What Is America Doing To Our Children?
When this happened, we realized how much our American kids live in trauma
Trigger warning: trauma, mention of gun violence
We’re writing to you from a bit of a different emotional space than we previously have. We’ve been processing something that happened recently (side note: the kids are physically fine as are we), and we’ve been thinking through specifically how it relates to our anti-racist parenting. Antiracist parenting involves examining and undoing harmful, deeply entrenched systems, and striving for a better, safer world for our children. That means exploring the roots of things like racism, white supremacy and even gun violence in America.
It means that we have to talk about the emotional and psychological impact of all of this on our kids.
Adam here: As we tend to do, we took the kids to a protest on May Day. Tabitha was working to support a coalition of organizations called May Day Strong over the last few months for a national day of action that called for “No work. No school. No shopping” on May 1st. With over 4,000 events occurring, this was a powerful day that proved the current and potential power of people and movements as we unite against the billionaire class who hoard resources to harm and not heal.
We were in Spain on May Day, where community organizing and union activism is common and strong. So we found a local march and hopped on the Metro to take our kids. Our kids have been to dozens of marches and protests over the years so this wasn’t a big deal for them or us.
Tabitha here: We got off the metro and were met with loud chants and a march that wove its way slowly down the center of the street. We followed along on the sidewalk, me grasping our 6 year-old-daughter’s hand. A little ways away, a little girl of about 4 was playing hide and seek behind her parent’s skirt with one of the other marchers.
All of a sudden, we heard a series of extremely loud popping noises, staccato-like, very close to us, followed by a loud bang.
Every fiber in my body went into high alert because my first thought was that we were in the midst of a mass shooting.
Still holding my daughter’s hand, I started to run in the opposite direction of the sounds. My daughter, equally alarmed, stumbled and fell. I bent to pick her up, losing her shoe and breaking my phone case in my haste. She started to scream that we had left her shoe behind.
At that moment, I turned around for the first time, only to find the crowd seemingly unperturbed.
Nobody was running.
Nobody was alarmed.
The little girl was continuing her game of hide and seek. Red smoke filled the air from a flare. The march was moving at its normal pace. A man next to me looked at us, slightly amused and told me that this happens all the time in Valencia.
The loud noises that my kids and I thought were gunshots were simply firecrackers, a seemingly common occurrence in protests.
If this had been in the U.S., people would have hit the floor and chances are the noises could have been gunshots.
Adam and I brought the kids away from the crowd to a quieter area and checked in with everyone. Both kids were visibly shaking, as was I. Our 11-year-old son begged us to leave. We walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch and talked about what had just happened. The kids played Tetris for a few minutes to attempt to mimic the effects of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a treatment for trauma. After a while, they were back to their usual goofy selves.
All I could think about was that our American children are so used to hearing about gun violence, being prepared for mass shootings in their schools, having gun violence be so normalized in their lives, that their first thought was that the sounds were gun shots.
And that trauma is living in their bodies, no matter how hard us parents try to teach them that this is not normal.
Gun violence is a major problem for all our American kids but it’s also a racial justice issue. America’s attachment to guns, to the second amendment, flooding guns into historically marginalized redlined areas, the call for more guns in schools after mass shootings. It is a uniquely American problem driven in part from our country’s legacy of slavery and genocide.
America’s fascist government does not care about our children, particularly our Black and Brown children. They seek to prevent them from accessing a fact-based education, they play games with their health by providing false information about vaccines, and the list goes on. All while sending them to school in a country where mass shootings in schools are so frequent, lockdown drills are a regular part of kids’ lives.
And I think about the impact this all has on our little ones. Their growing brains. Their emotional states. Their sense of safety. And their ability to feel hope for a home that does not care about their safety.
We want to raise kids who care about their country, who love their country and who will strive to help make it the best it can be. But what do we do when that country’s leadership does not care about them enough to safeguard their lives?
As I watched our 6-year-old shriek in terror at her missing shoe on the streets of Spain, as I saw our 11-year-old’s shaking hands, I was gripped with a feeling of anger towards a country that I love that is not a safe place for children.
What is America doing to our children?
We ask this question after seeing the emotional impact of normalized gun violence in our kids’ lives. Long before this administration was in power, the United States was not a safe place for our kids because of deep systemic inequities targeting Black and Brown children, white supremacy, racism, and class disparities. But even when this period of fascism has passed (and we believe that it will pass, thanks to all of the community resistance), the damage will be felt and will last for a long time.
We don’t have good news to share with you today. I am shaking again as I write this, even though it’s been weeks. Our wish for us parents and educators is that we do every little bit to teach the kids in our care about building a country, a world, that they deserve for themselves and for future generations. One that is kind, equitable, just and centers those most vulnerable. Our wish is that we realize that each of us has a part to play in protecting ALL our little ones because, this current reality? It’s not working.
We’re sending so much love and care to you and your little ones. Hold them close, if they let you, okay?
Adam & Tabitha