My teenage daughter has the habit of remaining holed up in her room much of the day and then throwing me a tough question around 10 pm when I am in no shape to answer. Last night was no different, except it was a conversation I had been dreading. She came into my room and sat down on the bed and told me that she was scared to go to school. I went into my usual protective mom speech about how her school is secure. Then I said, “besides, I would never send you somewhere if I thought you weren’t safe.” Through her tears, she looked at me and said, “I bet that’s what the other moms said,” referring to the moms whose children in Texas, Florida, Connecticut and what seems like every state in between died in mass school shootings. That comment hit me like a punch in the gut. I was eventually able to comfort her, but after she went to bed, I realized that I needed comforting as well.
When I was growing up, I worried about things too. This was the height of the Cold War and I recall having bomb drills at school. However, this worry seemed very far away. I did not lose sleep over it. I feel like most days, my biggest concern was that I was going to show up wearing the same outfit as one of my friends. The biggest advantage is there was no internet – if you did not want to worry about what was going on in the world, you tuned in to watch Double Dare and not the nightly news. Today’s kids do not have the luxury. Bad news follows them everywhere. It is a topic of discussion in group texts right after it happens. They cannot kid themselves into thinking those school shootings are something that happens far away when it is in a 24-hour news cycle.
A mother’s job is to walk that fine line between comforting your child while, at the same time, not sugarcoating things. Kids see through the BS pretty quickly. You don’t want them to think that bad things never happen, but you don’t want it to be something that consumes their every thought. At the same time, how do we as moms make ourselves feel better when grieving parents are in the news, on Twitter, and they do not look any different than us? How do we give our kids a kiss, hug, and “see you later” in the morning, when there is a little twinge of anxiety that will not go away until we see them at the end of the day?
My kids have to go to school. We still want to go to theaters and movies. We get on an airplane from time to time. We have to live our lives. However, sometimes I feel as though it is a life led looking over my shoulder; an existence where we are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. My hope is that through our actions and the actions of others across the country, we will not still be having this conversation about school shootings for much longer. Change has to happen.
Sara! I didn’t know you were writing. It is unfortunate that our children/grandchildren have to be afraid everywhere they go.
I will be sure to read more of your writings!!
Thanks Colleen! It was a difficult topic to write about, but unfortunately it is a conversation so many of us have had. I hope you are doing well.
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