Perspective: In 2020 and 2021, guns killed more children than car accidents, formerly the leading cause of death among young people. Parents explain what this has done to them.
This generation of parents is grappling with guns in a way previous generations did not. We asked caregivers: How has America’s gun violence affected the way you parent? We heard from parents who imagine the worst and parents who have lived it, and what, if anything they are doing about it.because we didn’t want to scare our boys , but when we considered moving abroad because remote work allowed it, keeping them safe was first on our list.
It’s something that I relive consistently. I was recently waiting to pick Mia up from choir practice and an ambulance was turning down the street. Your heart starts to pound, you look at people who walk down the street with a duffel bag. You’re on high alert. It really just changes the way you do things in everyday life.
Before this happened, I worried about Mia’s future. I worried about if she’s going to be happy, if she’s going to get a good job and get married and how many grandkids I’m going to have. Now if I think to the future, it’s “Is she going to continue to have pain? Where’s she going to work? What’s she going to do if there’s a fire drill at work and she has a PTSD flashback? Will she have trouble having kids because of where her scar tissue is?” These are the things that cross my mind now.
packages and a way to stop blood loss packed in their backpacks. I am now looking into backpacks’ bulletproof shields. I HATE that I’m trying to do everything to keep them safe. I have anxiety, I have nightmares. I live in Texas, so it is even worse. Going to the movies, going to the mall, a concert, parade — really just about anywhere is no longer safe. I am volunteering to remove [Republican Gov. Greg] Abbott and other elected officials. I am at school board meetings arguing for safety.
He had been getting in trouble. He went from an honors kid who started hanging with the wrong crowd, to skipping school. I could see it spiraling. Did I ever think there would be loss of life? No. But I had this awareness that the streets have power over them and parents are fighting against that. That’s where I could afford to live. My son told me, “You were a great mother. But you don’t know who I have to be outside.
Honestly, I thought I was better than someone who would be in this situation. I’ve learned that a lot of times, parents don’t know what to do or how to show up. Guess what? I was there, too, and I had to be humbled in that. Long gone are the days where you scrap it out in the middle of the street. I don’t know at what point we got here. We’re fighting against layers of gun violence in these communities.Kesha Fitzhugh, Washington, D.C.
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