A few words.
This space is a little bit of distraction. Some silliness and frippery to add a dash of colour to your day.
You haven’t heard from me this week because I haven’t felt in a very silly mood. As you’ve probably already seen on my social media, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has affected me deeply, as I’m sure it has most parents around the world.
I don’t have to live in America and I don’t have to have a child in that particular Newtown, Connecticut school to feel the gut-wrenching devastation that news of twenty under-ten-year olds (who are still young enough to believe in the magic of Santa Claus and reindeers with red noses) have been shot one by one by a gun-wielding man.
We are mothers. We are caring for our children who are learning and questioning and growing. We feel our children’s pain when they fall off their scooter and skin their knee. We wish for them a future in which they can be everything that they strive to be. I can’t even fathom how these mothers and fathers are coping with the idea that their children were dropped off that morning at their elementary school but they never came home.
How do you come to terms with that?
One minute your six year old is talking excitedly about how they can’t wait to grow up and be a fireman with a big red firetruck and the next they’re gone. Taken away.
If you’ve read my social media, you have seen my anger about the availability of guns in an educated first world nation like America which allows innocent children like these to be stripped of their lives with no more exertion than a finger on a trigger. At the heart of it, I believe people should be able to feel safe when they send their children off to school each day.
But more than the anger, I feel hopelessly sad for the families of those twenty children and six teachers who were killed on December 15th. I can do no more than say words to them like “I’m sorry” “I send my love” and other such empty letters and syllables which joined together into sentences don’t even come close to bringing their young children back.
I wish for you a better world. I hope the good and the kind and the wise people in your life help to make it so.
I think having guards at the school is a wonderful idea. We have an officer at every middle and high school here in Nebraska and has been that way for along time it never bothered me when I went to school in fact I felt safer. Although when a shooting threat was issued at one of the high schools the parents went nuts when they had a swat team at the school with assault weapons ready in case of an attack. I don’t think they would mind that now. In elementary school we thought it was awesome when the cops came to talk to us, even though he had a gun. He uses it bad guys try and hurt other people. Oh that’s good is what I remember them telling me. Its not scary but neat and awesome that a cop gets to get the bad guys and protect us at any cost. Guns are not scary but bad guys with them is scary, so its nice to help even the odds.
Oh Maddie. I made it through the weekend avoiding the news. I’ve been sick so I didn’t want to weaken myself any further, but I did piece together enough reading some online articles and my twitter feed. I felt like a bit of a coward not exposing myself to the horrific news, but today I got my son’s first grade class photo and seeing the smiling faces of his beautiful 6 and 7 year classmates really did me in. I can’t look at the picture. After showing my mom (and breaking down again), I hid it under a stack of papers. All I can think of is a school missing all their beautiful faces. I’m a puddle. A sick puddle. We need 3 things asap to help protect our kids. We need an assault weapon ban yesterday, we need to make mental health care a priority (with $$$ to stand behind it) and I never thought I’d say this, and I’m not even fully comfortable with the idea (because it means more guns in schools), but I want armed security officers at our schools. Our school secretary buzzes people in when they come to the door, but she’s busy, and distracted and shouldn’t be the #1 person in charge of the safety of everyone in the building. I wish there had been an armed guard watching the doors at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Your sentiments are well expressed, Maddie and felt by all thinking, sensible people around the world.
Thanks for standing up for us all and expressing concern and sadness. Surely we, as a global community cannot let this go un-discussed.
A first world country,the country that feels it needs to be involved in stopping conflict around the world, is enabling their own citizens to solve any and all issues with a deadly weapon, if they want to.
It is too simplistic to use the throw away line, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. For too long we, in the REST of the world cannot accept this double standard of the need for peace outside USA borders – at almost any cost, but listen almost daily to their own citizens being gunned down.
Mums of the world UNITE! Get the guns banned in the USA.
great post Maddie – I posted a bit about this yesterday too – more about how it effects me as a mum than how gutted I feel for the families but I do just feel so.so.devastated for them xx
Miriam, I really love your post about this topic and the idea of creating a future where children are not held back in fear but propelled into the beauty of life with joy and celebration. I hope others will get a chance to read it too: http://createhopeinspire.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/bmwb-51-words-we-shall-not-speak.html
this made me cry, it’s just so wrong but the words you’ve used are right xo
sorry I meant to say baseball bats
As a gun owner, and a mother of a 6 year old, I feel like guns alone are not the entire picture. If evil people want to do evil deeds they will find a way to do it with whatever they can. Baseball and cars kill more people than guns. The Oklahoma City bombing done without a gun, our 9/11 attacks done without a gun. Should it be harder for people to access guns yes I think so, but taking them away completely is wrong at least in America.
There is another crisis in America that isn’t being talked about very much and that’s mental illness. We haven’t made many strides to help those with a mental illness since the days of locking them up in “insane asylums.” As someone with depression I find it very difficult to get the help that I need because I don’t have a large bank account. When I did have insurance (my husband lost his job so I don’t have insurance anymore) I could only get prescriptions for depression, something I am not a fan of, I prefer talking with a professional once a week when tough times hit, but cannot afford that. Now as I am researching insurance plans I am outraged by the fact that many top companies will not even cover the medications associated with mental illnesses. My sister has son with Aspergers and a daughter who is bipolar, and is having many issues with her insurance about what they will cover for their treatments since many unconventional ones often work best but aren’t “ideal” (meaning we just want to give them drugs and make them placid) for these companies. So she is having to pay lots of money or forgo some treatments. The cops who regularly have to visit them and their Drs have said just make them a ward of the state that way the government will pick up the tab. That’s what these companies want you to kill yourself, commit a crime or be given up so they no longer have to pay out (since most mental illnesses are a lifetime thing).
I am very sickened by what has happened, I am horrified and shocked like the rest of the world, but guns alone is not what the problem is, mental illnesses alone is not the problem, a lack of personal responsibility alone is not the problem. Its complex, and will take time. But where there is evil and darkness, there is good and light.
Thankyou for your well-thought out comment. I appreciate that we have the opportunity to talk about this issue as I feel this is an important discussion to have. While I 100% agree with your point about providing help for those who are dealing with mental illness on all levels, I think addressing the gun issue would be a great start.
Seeing reactions like an 11 year old boy being encouraged to bring a gun to school ‘just in case’ this happens again is alarming. I’m sure his parents just want the best for him and are responsible gun owners too but imagine a young child feeling he needs to defend himself against the potential risk of attack while he goes to school. Horrifying. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/student-brings-gun-to-school_n_2324143.html
Oh Maddie, I’m crying with you, a big, big hug from Spain
meni*
Oh Maddie you are not alone. I am conflicted, as I feel I don’t have a ‘right’ to be feeling this much about something so far away. Then I look at my seven year old and for a moment, the unthinkable flashes across my eyes, and I can’t help but feel a stab of pain for those parents.
You are not alone.