting and ridiculing him every chance I got, reducing him to a scary monster in the eyes of my children. I have to do better. Maybe we all do.

Lara Bazelon is a writer and attorney. She lives in San Francisco.

What do you think?

In balancing parenting and politics, what’s appropriate for kids? Or maybe we all should be scared? To comment, send your letter to the editor to: http://bit.ly/SFChronicleletters