Calling All Moms
Imagine this. You’re sitting at work in the middle of the day when your phone buzzes. A text. Just an average text from a friend and you quickly glance at it. You read the first few words. Your heart stops. Your heart drops. Your heart lurches into your throat. No, this can’t be happening. But it is.
Your phone buzzes a few more times, but it doesn’t go crazy because most parents aren’t stopping to text right now. They’re all racing to the same place. School. As fast as they can get there. They run. They drive. They stop their cars in the middle of the street to get out and race to the building.
And you do the same. Please don’t be my child, please don’t be my child (not that you want this to happen to other children either), but please don’t be MY child.
And it’s not. Yet.
Because it’s not your child’s school yet. But your child’s school could be next.
When Columbine happened, the children who were killed in Parkland weren’t even born yet. When Sandy Hook happened, the people in Parkland didn’t think it would happen at their school one day too. When Las Vegas happened, they didn’t think, “We’re next.”
But what if you knew that this was going to happen to your child’s school in the next few years? What if you had some magical way of knowing? Would you do something? Would you TRY to stop it? Would you go to a meeting or write a simple letter or take an hour or two to march with a sign. Of course you would. If you knew you were next.
This is the tipping point. RIGHT NOW. Sandy Hook should have been, but for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe we were just too shocked. Maybe we were just too sad. Maybe we were just paralyzed with pain. But this is the year we are going to take our country back.
Take it back from the money-grubbing politicians who have somehow convinced themselves that the right to bear arms is more important than the right for our children to live. How bad do you want to win your political race, Mr. Selfish Politician? Were seventeen people worth it?
No one is going to stop this shit from happening. NO ONE is going to step up to the plate. Not the politicians, not Congress, not the president. They didn’t after Columbine, they didn’t after Sandy Hook, they didn’t after Las Vegas, and they won’t now. The only people who can stop this is us. You and me. The mothers. We are the ones who worry when we drop our children off at school. We are the ones who tear up when we flip on the TV in the middle of the day and see it happening again. We are the ones who love these children THE MOST. We are the ones who need to rally. Not tomorrow. Not in November. NOW.
We can keep turning on our TVs every time it happens, we can keep saying to each other how incredibly awful and sad it is, we can keep saying our prayers for the victims and sharing their moving speeches on social media, OR WE CAN QUIT WAITING TO SEE WHO THE NEXT VICTIM IS AND WE CAN DO SOMETHING. Because the next victim might be your child. And then won’t you wish you’d done something?
There are 85 million mothers in the United States. EIGHTY-FIVE MILLION. That is a lot of power. And if each one of us does one little thing, we can make big changes. If we all vote, if we all get our friends to vote, if we all go to Moms Demand Action meetings, if we all write letters to our representatives, if we all hold the politicians’ feet to the fire and say, “Do something or I won’t vote for you,” then things will change.
I’m not stupid. I know that we can’t make all of the scary weapons completely disappear no matter what common sense gun laws we pass, but if we can make it harder for ONE SINGLE PERSON to get something like an AR-15 or a bump stock, then maybe we’ve stopped one person from killing seventeen people.
So this week, pledge to do one thing. Write a letter, join a group, go to a meeting, grab your friends and put one of the marches on your calendar, JUST DO SOMETHING. Add it to your to-do list and just do it. It might feel a little scary. It might be out of your comfort zone. But it’s worth it. Because if all 85 million of the moms in this country do one thing, we can save our children. Maybe even YOUR children.
If you liked this and want to protect our children, please like and share this. Thank you.
As a Canadian this scares me for the States, it’s absolutely petrifying to read about these school shootings. (The last one here was 1999!-) Iam saddened and in shock how often this happens.
Sorry it was 2016. Not 1999.
I’m not a mom. I’m a dude, but g*****n this s**t was right on the mark.
momsdemandaction.org
Add your name! It may not be much, but it’s one way I felt I could get my voice heard. And if we add all of our voices, they have to hear us.
Thank you for writing this. So well said. This world is so scary right now. Things must change!
My heart is in a million little pieces. I think about this every day when I drop my daughter off to school. I hope I get to kiss her when I pick her up today. All of this is so important. WAY more important than the “right” to own an ASSAULT RIFLE
I am a mom. I am a teacher, and every part of me is afraid. I’m afraid for my baby, I’m afraid for my students and I’m afraid for myself. I should also mention that my husband is in the military, so please dont talk to me about rights and gun rights. These two things are part of my daily vocabulary and have been for over ten years. We have to find a way to protect schools, and children, and teachers, and support staff.
I fully agree with you!! I wish we had the answer!
As a mom and a teacher this terrifies me! I worry about protecting the 7 year olds in my care, so that should the worst happen, they get to go home to their parents. At the same time, my baby needs ME to come home to him. AND I need him to come home safe to me. It’s just crazy and very sad that this even needs to be a conversation and a constant worry…
I’m with you and I feel your pain and fear. Hopefully, we can teach “our” kids and students to not only be better, but to stand up for a better world. Be safe.
Thank you so much for this!!
Amen lady.
You are so right- my son is in 11th grade and my daughter is in 8th grade and when I heard about the Parkland shooting I was able to vividly imagine it being my kids because they are the same age. I am not too naive to think this could never happen in my community. I hear stories from my children that are blood chilling- families torn apart, bad parents, drugs, drinking, s*x, violence, pressures to be “perfect” in this social media driven culture. As parents, we need to look in the mirror. This is a generation crying out to be cared for, to be nurtured, to be accepted, to be loved. They don’t get what they need from the adults in their life. They don’t need new cars, open bars and unlimited freedom- they need to know we care and that we won’t love them any more if they look perfect or get perfect grades and that we won’t love them any less if they fail at something or are having a bad day. We are not here to be their friends or to be the “cool parents”. We are here to do the hard things- stand up for them when they need it, love and support them when they are going through trouble, to protect them from themselves and to guide them into adulthood with our love and wisdom.
Because of your post I just signed up to go a meet and greet at my local Moms Demand Action chapter. Thank you for moving me to DO SOMETHING.
I agree with everything you said here. I’m so glad it moved you to do something. People like us are going to demand that things change.
People will always be able to find guns. How about some regulation on ammunition?
I agree with you! I think, perhaps, this will have galvanized all of us, not just the “children” to act. We should act on several fronts…this would be one…I think we are capable of doing more than one thing at a time…Moms prove it everyday!!
I think the whole rest of the world has been waiting for the day that someone, anyone in the US finally stopped asking ‘why?’ And did something. Started something.
I fear for the unrelenting opposition to change you will face. But I so hope enough people listen and care enough to effect some change.
Let the children live in peace.
Thank you for using your platform. I AM TERRIFIED.
Thank you Baby Sideburns. I think I may need to join Moms Demand Action. This s**t has gone on for far too long. The continued inaction of Congress makes me sick – we need to THROW THE BUMS OUT.
Thank you. I didn’t and don’t understand why Sandy Hook wasn’t the proverbial straw breaking the proverbial back for me or lawmakers. It should have been. Sandy Hook is a short drive from my house. The air is still thick with anguish here. But, this week finally tipped that scale. This is that straw. In the past couple of days, I’ve joined Moms Demand Action. I’m starting a local chapter here in my town. I’ve begun an online fundraiser for Everytown for Gun Control. We are organizing a local march in our town to demand common sense gun control laws. This is finally it.
My 6-yr-old and 7-yr-old refused to wear their light up shoes to school Thursday or Friday. They said they were afraid that if an intruder came into their school, he would find their hiding place by their flashing shoes. This is unacceptable. I’m enraged and saddened that I need to consider whether my local PTO chapter needs to raise funds for playground equipment, enrichment programs, or Kevlar sheets.
Enough. Beyond enough. Time’s up. I’m a warrior now. I work in an elementary school as a recess aide. I have obsessed over devising a plan of escape and safety during recess in case of a shooter in the open area of our playground. I can’t sleep because I need to know how to save 75 children and myself if/when the gunman comes. Each recess period puts 60-80 young children in my care. Three adults (all mothers) have to be prepared to rescue and protect 60-80 children and hopefully still go home to our own children.
I’m done. I’m ‘gunning’ for the NRA and every single legislator who takes their blood money in contributions.
When I was in high school, most kids had guns in their vehicles. And I’m not talking 40-50yrs ago! I graduated in 1994! So what changed?
IMO what changed even over just the last 25yrs is actually a complex combination of things and taking away guns isn’t the answer. Part of is lack of parenting. Many kids are given everything they want and aren’t disciplined AT ALL. Everything is “not my little angel”.
Then, you throw in the bullying problem in this day and age. Yes, there was bullying back in the day, but it wasn’t as pervasive because parents usually taught their kids better and dealt with it if they found out they were being little dickheads. And with kids plugged in 24/7 with social media and cell phones (some kids as young as 5 and 6 have their own phones!) they are often bombarded with it constantly. They’re hammered at school, at home, wherever, often suffering in silence, until they break and either take their lives or the lives of others or both.
Another issue is the lack of adequate mental health services in this country for adults and especially for children. Beds at in-patient facilities often have waiting lists and often won’t take you if you have medical issues too. I know someone who has a mentally ill child (he’s 12 and has had to be hospitalized) and a children’s hospital refused to take him because of a medical issue even though they were a ward within a children’s medical hospital! This is the kind of thing that people face. There’s also still a stigma attached to being called mentally ill these days. People find out that you have a mental illness and they treat you differently. So, to avoid that many don’t get the treatment they so desperately need.
Then, every time we get a mass shooting like this, there’s comparisons to past shootings and everyone knows the name of the shooters. To some, they see this as fame and want that too. This was the case with the Florida high school shooter (I won’t use his name because it’s not HIS name we should be remembering but those of his victims!). He stated numerous times that he was a future school shooter and he wanted to break records.
Then, of course as is the case here, you have law enforcement dropping the ball and not following protocols when he was reported a second time. “See something, say something” is all well and good if it’s followed by “DO something” by the proper peopl!
I don’t think there are any easy answers here. These are just my own observations and opinions. I don’t think banning guns is the answer. Many people who live in rural areas need them for hunting and protection from predators. I do not own any personally, but a lot of people in my area do because of a large population of cougars and wolves.
you don’t need a weapon of war to hunt or protect yourself from predators. that is a bullshit excuse to have a gun that makes someone feel like a big bad man.
Spot on! For someone who has moved from a small country in Europe in hopes for a better life for my family this is terrifying! I feel like going back to my small country where the opportunities might not be as vast, but at least there is less of a chance to get killed!