Our 17-year-old son has no interest in the Oscars, but he rushed into the room where I was watching the awards show to confirm the reports that had taken over his social media feed.

"Did Will Smith really punch Chris Rock?" he asked.

It was more like a slap, I said -- an awful response to a bad joke.

I was still trying to process what millions of us had just witnessed on the live telecast. Rock was about to present the award for best documentary when he said to Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, that he couldn't wait to see her in "G.I. Jane 2."

He was referring to her shaved head. Pinkett Smith has publicly spoken about her struggle with alopecia, an autoimmune condition that causes hair loss. She rolled her eyes at the remark. At first, Will Smith laughed. But a moment later, he rushed the stage, slapped Rock and returned to his seat, yelling for Rock to "keep my wife's name out of your f

king mouth."

Like most confused viewers, I wasn't sure if this was a staged bit. Once it sunk in that Smith had responded to an ugly comment about his wife by hitting someone, I immediately thought of the consequences -- not for Smith, who received a standing ovation from his peers later in the evening while accepting the award for Best Actor. But the consequences for every young person watching.

Smith sent a message with that slap: not just to Rock, a grown adult and professional comedian, but to every young person who will see it. He told them that it's an act of "love" to respond to an insult with your hands.

It most certainly is not. It's an act of violence.

We teach toddlers to "use their words" when they feel big emotions like anger, frustration and hurt. Parents of Black and brown boys in this country know that lesson is even more urgent for our sons.

Those who lack the protections of superstar fame and wealth don't get standing ovations after they hit someone. They get suspended from school. Or they get sent to jail. Or in places like Missouri, where anyone could be carrying a gun at any time, they get shot.

While the Oscars program continued seamlessly after this fracas, I thought about a scuffle that happened last summer at a St. Louis-area mall: 21-year-old Jason Hill fatally shot 20-year-old Malachi Maclin on July 3. A grand jury found that Hill had acted in self-defense after Maclin made a threatening comment and punched him in the face.

The young men did not know one another. It might have been a case of mistaken identity.

I've thought about those young men a lot since that incident. A young man's life lost -- for what?

Those who are part of my generation likely remember the fights that would break out over insults, perceived and real, when we were growing up. More often than not, a few punches were thrown and it was over.

That's not the world our children live in. They shop and work and study in places where slapping someone carries the risk of getting shot.

Clearly, that's not Will Smith's reality.

Was he justified in getting angry about Rock's barb at his wife? Of course he was. He could have called him out a dozen different ways. He could have used his acceptance speech to clearly say why his reaction was wrong instead of rationalizing it and framing it in the language of love.

Young girls who internalize the belief that protection and love look like violence can have that very idea used against them by abusers. Young men who see a star they admire applauded for hitting a man over an insult internalize that approval.

As adults, we know that we cannot walk up to and slap a colleague who insults us. But in the heat of the moment, young people act impulsively -- and outside the rarefied world of Hollywood, there are life-altering consequences for that kind of behavior.

If Smith wants to be a vessel of love for his community, he needs to talk honestly with Black and brown children about the risks of that kind of escalation.

That's what love looks like.

Tricia Johnson’s children started kindergarten and graduated high school in the same district where she’s worked for 16 years.

When they were younger, she filled in as a substitute. For the past five years, however, she’s taught classes on literacy and academic success at Festus Middle School in Jefferson County, a politically conservative area in Missouri where 65% of voters supported Donald Trump in the last election.

Johnson had never had a problem in the district until this school year. In September, she asked her students to research their learning styles and design their ideal workspaces -- an assignment she'd given several times before. Students created their designs on regular-sized pieces of paper, which Johnson displayed on a bulletin board in her classroom.

This time, one of her students’ designs showed two anime characters holding hands in a room. In the upper corner, the student put three small pride flags, each about an inch tall. On the evening of Sept. 16, Johnson says her principal, Jacob Munoz, called her at home to say one of her students' parents complained that she had displayed a picture of two girls in bed, kissing. She informed him that wasn’t true.

He went to investigate in her class and noticed the paper with the small pride flags.

When Johnson showed up at work the next day, the student’s work was missing from the board. She immediately took down the other projects.

“I can’t have one student left out,” she explained.

The principal asked to see her in his office.

She says he pointed to the flags on the student’s paper and said, “We can’t promote this.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with the picture,” she said.

“You know I’m a conservative Christian,” he responded, according to Johnson.

The next day, she received an electronic request from the superintendent and assistant superintendent to view her lesson plans, which she granted. Her principal gave her a disciplinary memo criticizing her teaching and judgment, and reprimanding her for having "sexually suggestive content" in her classroom.

She recalls the principal saying the anime characters in the student’s drawing were standing too close to each other. She told him that she didn’t think the school should be censoring student work.

“He asked me if I would have hung up a swastika or Confederate flag,” Johnson said. “Those are not remotely the same thing.”

He asked her to turn in her lesson plans in advance for him to review every week. Johnson followed the instructions given to her, but she refused to back down from supporting her student’s work.

By the end of October, she had filed a grievance against the district for discriminating against her student. She asked for the disciplinary note to be removed, for an independent investigation and for diversity training for all district staff.

“I felt like if I let this go, this would be happening to other kids, and I didn’t want that,” she said. “The first question the investigator asked me was, ‘Why did you choose this hill to die on?'”

His report found no evidence of discrimination.

She appealed to the school board. They listened to her side and eventually decided that the district had not violated any of the policies she outlined in her case. She filed a complaint in February with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Earlier this month, her principal informed her that they would not be rehiring her for the next school year. He gave her an annual review that said she was an ineffective teacher and unprofessional.

After that meeting, she went to her classroom and cried.

“I love my job,” she said. “I love teaching.”

When I reached out to Superintendent Link Luttrell about Johnson’s allegations, he said privacy laws prevented the district from speaking about any personnel issues. The district released a statement saying, “When any individual standards are not met, efforts are made to address those areas and work collaboratively with the employee to improve. It is disheartening when someone chooses instead to distribute a false narrative to discredit others.”

Johnson, who has shared the letters from her principal as well as her responses, says she knew that she might lose her job when she refused to back down.

“The whole reason I became a teacher is because I love kids, and I wanted to be a positive force in their lives,” she said. “If I let this go, then I’ve failed.”

Her daughter started a Change.org petition asking the district to rehire her mother; more than 3,600 have signed so far. She’s received countless supportive messages from current and former students.

“We stand behind you, Mrs. Johnson,” they said. “We’ve got your back.”

What a shame the district didn't have theirs.

Imagine how unsettling it would be if girls started their periods without any warning or idea of what was happening. That's why most of us watched a film and received a booklet in elementary school preparing us for that life change.

Unfortunately, there's no similar collective warning about perimenopause. No one gave me a "talk" when I turned 40 to prepare me for what lay ahead.

First of all, unlike the start of menstruation, the tail end of the reproductive cycle is a vague and extremely variable process. Menopause itself is clearly defined: A woman is officially in menopause when 12 months have passed since having a period. Perimenopause, however, is a period of time leading up to menopause. Things could start to get weird anywhere from four to seven years beforehand.

That's a wide time span. And the list of possible changes is also lengthy: unpredictable menstrual cycles, heavy bleeding, painful cramping, hot flashes, night sweats, decreased sex drive, weight gain, sleep disturbances, irritability, short-term memory issues and vaginal dryness. These symptoms can start anywhere from the early to late 40s and continue for a couple of years after hitting menopause, which is often around age 51.

Women who stay on hormonal birth control or use an IUD often fare better because their cycles are still hormonally regulated.

You might experience some or all of these things. Symptoms might come and go. Some people have such severe hot flashes it gives them social anxiety, and others never experience a single one.

You can't predict any of it.

"This is what is so frustrating for ladies and providers, because everyone is so individual," said Stacy Selbert, a women's health nurse practitioner at Washington University School of Medicine with a certification in menopause. The body doesn't decrease the amount of estrogen it makes in a slow and steady way, like closing a faucet, she said. It sputters and spits across the finish line.

If men spent years experiencing symptoms like this, you can bet there would be a national PSA campaign and a presidential commission to research affordable treatments.

Women resort to asking friends for advice and getting sticker shock about the cost of medicines that might help.

Generations ago, when life spans were considerably shorter, menopause was seen as a transition to the end of life. Now, women may spend a third or half of our lives postmenopausal. We have to normalize talking about it and demand better, more affordable treatments to improve quality of life.

When my cycle turned considerably more painful in recent years, I did the math. With our family complete, how much longer would I be dealing with this monthly inconvenience and pain? I learned that age of menopause can be affected by factors such as genetics, weight, ethnicity, lifestyle factors, body size and composition and hormone levels.

By my best guess, I'm staring at five years of perimenopause.

I financed my last car for five years! I've got 60 easy payments left on a uterus I'm done with.

Selbert assured me that there are ways women can feel better through this process. In addition to routine exercise, some supplements and phytoestrogens, like black cohosh, can be helpful. Antidepressants can reduce hot flashes. Replacement hormone therapy is beneficial for some women.

In the 1980s and '90s, women would regularly take synthetic hormones to ease peri- and postmenopausal symptoms. The Women's Health Initiative study in 2002 changed that overnight when researchers found significant increased risk for blood clots and breast cancer.

"But then women were miserable, as well as the people they live with," Selbert said. Years of further research found inconsistencies in that original study. Now, bioidentical hormone therapy can be safely prescribed to many women who need it.

"It comes down to how you feel and what's your out-of-pocket cost," Selbert says. She's had patients report costs as high as $300 a month for various treatments, although $50 to $100 is more typical. Even birth control, which can help regulate your cycle, can cost $50 a month -- with insurance. (Medicines for erectile dysfunction are far cheaper, go figure.)

I was recently at an event with a friend who may have experienced her first hot flash. Her face turned red and she started sweating profusely. She quickly left. Later, she said it might have been a panic attack.

At any rate, it gave us a chance to talk about perimenopause.

The more women have this conversation, the better we can advocate for the health care coverage we deserve.