I have 5 years before I send him into the world, surely we’ll have this figured out by then.

Some days you hear something that makes you want to hug your kids a little bit tighter and hold on a little bit longer. The problem is, it’s happening more and more often. It seems every few weeks, or maybe even days, something happens. Today it was a school shooting, another school shooting. This one hit hard. Not because it was close to home or because the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting was less than 2 weeks ago. It wasn’t even due to a build up of tragedy after tragedy. No, this time it hit me hard because I will be sending my oldest child to school in August.

I was in high school when the shooting occurred at a Chucky Cheese, I was a college freshman when the Columbine shooting took place, I was a new homeowner when the movie theater shooting occurred. All of which happened within 20 miles of my childhood home. I am not oblivious to the world we live in.

When I was pregnant with my first child I thought a lot about the world I was bringing him into. Then I looked again. I saw America with its first African American president. I saw women achieving more and acquiring positions of power. I saw progress.

Then I saw him born into the year of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and the year where police were accused of killing numerous unarmed people. He was born into one of the worst years in America for mass shootings. Many of which took place near or at schools. I saw all of this and I hugged my new baby closer and thought “I have 5 years before I send him into the world, surely we’ll have this figured out by then.”

But here we are, my sweet boy starts school in August and we still haven’t figured it out. I certainly don’t know the answer. I don’t know how to help the discouraged, the angry, hurt people who feel the need to spread that hurt. I don’t know how to ensure my child’s safety in his school.

I am going to do what I can to raise kind, generous, accepting children that I can send out to the world as harbingers of change. In the meantime, I will hug my children tighter and hold on a bit longer.