Parenting and Cancer: How Much Do Kids Need to Know?

When a parent has cancer, how much does a young child need to know?

That was the question faced by musician and thyroid cancer survivor Danielia Cotton when her partner, attorney Sam Roberts, received a diagnosis of mantle cell lymphoma in 2020. The New York City couple has a daughter, Olivia, who is now 6.

“She has no idea or sense of what this is … and I’m glad that we haven’t put that egg in her basket at this point,” said Cotton, 57.

Cotton, who has run eight marathons and counting to raise funds for cancer research, received her own diagnosis a decade or so ago, which was followed by surgery, and she now undergoes testing via ultrasound every six months.

Roberts, 56, said he saw his disease go into remission after enrolling in a clinical trial, and still visits the hospital for monthly treatment infusions.

“She’s used to me (making) regular hospital visits,” Roberts said.

Roberts said his Immune system is compromised due to both his cancer and its treatments, leading to several bouts of pneumonia and nine cases of COVID-19 over the years.

“All of that [is] sort of springling otherwise normal life, but Olivia’s sort of used to that,” he said.

Transcript:

Danielia Cotton: She has no idea or sense of what this is.

Sam Roberts: She's 6 now, she was just under 2 years old when I got diagnosed.

Cotton: And I'm glad that we haven't put that egg in her basket at this point, because she's so smart and strangely has this adult-like way, probably because she has older parents, that I think, knowing her, she'd stress about it, or she'd be like, ‘I'll take care of you dad,’ so I'm glad that she doesn't know.

Roberts: Well, she's used to me [having] regular hospital visits and my immune system has been pretty compromised because of the cancer itself and because of the drugs. So, for example, I've had COVID nine times. I was [sick with] pneumonia several times, I was hospitalized for pneumonia. There's fatigue. But all that [is] sort of like sprinkling the otherwise normal life. But Olivia is sort of used to that.

Cotton: She doesn't know that that's not different from anyone else.

Roberts: Yeah, when I go to the hospital every month still to get my infusion, I'm like, 'I'm going to the hospital' and she's like, 'You need to rest, daddy,' and then she'll just go off and do her thing.

Cotton: I'm glad that we sort of made that choice inadvertently. It's nothing that we actually decided on and said, ‘OK, we're not going to tell her.’ It's just sort of the way that we treated it. And I'm glad because I think it would be stressful for her. She adores him so, and he's incredibly attentive. I'm definitely the artistic one that, like, forgets everything. So he more sort of has the mother role of ‘All right, you got to be [somewhere],’ But I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot.’ So, you know, I think whatever will be revealed when it is.

She knows I run a lot of marathons, or that I have done races, and I've said that I've run those to raise money for people who are sick or whatever, but she doesn't really put those kinds of things together. And I hope in the end, she's happy with the decision that we've made, because I think it's allowed her to not have that kind of weight on her shoulders.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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