Is it too much to ask for in this day and age?
Every day, I have to enter a code in the back door of the preschool when I pick up my daughter. I don’t normally think about it as I punch in the numbers and head inside. But a couple of weeks ago, I thought about it. I thought about it because of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.
I was a college junior in 1999 when Columbine occurred. I remember thinking how surreal the whole situation was—how something like that could ever happen on school grounds. It’s 2015. According to USA Today, there have been 25 school-related mass shootings since Columbine.
Twenty-five.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have the answer to the problem. I don’t know if stricter gun laws would make a difference, or if simply expanding background checks would do the trick. I’m not for taking guns away from responsible gun owners, but I’m certainly not for arming every Joe off the street—including kids—with guns, either. I’m not a politician and I’m not a mental health expert. I’m not a gun owner. So I’m going to speak from a position I am knowledgeable about: being a parent.
I want my child to simply be able to go to elementary school. I want her to be able to learn, play and have fun. Mostly, I want her to feel safe and secure in her surroundings.
I want my child to simply be able to go to middle school. I want her to experience the ups and downs of growing up, making friends and discovering herself. Mostly, I want her to feel safe and secure in her surroundings.
I want my child to simply be able to go to high school. I want her to feel all the feels of her first crush, excel and immerse herself in whatever subject she finds most interesting, and make the kinds of friendships that last a lifetime. Mostly, I want her to feel safe and secure in her surroundings.
I want my child to simply be able to go to college. I want her to have the opportunity to enhance her skills and carve out a career path doing what she loves the most. I want her to learn lifelong lessons from her professors and get a taste of independence away from home. Mostly, I want her to feel safe and secure in her surroundings.
I know that anything can happen at a moment’s notice. Safety and security are essentially illusions in life. But the kind of safety and security I am referring to—the kind that should exist on school grounds without a second thought and shouldn’t involve the fear of a crazed gunman—is quite reasonable to ask for, don’t you think?
Let’s stop quibbling over this statistic and that statistic, who’s right and who’s wrong, or who’s a gun-crazed conservative or a fear-mongering liberal. Let’s approach this from a common point of view. Let’s look at this situation through the eyes of loving parents. Then maybe we can come up with a viable solution that preserves the safety and security of our children.
Then maybe they can learn to do better than we’ve done.