True life: I fear for my child’s safety, and I wish I didn’t have to

I think about it every day.

When I drop my kids off at school and watch them walk into the building, I wonder if today will be the day I should have kept them home. If I’ll have to say, “If only they had been sick or had taken different classes or had a different lunch.”

When I hear a midday siren. I try and steal a look at Facebook to see if anything has happened or I wait for the email or the robo call saying I need to rush to the school.

When I get a text from a kiddo that is just “Mom” then silence. I don’t think they got busy or got caught texting in class. I wonder if that text is the last I’ll ever get, their way of saying goodbye.

When I’m sitting in a meeting, I’ll take a minute to look around and plan my escape route out of the school I love working for, we’ve been trained for that now.

When I look at my kids’ teachers I wonder if they will someday be called upon to protect my babies’ actual lives when really they should only have to think about teaching them to read.

And I wonder when this will end.

Will I ever in my lifetime not have to have these thoughts?

Will it be even worse for my kids when they send their babies to school?

Will there ever be an end to the parents for whom my dark thoughts are today’s reality?

Will there ever be an end???

We can no longer assume we are doing everything right in this country. We need to look to those who send their students off to safe days at school and we need to LEARN SOMETHING.

We need to change what we are doing because it’s not working. It’s only falling apart faster and faster.

The time is now my friends, because we’re already making a change too darn late.

Originally posted on Hiding in the Closet with Coffee Facebook page.