I was watching the news today. They were saying that twenty-three years ago, when Columbine happened, it changed schools in the United States forever. Since then, more and more schools have instituted active-shooter drills. When I was a kid, we did fire drills, but the children today do these drills from kindergarten where they are taught to run and hide from a mass shooter. I could have never imagined that any child would have to face nightmares like that growing up.
As I sat there contemplating this new reality, I realized something truly horrific. My mom lied to me from the time I was a little girl because she wanted me to be afraid of the rest of the world. It might seem like a crazy thing to do, but in her own twisted way she just didn’t want me to leave her ever. It’s hard to understand, but in her own very messed up way, it was a strange kind of love. I grew up being scared of almost every situation and I was distrustful of everyone I met. I still am today. My first thought whenever I have any interaction with someone is: What is their ulterior motive? When I walk into a store, a theater, or any other public place, I think about where the exits are and what’s the worse thing that could happen. I am the worst-case scenario girl. I am learning to live with it, but at the same time, I am also learning to live beyond it. I have gratitude for life, and I am trying my best to embrace life without fear or paranoia. I realize that during the early days of the pandemic and other cries that my personal experience has served me well. Yet today, as I sat back and watch children training to hide from a shooter in their school, I realized that between mass shootings and pandemics, our society is teaching a whole generation of children to be like me. Paranoid about what danger might lurk around the next corner. Powerless about the ability to do anything about the challenges that they will face. Voiceless when they try to tell authority of their pain and struggle.
There’s a part of me that thought I stopped the cycle of abuse because I didn’t have any children. I didn’t subject them to insanity that I was trying to work out. Except, it feels like the whole world has gone a little insane right now and our children are suffering for it.
I told my husband that it is so weird that as soon as a school shooting happens the first thought isn’t: How can we protect our children?; the first thought is: How can we protect our gun rights? There’s people who want assault rifles because they truly believe there’s going to be a zombie apocalypse. It is more important to have guns to shoot fictional zombies than it is to protect our children? I don’t get it. I don’t understand.
It took me years to find a way to forgive and accept the way my mother raised me. It took all the love and understanding God could give me to honor her and believe in a mother’s love. When I see the new lately, I don’t know if there’s enough understanding to fill the hole I feel in my chest when I think of a generation of children growing up fearful and paranoid who start to strategize on the worse case scenario as soon as they met someone or encounter any situation. Tonight, I ask God for guidance and to please pray for all those children who must grow up with active shooter training that they find God’s peace in their hearts, and they find a way to grow up without total fear in their hearts.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
