On the anniversary of the Columbine shootings, I just received a phone call from my children's school that a parent brought a gun into the high school. The high school is right next door to our elementary school here. A lockdown ensued as a result of the incident.
The parent was arrested and put in custody, but I was left with anger and grief still the same. I remember to this day watching Columbine unfold before me when the twins were only a year and a half. I worried and grieved along with those parents even though hundreds of miles separated. It still felt as if it was in my own backyard because I was a parent too.
Today, I am left feeling the same fear and bewilderment that I imagine they felt then. I am left with the same anger and asking myself now, as I did then, why do our children still have to be put in these bizarre predicaments?
What has gone so wrong with our society that some have little, to no regard for the safety and well being of individuals under the age of 18? It seems that no matter how many laws we put on the books, it makes them no safer than they were the day that Columbine happened. And how is that it was a 61 year old parent that brought the gun into our local school just to "test out the security". What was she thinking? She's a parent herself!
I sit here wondering what my children may be feeling because I cannot be with them at this moment. They are completely removed from my arms of protection that I have so diligently wrapped around them since the day they were born, and I cannot do a effing thing about it!
It is these moments that make me a more paranoid parent. It is these moments that make me so damn mad that my own children cannot have the life of freedom that I experienced when I was their age. It is this moment that I cry again for those who lost their lives, or had their lives irrevocably altered at Columbine.
The parent was arrested and put in custody, but I was left with anger and grief still the same. I remember to this day watching Columbine unfold before me when the twins were only a year and a half. I worried and grieved along with those parents even though hundreds of miles separated. It still felt as if it was in my own backyard because I was a parent too.
Today, I am left feeling the same fear and bewilderment that I imagine they felt then. I am left with the same anger and asking myself now, as I did then, why do our children still have to be put in these bizarre predicaments?
What has gone so wrong with our society that some have little, to no regard for the safety and well being of individuals under the age of 18? It seems that no matter how many laws we put on the books, it makes them no safer than they were the day that Columbine happened. And how is that it was a 61 year old parent that brought the gun into our local school just to "test out the security". What was she thinking? She's a parent herself!
I sit here wondering what my children may be feeling because I cannot be with them at this moment. They are completely removed from my arms of protection that I have so diligently wrapped around them since the day they were born, and I cannot do a effing thing about it!
It is these moments that make me a more paranoid parent. It is these moments that make me so damn mad that my own children cannot have the life of freedom that I experienced when I was their age. It is this moment that I cry again for those who lost their lives, or had their lives irrevocably altered at Columbine.
