A Non-Post

I've typed a few blog entries over the past week and a half but haven't published them because they focus on one of my children, who faced a difficult time at school.  That individual has asked me not to discuss the trauma publicly and not to follow up any further with school officials, which leaves me feeling powerless and angst-y.  If I don't speak up, how can I affect change? My silence is teaching my kid the wrong lesson.

But my silence has been pledged, though I made my opinions known in a series of diatribes to family members. My child is physically safe, everyone else's child in that situation is safe, and though I am grateful for those facts, they reduce the probability that the powers-that-be at school will listen to me. I need either a critical mass of parents to speak with me (each focused on their own child) or a catastrophic event to illustrate the point.

I'm tired of human nature requiring catastrophic events to make change. Tired of bank failures serving as the prerequisite for banking laws, of epidemics of measles and whooping cough serving as the basis for renewed calls for vaccinations, tired of car axles breaking in potholes before the roads can be fixed. Most of all, I am weary of the pressure on my children pushing them into a stressed state, keeping them awake at night with minds racing, forcing their tears and breakdowns at the kitchen table.  Though my child insists that s/he is "fine, Mom," I cannot erase the memory of emotional broken-ness, the hunched shoulders and sobs that escaped when I swooped in for a hug.  In some small way, I will never be fine, cannot "recover" fro this event.

We need to act on the precautionary principle and not do things that could cause harm. Every child should be protected, not just the majority, and no one should be forced into situations that make him or her uncomfortable. Isn't that what we teach our children? That bullying is wrong, that laying hands on another is wrong, that each individual has worth and their opinion, body and spirit should be respected? Then we should act accordingly, or they will know us for the hypocrites that we are.