When will we love our children more than our right to bear arms?

When will we stop sacrificing our children?

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Does anybody else want to hold their kids extra tight and homeschool them after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas? I called my sophomore this morning while he was at his bus stop to hear his voice one more time. I hugged my kids, kissed them more, and debated whether or not to send them to school today or say, “Fuck it. It’s the end of the school year, and I’m never sending you back.”

But I didn’t. I sent them to school and asked Mother Mary to protect them as I watched them leave the house, board their bus, and when I dropped them off at school. I have four kids at four different schools in my school district. Four kids. Four different schools. Four chances that one of them will have to go into an unplanned shooter drill. I hate it.

The fall after Columbine, I began my career as a teacher. And 20+ years later, we still haven’t figured out how to do more than have kids hide in closets and use teachers as human shields. During the Beltway Sniper shootings, I taught sleepy fourth graders in a stifling classroom because we shut our windows and locked our doors.

I taught as planes hit the twin towers in New York, and I worried about my husband working in DC.

I taught when a student wrote a kill list at the middle school where I was working. Tongue-in-cheek I asked for body armor for Christmas.

I have looked for escape routes. I have comforted scared fourth-graders and middle schoolers. I have learned to lock the door, turn off the lights, lower the shades, and guide children in the dark to our coatroom to sit quietly.

I have been shoved into a closet while pregnant and with a 3-year-old because we happened to be in the school office filling out paperwork when they had an active shooter drill. I had to tell my 3-year-old to keep quiet while standing in a small closet with the school secretary, waiting for orders to leave.

My friend said her heart broke when her kindergartener said, “We shut all the lights off and hid in the dark classroom in case bad guys come to take us.”