Misty D. Watson

I’ll never forget the day my precious baby girl came home from Pre-K and told me about a game they had played. 

She explained they had to be really quiet, hide behind the teacher’s desk and pretend a bad person was after them. Then other people took turns trying to “get in” their classroom, jiggling the door handle, and all these innocent 4-year-olds had to see who could be the quietest. 

My heart shattered. 

I knew the truth. I knew what the game was. 

It was a lockdown drill. They were teaching babies how to hide in case of an active shooter. 

My baby. 

At only 4 years old. 

Had to learn to hide and be quiet. 

So that if some one came down the hall opening fire, she had some chance at survival. 

She’s 12 now, in 7th grade. Active shooter drills are a part of her academic career. 

She got off the bus Tuesday, and as we walked up the driveway together I asked about her day. She had heard of the school shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., about three hours away, where a 14-year-old student killed two classmates, two teachers, and injured several others. 

I took a deep breath, and looked at her.

“I’m so sorry this is the world you’re growing up in. You deserve better. All children deserve better than this.” 

Because what else do you say? 

Our Society Changed

I was a junior in high school on April 20, 1999 when 12 students and one teacher were killed in less than 20 minutes by two teens, who then took their own lives, at Columbine High School in Colorado. 

I still remember the videos of SWAT teams and terrified students fleeing from the school building. I remember the shock. The fear. The anxiety of returning to school the next day, rumors of a copycat attack swirling, new protocols in place, more locked doors, no more going outside between classes, which forced everyone down the same already overcrowded hall. 

Columbine wasn’t the first school shooting. It wasn’t the deadliest. 

But it did attracted the most public interest of any other news story in 1999, and it was the third most watched story of the 1990s — behind the Rodney King verdict in 1992 and the crash of TWA flight 800 in 1996, according to the Pew Research Center. 

The 24-hour news cycle and the internet transformed the way we experienced and processed the Columbine tragedy. For the first time, we witnessed a mass shooting unfold in real time, witnessing the horror and devastation up close. The shooters’ manifesto, videos and other evidence shared online amplified the impact, permanently searing the event into our collective consciousness.

And our society forever changed. 

I can point to so many events in my lifetime that influenced our culture to the point you actually felt the shift in our society: Columbine, 9/11, the Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This is why so many of us millennials are exhausted and burnt out, disillusioned and hopeless. Now we’re trying to navigate how to raise children in this world where tragedy after tragedy unfolds on tiny screens over and over until we disassociate.

I don’t know how to reassure my daughter. I don’t know how she is supposed to feel safe or secure. 

Misplaced Fervor 

How can we sit idly by for 25 years just accepting a society where we watch children practice lockdown drills, fear for their lives in their own schools and are gunned down? 

Children should be focused on grades, making friends and exploring their passions. Instead, they are forced to face the terrifying reality of active shooters and the constant threat of violence. 

We live in a country where a zygote, an embryo and a fetus are more important than saving children’s lives within school buildings. If it’s two things Americans love its the unborn and their guns. 

I don’t understand why that level of fervor used to protect the unborn is not carried over to the living. 

States deliberately enacted laws that bypassed existing legal precedent to force the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. Church groups will march up and down the sidewalks with anti-abortion signs. Extremist groups set up displays on college campuses that show images of aborted fetuses and hand out anti-abortion literature. As someone who lost a previous child naturally (because I have to say “naturally”) before it made it earth side, that is quite triggering. Where is the compassion? 

Where is that same level of fervor when there has been a school shooting? 

Where are the church groups protesting? Where is the legislation? Where is… anyone? 

Our values are off. Our energy is misplaced. 

Many of the same politicians who champion anti-abortion measures have consistently opposed stricter gun control laws, even in the face of repeated mass shootings. They prioritization certain rights and values over others, a hypocrisy that is both morally troubling and politically damaging.

The hypocrisy is infuriating to me. If you claim to be pro-life, be pro-life. Protect people. Protect our children. 

I will continue to advocate for change, no matter how small my voice may seem. As activist Maggie Kuhn famously said, “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” 

It’s time for our voices to be heard. 

Our children deserve better.