ON A DARK DAY

“Hi, Jonah’s Mommy,” they whispered as I entered the classroom. 

“Hi, everyone,” I said quietly with a little wink directed at Jonah.

When I dropped him off at school in the morning, I asked his teacher Mrs. S if she needed any volunteers later in the day. I have volunteered a few times… and though it almost inevitably means my son will misbehave more than usual (I suspect because he’s 5, and is excited that I’m there and therefore, “showing off”), I had an urge to be there… Even if it meant watching Jonah squirm when he should be listening, or me witnessing a flaw in the school and “the system.”

While the children finished story time, my assignment was to cut paper and put together packets for Earth Day. How appropriate…  They will draw their world in the circle I cut out…

It was hard for me not to see this as a metaphor. After watching the coverage from the Boston Bombings, I had a fleeting thought… A thought that shocked me and unnerved me for even having it escape my conscious:

Why are these heinous acts of violence happening (again) and why would I ever want to bring another child into this universe?

My eyes popped the second I thought it. Me?? Not bring another child on to this earth? I have always wanted more than one child… Two, three, heck, even four. I love children. I want a family. A BIG family. I love being a mother and nothing, not war, or natural disasters, or even the tragedies on 9/11 or the deranged and unthinkable acts in Newtown, has EVER made me question whether it was fair or not to bring a child into the world…

But last night, there I was. Flooded with the darkest and most dismal thought I think I’ve ever (consciously) had.

“Jonah’s mommy, um, my mommy has a friend who’s name is also Jennifer,” one little girl said tapping my shoulder.

“It’s a pretty cool, name, huh?” I said… only to be interrupted with:

“Um, Jonah’s mommy, does Jonah want to go trick o’ treating with me again on Halloween?” said another little girls (I’m not gonna lie, the little girls looooove them some Jonah.)

“That sounds like a plan,” I said, stacking the Earth packets in a pile.

It was time for “Reading Buddies.” Every week, a 2^nd grade class comes to read to their class. Jonah’s

buddy was a girl with a bob haircut and a face full of freckles. Some of the buddies seemed totally into the assignment … carefully explaining each word and speaking with animation and exaggeration. Not Jonah’s buddy. She stopped periodically to go chat with friends at another station. But he sat there anyway. Listening closely to her words… even when they trailed off.

Our home earth… I love…

It sat with me. These words. These children.  The boys and their eagerness to play basketball at recess... The girls and their barrettes... falling out of their hair and their mismatched leggings and tee shirts… The row of lunch boxes filled with meals carefully crafted and packed by a tired adult that morning… The calendar and clock on the board with clear-cut letters, numbers and pictures of seasons so they learn to tell time and why, someday, it will matter.  These things, being there, it made me happy and hopeful.

My fleeting thought has since left my body and I’m back to wanting to have another child pronto (Oy, I can totally hear P’s heart racing as he reads this. LOL). As cliche as it sounds, Monday’s event was sadly another reminder for me, though, that during a dark time, to turn to something bright for a reminder of the future. 

NOTHING HAS CHANGED, BUT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO

This is hardly the first post about what happened last Friday… Hardly the first post, by a “mom blogger” about frustration and fear…. Hardly the first post about a citizen of this country feeling stuck and helpless, yet restless and eager for change IMMEDIATELY… And it’s hardly the first anything that can change the fact that 6 brave adults aren't alive to build a better future and that 20 beautiful babies are no longer playing on a yard at recess, or learning to read and write, or creating art that would have ultimately ended up on an already cluttered fridge, or becoming the “when I grow up” people they dreamt of being…

What I write, I realize, will have no profound impact on anyone… and certainly not on policy. Or change. Or the parents who’s eulogies made me weep as if these children were family members…

But I have to say something. If I don’t, it’ll just sit with me. So here goes…

I do not believe we are in anyway more violent than we were we in 1791. We’re more imaginative with access to creating and manufacturing stories and images electronically and digitally, perhaps. But, more violent? I don’t think so.

We’ve all spent enough time in early American History classes and museums to know how the West was won. We have read books and seen photos of how the South fought the North. We have watched the very last veterans of WW2 return to Normandy to tell the story of how we fought the Nazis. We have witnessed young men return from Vietnam with missing limbs and no place to go. And we have most certainly seen live footage of Baghdad… and Afghanistan… lit up with explosion.

Nothing but machinery has changed. War is war and violence is violence. 

I also do not believe that we are anymore mentally unstable than we were in 1791. Mental illness has existed since before “mental illness” even had a definition. Those “afflicted” with the disease either suffered alone and undiagnosed, died young (as did most people since the average life span was 37 years), or were sent to an asylum-like prison to undergo barbaric procedures. They were never “fit for society.” We know chemical imbalances, mood disorders, anxiety and depression, and even Autism and Asperger’s existed then. Doctors just didn’t have a name other than “lunacy” for it.

Nothing but science has changed. Crazy is crazy and genetics are genetics.

Look, I’m the first person to close my eyes and squeeze my boyfriend’s arm to the point of puncture wound during a violent or scary movie scene. And, admittedly, I’m the first person to agree that television programs and movies that are advertised towards my young son (which he happily devours) are probably too graphic and too disturbing for his 5 year-old brain.  Do I worry the memories of these images are what keeps him up at night? Yes. Do I worry that after being in a car accident this summer, (that could have killed him), that loud noises and violent explosions (even of the superhero, web-slinging kind), could unnerve him and increase post-traumatic stress? YES, of course. Do I worry that even the horribly acted and written scenes of Power Rangers or even a Light saber toting Luke Skywalker of the Legos Star Wars video game could have a negative affect on his brain waves? YES! Because it does! Science has proven that these games and images DO affect certain areas of the brain, which are associated with self-control and concentration. SO YES. I worry. Because, I know. It. HAS. A. PROFOUND. AFFECT. ON. HIS. BRAIN. DEVELOPMENT.

EVERYTHING DOES… The good. The bad. The ugly. And most certainly, those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad GMO’s. Right??? Right.

BUT, despite this constant state of imperfection and parental insecurity, (which is the creative force behind what I write and how I think… so for that inner conflict, I am grateful), there is actually one thing I don’t concern myself with. One truth that I know:

NONE of these images and NONE of these games and NONE of my lazy “Well... I guess it’s a McDonald’s kind of dinner” will make my son BE violent. Darth Vader and Optimus Prime don’t deserve that much credit. Nor do the decades of anxiety or depression that have, at times, gripped various family members… 

I can’t blame these things for a violent culture and neither should you. (They do get the same movies and the same bouts of depression in Canada and Switzerland too, you know...)

My point is, is someone’s child dying because of a drunk driver or an over-dose on drugs any less heinous, less sad, or less violent than a massive gun shooting???? NO. Murder is murder and death of a child is death OF A CHILD.

It’s horrific. It’s disturbing. And it’s unfair.

The difference is control of said weapon(s). The difference is access. The difference is our officials DO try to stop this. They do have strict regulations. They do have patrol and jurisdiction. They even DO have education and conversations with youngsters to raise awareness… Awareness that isn’t in the form of a fucking “crisis drill.” Or in the form of a child having to walk through a metal detector to go to 1st Grade. Or in the form of a school principal walking around a play yard with a loaded weapon.

That’s not a DIFFERENCE. That’s a band-aid. And that’s a life of living in fear.

The difference has nothing to do with mental illness or violence…. And it most certainly does NOT have to do with the removal of God in schools or in our hearts.

The difference is strict laws and a societal acknowledgement of RIGHT AND WRONG. I just hope we get it right… soon. And I sure as hell hope we take the ACCESS TO WRONG off of our nation's "moral grid" and OUT of our neighborhoods. For good. Forever. For our children.