To raise children in America is to live in fear.
Fear that one day your child, the person you love and know with an intimacy that can’t be captured in words, will die in a hail of bullets at church, at a concert, at the movies, at the grocery store, at a party, at a park, on the sidewalk, at school.
At school. Always and especially at school, which is a perversely common killing ground for American children.
To raise children in America is to read nutrition labels and install car seats and secure baby gates and attach training wheels and cut up choking hazards and zip up life preservers and stick to vaccine schedules and wonder, quietly, in the back of your mind, if any of it will be enough. If your child will make it to high school. If your child will make it to college. If your child will make it to 30. Why, if your child does, another mom’s child didn’t.
To raise children in America is to know that thousands upon thousands of families are shattered into pieces every single year by gun violence — at church, at a concert, at the movies, at the grocery store, at a party, at a park, on the sidewalk, at school.
To raise children in America is to know that devastated parents can offer up photos of their sweet, dead children as an offering and a warning and a clarion call for change — in front of Congress, in news stories, on Twitter, in mailings, during press conferences, to anyone who will watch, to anyone will listen — and mostly nothing will change.
Not nearly enough will change, anyway. Not enough to quell the fear and stop the slaughters.
Every year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, more than 3,500 children and teens are shot and killed in the United States. Another 15,000 are shot and injured. Gun violence became the leading cause of death among American children and teenagers in 2020. And there have been 212 mass shootings — an incident where four or more people are shot or killed — so far in 2022, according to The Gun Violence Archive.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed, is this year’s 27th school shooting. It took place 10 days after a white supremacist walked into a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and killed 10 people. In between the two incidents, two people died and seven were injured during a mass shooting outside a Chicago McDonald’s. Somewhere in that timeline, the Milwaukee Bucks canceled a NBA Finals watch party after three separate shootings near the stadium injured 21 people.
To raise children in America is to know the routine. Shooting. Outrage. Sorrow. Thoughts and prayers. Finger pointing. Deflection. Stupefyingly ridiculous suggestions like arming teachers and limiting the number of school doors.
To raise children in America is to feel abandoned by the leaders and policymakers who could actually disrupt that routine. Who could follow the lead and leverage the labor of Everytown For Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Sandy Hook Promise, March for Our Lives, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the thousands upon thousands of angry, heartbroken, determined Americans who refuse to believe we have to live like this.
To raise children in America is to watch leaders and policymakers waste precious time arguing, instead, over whether our children can say gay or learn about the shameful parts of U.S. history or read graphic novels about the Holocaust or receive social-emotional learning.
At school.
To raise children in America is to know and believe we can do better.
To raise children in America is to know and believe our children deserve better.
To raise children in America is to know and believe we will arrive at better. But to wonder how many more children will die before we do.
And to know that number is unacceptable.
And to know that it’s never just a number. It’s a child. It’s somebody’s baby — whose nails they trimmed and knees they kissed and toes they counted and fevers they calmed and fears they soothed and dreams they believed in.
To raise children in America is to witness a recurring nightmare. For far too many, it’s to inhabit one.
But to raise children in America is to know and believe we can do better. And to refuse to give up until we arrive there.
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Heidi Stevens is a Tribune News Service columnist. You can reach her at heidikstevens@gmail.com, find her on Twitter @heidistevens13 or join her Heidi Stevens’ Balancing Act Facebook group.
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©2022 Tribune News Service. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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