As a parent there are certain milestone events you don’t forget. One of those is the first time the school nurse calls to tell you that your kid is sick at school and you need to come get them. It is an odd moment of panic and guilt where addreline kicks in. You have sent your baby to school and they were sick. You feel guilty that you have put them in this vulnerable position. At this point, years of evolution kick in and you need to make it right.
For me that first call came in the late fall, of M’s Kindergarten year. She had been home sick for several days with bronchitis and this was her first day back. I got a call less than two hours after drop off from the nurse. M had vomited and was clearly not ok. Could I come get her? I finished nursing her baby sister and jumped in the car to drive the mile to her elementary school. The entire way feeling guilty that I had sent her back to school too soon and worried about what might be wrong – was it too much congestion from the bronchitis or had she developed a secondary illness from being down for so long?
What I didn’t expect was what I found when I arrived. M has waist length hair and when I got to the school infirmary her hair was completely covered in vomit. The entire front side of her clothes were also covered – all of her. I just didn’t understand how this had happened. The way the vomit was on her just didn’t make sense. Then they explained to me what had happened. It was then that the real gut wrenching feelings began for me.
M had vomited on herself during a lock down drill. My tiny 5 year old had been huddled under a desk practicing what to do if an intruder enters the school and was too afraid to tell anyone that she felt sick so she just puked on herself instead. Think about that for a second – a 5 year old was so frightened during a drill at school that they thought puking on themselves was the best option. It was at that moment that I almost began to cry and in fact almost cry each time I tell that story.
After Sandy Hook, there really isn’t a choice. Elementary schools need to practice lock down drills and teach the kids what to do in case there is an intruder in the building. That is our current reality and it is a sad reality. It is a reality that every single parent in this country should find disturbing.
Now we have seen yet another school shooting which is yet another in a long line of mass shootings that have happened both in schools and in other public venues. We are once again asking how does this happen and what can we do to prevent it from happening again. So many parents are looking for answers. They want to do something – to be proactive about protecting their children. Sadly there is massive disagreement about what the answer is. Is it banning military weaponry? Is it more background checks? Is the answer increasing mental health service? Should we arm teachers? This diversity of answers has lead to adults screaming at each other on T.V. and across social media. It has lead to zero steps that are actually proven to help protect our kids.
The truth is whichever side of this you fall on, you want to protect your kid. You want your children to go to school and be safe. There are zero parents in this country of any political party who want their child shot and killed. Zero. None. But if we can’t agree on anything how can we move forward? Let’s be honest, thoughts and prayers aren’t cutting it. Thoughts and prayers are cold comfort to a parent burying a child.
I am here to tell you one concrete step each and every one of you can make today to make your kid safer It is something we should all be able to agree on . You need to write to your U.S. Representative and your U.S. Senators and demand that the immediate repeal of the Dickey Amendment. Let them know that on this topic you will be a one issue voter – either they vote to repeal the Dickey Amendment or you will find a candidate to support who will.
At this point, you are probably wondering what is the Dickey Amendment. I mean after all it is not something we hear on cable news or in the paper on a regular basis. Let me break it down for you, in 1996 Congress passed this amendment and has re-authorized it every since (so both parties have a hand in this) and the amendment forbids the CDC from studying mass shootings. For the past 20 plus years, mass shootings in the US have risen while decreasing in other parts of the world but instead of doing any kind of a study to see why that is we have told the CDC don’t study it and have thrown our hands in the air and said “well darn it I just don’t know what we can do. I guess nothing.” That my friend is a load of bullsh!t and we all know it.
Let me put this in perspective for you. Congress has provided around $200 million to the CDC for the study and prevention of Zika. In 2017, there were about 4000 cases of Zika in the continental US. The more tropical territories had significantly more. In a similar time span about 1100 Americans were killed in what is defined as a mass shooting (4 or more victims). The CDC spent zero dollars on this. Even if we go fractionally, it tells us that the CDC should have spent $50 million on mass shooting research and prevent, yet there was none.
I may not know the answers to all of this but I do know that until we actually allow the CDC to look at the issue and provide the funding to do so we won’t know the answer. I say this knowing that I may not like what the CDC says. I accept that. I do not accept that we do nothing. I do not accept spending a billion dollars to arm teachers when we have no data to support that answer.
So I ask you to join me in contacting your members of Congress. Tell them to repeal the Dickey Amendment. Tell them to provide the CDC with the funds to study this and provide us actual research based solutions.
If you don’t know how to contact your representatives, you can find your U.S. Representative’s information here and your U.S. Senators here. Below is a sample email you can copy and paste in if you don’t want to call.
I am writing you to ask that you repeal the Dickey Amendment and provide the CDC with funding to study causes and preventions of mass shootings.