Am I a failure as a parent?

Brad Saul
Brad Saul
Sep 6, 2018 · 2 min read

This question has been rattling around my brain for 2–3 weeks now. In August we took a family vacation to Jamaica, our third. While there you typically meet other parents and families. We met a very nice family from Houston and talked about all the typical stuff, kids, and well kids, because, that is what we do.

During one of my discussions with the other father gun control came up. Now hang on with me here, this is not a gun control discussion. In general we were on the same page with gun control, but where we wildly diverged was on how to protect our children from the potential of gun violence. He told me that both of his school age children had “the best money can buy bulletproof backpacks!”

His comment struck me like a truck. Never, in all of my worst case mental scenarios, had I EVER considered buying this for my girls. So, the question started to percolate in my head, Was I wrong? I am in a position to financially afford this, for both girls. I am at my very core a pragmatist who whole-heatedly believes in doing everything you can to prepare, why hadn’t I done this? If something were to happen would I ever be able to forgive myself for NOT buying? And in the interest of full disclosure, it kinda still haunts me that I have not.

For me this is a case of my better angels battling reason vs. lunacy. My girls cannot possibly need these, but then again none of the other parents who have buried children though so either. My girls go to a good school, with a resource officer, in a good neighborhood. But have you ever really looked at Newtown, CT (home of Sandy Hook Elementary)? It is living Norman Rockwell painting.

My every being tells me that submitting to the lunacy is giving up. That breaking down and purchasing body armor for my children is simply accepting that the worst will happen, that is it the “safe” thing to do, and our American society is beyond finding a resolution to this issue. I want to believe that America is bigger than this issue, that we will, someday, have the courage to face this issue and find a resolution, that we will as a country decide that gun violence is a national issue to be solved.

But until that time I will wallow in my self doubt about whether or not I should equip my girls like junior members of SWAT…