Back-to-School Gun Violence Blues

AFTER A TEENAGER shot dead 19 children and two teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year, I spent two weeks putting my children on the bus to school with a pit in my belly. Then the term ended, and I breathed relief. I would not have to live with this low-level dread for another year.

My family has been on sabbatical in South America for the past 12 months, homeschooling our three boys. Though we’ve faced other risks, the possibility of my kids being shot in school was not one of them. Not only were they not attending school, but the countries we visited also have stricter gun regulations than the United States.

In the U.S., the purchase of guns has soared — gun ownership is estimated to be more than 120 per 100 people, according to GunPolicy.org. Gun-related deaths in the U.S. also top every other high-income country, at more than 12 per 100,000 people annually. Compare that to Ecuador, where we spent part of our sabbatical. In 2017, it had 2.7 guns per 100 people and approximately three gun-related deaths per 100,000 people. Our sabbatical year has been a window into what it’s like to parent school-aged children without the shadow of school shooting anxiety.

This fall, my children are back in school in the United States. Like so many other parents in this country, I am reentering this gun-violence-tinged reality. I’m navigating feelings of extreme vulnerability, anger, grief, futility, wanting to escape, and numbness. Somewhere in there is also the possibility of solidarity, persistence, and a different future.

If I were to succumb to the individualist mindset so prevalent in the U.S., the easiest solution to my anxieties would be to take my kids out of school. Take care of your own and ignore the rest, dictates the DIY American homesteading mentality. But that would leave me more isolated in my fears, more shrouded in the illusion that by my own sheer grit I can protect my children from harm.

My faith calls me, instead, to let my fears connect me with others across time and space. As I remain in the space of vulnerability, not giving in to that itch to escape, I find I’m not alone. Mary, the mother of Jesus, keeps me company. She, too, brought her son into a dangerous world. Countless others share this space too. Black mothers in Philadelphia. Palestinian parents on the West Bank. They have endured helplessness, rage, and death as their children walk through streets where gunshots ring out and bombs detonate. And they have persisted in speaking truth to power, demanding change, and cultivating life in a culture of death.

In solidarity with so many others, I find the strength to move forward. To resist numbness. To enter the grief cycle again, and again, and again. To advocate for policy change. To build community when there is mistrust. To imagine and embody, with the prophets, a world where weapons are melted into plowshares and children go to school in safety.