An Open Letter to my Daughter’s Pre-school Teacher

 

I am not sure if you noticed but I hugged my mini human a little tighter this morning. You also may not have heard the small crack in my voice when I told her I loved her. When she wildly ran off to find her chair and begin to color I paused for one more fleeting moment to look at her.  I smiled, you smiled, we said our goodbyes and I hesitantly walked out of the classroom.

By day you give her brain kisses nurturing and growing her mind, and during the evening when she is safely home, we read books, I shower her with good night kisses (and all of the bjillion stuffed animals she has cascading around her). I let her be 3, make forts and play pretend. This morning she was a mermaid. 

We both have an unspoken fear.

In a society where we have all started to become desensitized by the news and current events and often opt to tune out versus tune in, you and I are becoming more restless. Our worries magnified. What used to be a simple drop off and pick up is something that begins with fear and ends with relief at the end of each day.  Our worries are put to ease when we are reunited with our children. Because I know you have children as well, I know you have the same concerns as I do.

I received a school email after the most recent school shooting in our country. In this email, it explained the preventative measures that they were doing to protect our children. That you, and your colleagues just recently had hemorrhage control training to help save lives in the case of another shooting. Instead of educator development training, you are learning how to save my daughter’s life if someone decides the value of a life is zero and chooses to seek value in violence toward our children.

Please protect my child from being murdered.

I can’t begin to fathom how you are feeling. Your job description as an educator has been dramatically altered and my expectations have been forever changed as a parent. Instead of just teaching my mini human to color in the lines, write her name, sharpening her cognitive skills, nurturing social skills and invoking imaginative play (subbing in as her proxy boo-boo kisser when I am at work), you are also being asked to be an interim paramedic, grief counselor, body guard, and first line of defense.

How did we get to this point?

There is a mental health care crisis. We as parents need to invest in recognizing mental health issues, we need to speak up when something doesn’t seem quite right. We as parents and teachers need to encourage our children to sit next to the lonely kid at the table and that bullying is always unacceptable. We also need to have commonsense. Surely as a society we do not need gas grenades, AR rifles, modification devices for hunting and personal protection. I mean deer are fairly docile creatures, I am sure 8 rounds or a shotgun can handle any intruder or rabid deer alike. Will we ever get back to investing in our children’s education over investing in damage control? I sure hope so, I really do. Because honestly, my heart, my tired mind can’t take living a life in fear of absolute senselessness.

Here’s what I am going to do.

I believe in America. I believe that there is still a chance to turn this around. I look forward to the day that I can drop off my mini human at school and neither of us have to live in the shadow of fear.  Inaction is cyclic, if we do not put our words and fears into civic action nothing will happen. So today, tomorrow and on … I will start taking a few moments out of my day to talk to my members of Congress. Both Federal and State legislators.  I will donate to organizations that are advocating for common sense gun control like:

Every Town for Gun Safety 

or

The Collation for Gun Safety 

 

I will write them emails, I will call their offices, they will know who I am. They will know that I am determined and I will fight. After of years of being childless from infertility, I know a lot about persistence and willing the thing I want most into reality. I will fight for you to get your job back as an educator so you don’t have to fear the next attack. It starts with today. It starts with one.  I know that you may know a little about a man named Dr. Seuss. Proudly my daughter loves the Lorax. Maybe it’s the future fighter in her, but UNLESS. 

UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Unlike the Lorax who speaks for the trees, you speak for the children you teach. Today as a parent I will speak for the teachers who teach them.  

I care an awful lot,

Candace

 

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