How Do We Protect Our Children? - Thoughts on the Connecticut School Shooting
7:17 PM
When I first heard about the news of the Connecticut School Shooting, I felt a chill in my spine as I realized once again that we cannot fully protect our children at all times and at all instances. I felt a dreadful sense of helplessness in not being able to tell my kids what to do when they asked me what they should do when faced with the same situation. I opened my mouth once, twice, thrice, trying to come up with wise words to say to them but then closed it at every try for there were no words that will suffice.
A Parent's Hope
Everyday when parents bring their children to school, it will always be in anticipation of seeing them again when fetching time comes. When we bid goodbye to them in the morning, it is meant to be more of a "see-you-later" kind of thing. School mornings will be accompanied by endless reminders to take care and study well.
A Parent's Fear
Every parent's worst fear is to have his or her child exposed to danger. The fear is doubled when such danger presents itself and the parents are nowhere near to defend them. No parent would like to receive a call that will relay a tragic message that the child brought to school in the morning has been shot dead by a gunman who had no personal motive or reason to kill the child.
My Say
The tragic thing about this kind of incident is that it can happen anywhere. There is no place that is absolutely safe from danger including our homes. In this blog, I would often come up with articles that would be about taking care and protecting our children. This incident however, defies logic. The children are supposed to be in a safe place with responsible adults looking after them and yet the danger came barging in without warning.
How do we parents defend our children from such threat? Do we confine our children in our homes for the rest of their young lives? Do we make them part of our paranoia and scare them from interacting with other people? Do we stay by their side at all times? Of course, we don't.
For when we do these we might as well have taken their life from them. Living in fear is not living. It is in fact, a sorry excuse for living.
That said, I wouldn't want to experience the immense grief that the parents of the killed children are going through at this time. The most tragic part of this incident is the fact that it is not clear what motivated the gunman to do what he did on these innocent lives. Is this a mental health issue or an issue about owning guns? Whatever it is, may we find the solution early enough to prevent a repeat.
In times of great uncertainty I turn to God for the safety of my children most especially in situations where humans have no control of.
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