Every generation has its own fears. I grew up in a small town where life was mainly uneventful in terms of major news. Our tv news came from New York City, and our local paper was mostly filled with high school sports and local politics, with world events mixed in. It seemed like the kind of town where nothing remarkable would happen. And yet, every year or so, the halls of the school and the playgrounds would suddenly fill with reports of a mysterious man in a blue van (always blue) who was lurking in our streets, ready to scoop up random children with promises of puppies or candy. Nobody actually saw the van, but a lot of kids seemed to know people who did. Stories of the blue van were both terrifying and exciting. I remember standing at the playground fence searching behind the school. I looked with a mixture of fear and dreams of the glory that would come from being the one to catch him. (The fact that our playground fence faced a forest with no roads in sight never crossed my mind). Eventually, after a few days or weeks, the stories of the blue van would run their course and we would return to our regular, less scary and slightly less exciting lives.
Last week there was a concerning social media post about my children's school. School officials and police handled the situation and deemed it not to be an actual threat. They informed parents and students of the situation, and it seemed to be done. No big deal, nothing to see here. Then, the following day, there was a Facebook post from a parent who had heard that "many people" were keeping their kids home from school the next day because the students didn't feel safe. Others chimed in agreeing that this was true and expressing their dismay at the situation. As I read the post, a block of ice formed in my chest. Instantly my mind started to reel. Was it safe? Did those students know something that the rest of us didn't? How could we find out? Would I be a fool for sending my kids to school, or an over-reacting, hysterical parent if I kept them home? And was it worth the potentially horrific consequences if I made the wrong choice? The questions formed a nonstop loop in my head, punctuated with mental stories of worst-case scenarios. I monitored Facebook all night. I considered asking the girls, but since neither of them had mentioned it, the last thing I wanted to do was project my anxiety into their minds.
This anxiety wasn't new for me. My children were in kindergarten when the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Although we shielded them from that story for years, I have been very aware, through their entire school lives, that there was the potential for my children to be shot at school. For the first few years, I froze every time I heard a siren during school hours. Eventually I was able to move those worries to a back burner, but unfortunately, as they got older and without my knowing, the girls developed fears of their own. Just a few weeks ago, someone at their school mistakenly hit a wrong button and released an automatic announcement indicating a lockdown situation. It was remedied within seconds, but in that short time some students had run to the woods to hide. We talked about the event, including how the students had stayed there for some time after things had cleared up. When I joked that maybe they had wanted a little break from school, my daughter stopped, looked me in the eyes, and said, "No, Mom. They were scared. There isn't a single high school student who isn't scared every single day that they're going to get shot at school."
The girls did go to school on the day in question, and everything was fine. They noticed that some kids had stayed home, but weren't overly concerned. That morning I managed not to act like I was sending them off to war as I left for work. I had a cry in the car and tried to use my anxiety strategies to ground myself in probable reality instead of worst case scenarios. It was during this time when I suddenly remembered the blue van of my childhood. I realized that it still exists, but now the mysterious man has been replaced by an angry kid with a gun. That was oddly comforting. It reminded me of kids and rumors and the ease with which they grow. Also that they are usually only loosely based on reality.
The comparison isn't that simple, though. Our blue van rumors grew out of a vague awareness of a story that someone saw on the news or an after-school special. Today's kids see reports and footage from school shootings all too often. We worried about a mysterious bogeyman with a baseball cap and sunglasses. They worry about the people in their math class or cafeteria. What must that do to kids? And what must it do to a community - when the perceived threat comes from within? What have we, as a society, done to our children?
So, where does this leave me? On one hand, kids will be kids, rumors will fly as rumors do, and most of the time it isn't a reason to worry. So that's good. On the other hand, we live in a country where we expect our children to learn in a place where they worry, not without reason, that they might get shot because some other kid has a bad day and access to a gun. We can choose to overlook the fear or stuff it down, but what we are asking of our children, and ourselves is truly awful. And for some reason we live in a society that doesn't seem to want to do anything about it.
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