My Message Among the Masses

"One does not have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and absence of understanding are sufficient." (Charles M. Blow)

It's like watching a car crash.

Today, 17 students and teachers died from another school shooting, and Facebook is blowing up.  It's hard to read about. 

It's hard because we all think about the children in our lives, and we can't help but go there.  What if.  And I think it's important to go there. We need to hear the details, we need our hearts to hurt, our tears to fall, our imaginations to relate. The victims and their loved ones should be grieved for.  To exist in this world is painful, and entering that vulnerable space of pain affirms our brokenness, as erring humans, as a country. 

But it's also hard because our newsfeeds are saturated with opinions. It's like everyone is yelling at top decibel and arguing at warp speed, and when we scroll through, we absorb the anger, the grief, the blame.  It's exhausting to ingest everyone's red-cheeked fury.  But I can't help but read with wide eyes, a dropped jaw, a shaking head.  These strong words, people attacking each other, and trying to understand where people are coming from...I just can't look away. There is a part of me that is just simply sad and curious, wanting to see the wreckage, craning my neck to see the chaos.

I don't want to add to the noise, another opinion, another angry shout to try to get your attention on my thoughts.  But there is something I need to say, with the encouragement of Albert Einstein's words: "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."  And so I will do something, and say something.

First off, let's be kind.  It is okay to disagree. It discredits you to do so with name-calling, inflammatory language, verbal abuse.  My kids handle conflict better than most of those responding to those with different opinions.

Secondly, can we consider that this may not be about sides?  That instead of placing responsibility on one issue and not the other, that maybe there could be a number of factors?   Perhaps gun control issues and mental illness were both contributing issues. We are grown-ups, created with beautifully complex minds designed to investigate and think beyond the absolute.  We are better than this.

Furthermore, we can not cast judgment on, well, anything.  Do you really know the shooter? I mean, really know him?  Beyond his love of guns and threats to hurt people?  Yep, I just said that...that perhaps there is more to him than his proclivity to violence.  He was created a complex human being just like you and me.   Do we know every detail of what this school has done to prevent this from happening?  Every discussion between teacher and administrator, counselors, authority figures? Do we understand all of the steps the FBI took in handling the information they had about the shooter?  There is so, so much more to every minute detail of this tragedy than we will never fully know.  Making snap assumption based on details circulating in a storm of breaking news details is simply unfair. 

But finally, what is really inflaming my Mama heart right now is reading comments about parenting and mental illness. I recoil every time I read that these school shootings are a result of parenting issues.  Regardless of what you hear about a perpetrator's parents, opinions on their presence or absence, you will never know what has gone on in the walls of their home.  I read comments today that talk about mental illness linked with parenting.

Friends.  Please hear this. I am a parent of a child with clinical anxiety that presents in very intense and sometimes physical ways. We have cried, we have loved, we have tried, we have read, we have accessed therapy.  Should my child someday grow to act upon what he struggles with emotionally in any way, it will because of his anxiety, not because of our parenting.  Is every parent of a child with mental illness a good parent?  No.  Is every parent of a child with mental health a good parent?  No.  Saying definitively that a child's mental illness leading to a massacre is a result of poor parenting is ignorant, and perpetuates the misinformation and stigma of mental illness.  Please understand that the parents of a child with any form of mental or emotional illness are often the toughest, most intentional, intensely loving and sacrificial parents because of what they work through every day. 

So, there it is.  My message among the masses.  If my words get drowned out, at least I know I have said them; I have fought for my kids, and stand with everyone seeking peaceful, respectful conversation in how to move forward.