Alyssa Alhadeff, 14 years old
Martin Duque Anguiano, 14 years old
Nicholas Dworet, 17 years old
Aaron Feis, 37 years old
Jaime Guttenberg, 14 years old
Christopher Hixon, 49 years old
Luke Hoyer, 15 years old
Cara Loughran, 14 years old
Gina Montalto, 14 years old
Joaquin Oliver, 17 years old
Alaina Petty, 14 years old
Meadow Pollack, 18 years old
Helena Ramsay, 17 years old
Alex Schachter, 14 years old
Carmen Schentrup, 16 years old
Peter Wang, 15 years old
I am emotionally spent. Like I was after Columbine and Sandy Hook and Marshall County, Kentucky. And I'm angry because this happened, after Columbine and Sandy Hook and Marshall County, Kentucky. Honestly, after Sandy Hook I thought we had come to the edge of some sort of precipice. It can't get any worse than Kindergartners being gunned down in their tiny chairs. But, then we tumbled right into the abyss.
And I blame myself. I mostly blame the NRA and Congress. But I also blame myself.
You know that meme that periodically makes the rounds on Facebook reminding us that 2000 wasn't actually 10 years ago? It gets shared a lot because it's true. Many of us routinely forget that this year's seniors in high school were born the same year as 9/11. We keep in touch with friends from high school but forget that high school was more than 15 years ago. We have gotten busy with building careers and raising kids and forgotten to become engaged, informed citizens of this country. On election day, we step into that booth, vote a straight ticket and post our "I voted" stickers on social media. But sometimes, if the kids are sick or it snowed the night before, we don't vote at all. But informed voting is the easy part of the process. And we can't even seem to do that consistently.
This is not a criticism, I'm right there with you. And it's not a generalization. I have several friends who are raising kids and excelling at their careers and have managed to remain politically informed and involved. (You guys can quit reading. Or stick around to show us how you do it.) But it is a wake-up call. We can take on a car payment and a mortgage and even start a college savings plan for the newborn down the hall and that doesn't really require us to start paying more attention to what's going on in the world around us. But losing our parents' generation and becoming the age they were when we were growing up...well, that does. Because as our parents age and die, they no longer write their representatives strongly worded letters or run for office. They don't vote and they aren't active in Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They did all that and then they assumed that their kids would take their place. We are their kids. It's time for us to step up.
The great catch-22 of all of this is that at the very moment when it is most important for us to stay connected to local and world events and be politically involved, we are also the busiest with careers and family. We've been working for 10, maybe 15 years and finally starting to see that top rung of the ladder off in the distance. Sometimes we move. A lot. We have kids who are barely out of diapers, kids who are participating in a different sport every season, kids who require our attention, our discipline, our love. And now we are expected to check for GMOs, limit screen time, get more exercise, teach children about the value of a dollar and the feeling after a hard day's work. Parenting has changed since we were growing up and I would argue that social media has made it increasingly more complex. Our parents had to navigate a world with AIDS and drugs. We must prepare our children for cyber-bullying, active shooters and Tide pods. That's to say nothing of checking senators' voting records, differentiating fake news and remaining immune to the echo chamber of Facebook. How does a 40-year old mom keep up?
This is not to say that our generation hasn't made some incredible contributions. More men and women feel free to love who they want to love. More outrage is shown when minorities and women are treated as less than equals. More demands are being made for people to be held accountable for their actions, whether they sexually assaulted a co-worker or trafficked children.
But this is not enough.
I am not saying we should march every time the westerly winds blow. I'm saying we each need to pick something and fight passionately for it. I have a friend who is an advocate for RESOLVE, a community of individuals who have been affected by infertility. She is fierce and relentless. She goes to DC once a year and fights for legislation that affects this community, but she is a leader and an inspiration every day of the year. If I was faced with the possibility of being infertile, she would be my first call.
I have another friend who takes about an hour each day to check up on her representatives...just to see what they are up to. If she finds out they are due to vote on something in the coming week or 2, she will write an email and make some calls. She is a tiny speck of blue in a sea of red, but she does it anyway.
I have another friend who is a domestic violence survivor and has become an ally to anyone who finds themselves trapped in that situation. She has been very vocal about a topic that our culture still tries to sweep under the rug. Her voice is one of hope for anyone who is simply trying to survive.
I have several friends who are social workers. They fight for the defenseless, they speak for those who are being ignored. They step into the middle of a bad situation just so it doesn't get worse. They follow legislation and plead for signatures on petitions that may someday stop human trafficking. And they do it, day in and day out, even though they get scrolled past the fastest.
It is time for me to be more like them.
And to be honest, right at this moment, I have no idea what that is going to look like. I'm still angry, still heartbroken, but ready to listen. Last night I signed a petition and then posted it on Facebook. It opened up a conversation between two factions: my military-spouse friends who believe banning semi-automatic weapons is part of the answer and those who do not. It included the wives of combat Veterans (one a Veteran herself) and a teacher, all moms. It's personal for us but we were able to hear each other out, even though we are hundreds of miles apart. Some of the comments I agreed with, some I grappled with, but they all helped me see that we are not hopelessly divided on this issue. There is some common ground between us and that's where we have to start. That's where the solution lies. We must keep talking, we must keep engaging, we must keep asking questions and gathering information from sources that don't always mirror our convictions. It is time to grow up, it's time to become our parents.
I am asking that you all join me in choosing one thing to fight for, if you haven't already. Find something that speaks to your heart and then go all in. Ask your politicians where they stand on that issue, share petitions that need to be signed, be informed and help to inform others. We can do this even though there's a family to feed, a dog to walk, a spouse to cuddle on the couch with, a career to nurture, a parent to nurse. We must do this because simply checking out does not show our children how to be all in for a cause. And we need them to take our place someday.
You are fierce!
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