A Letter to My Baby

Baby,

Last week I checked my phone news app before I went to bed and the top headline was that there had been a mass shooting.  Another one.  I have no idea how many that makes in the three months since you were born, but the fact is, there have been too many.  I wish I could say by the time you are old enough to understand all of this it won't be a problem any more, but I'm sure that isn't true.  We live, after all, in a post-Columbine world.  A post-9/11 world.  A world where no matter how much I love you it doesn't mean you are completely safe.  As your mother, I want to protect you.  But I can't keep you in a bubble.  So these are the three things I have been praying for you instead.

I pray you are kind.  To me, how kind and giving you are is one of the only true measures of success.  I hope your teachers one day tell me how nice you are to everyone, especially the kid everyone else excludes, much more than I hope that they tell me how smart you are.  I hope you help those less fortunate than you, not because you want to get into a good college, but because you genuinely want to help them.  I hope that you are not mean or cruel to others, but if you are (because we all mess up sometimes) that you apologize sincerely and then make it right.  I hope that you use your kindness to improve the lives of others around you.

I pray you are never a victim.  This one is hard.  I know that as a parent I will have to send you to school and out in to the world and sometimes there are bad people that come in to those places.  I know that I won't be able to protect you from every mean word, or fist fight, or scary story on the news.  But know that my heart will break a little each time you are hurt because I love you.  Danger is a part of the world, but I pray that you will not become a victim.

I pray you are never desperate, the kind of desperate that causes these unspeakable tragedies.  I'm not blind to the fact that the majority of mass shootings are committed by white, privileged males- people that look like you.   I pray that you are always comfortable talking to your father, or me, or one of the dozens of other people who care about you, especially when you feel overwhelmed or upset or angry.  I hope that you learn how to handle these emotions in a healthy way.  I never want you to feel so desperate that you consider hurting yourself or others.

I don't know why the world can sometimes be such a scary place, or why someone would hurt a child.  I do know that I love you to pieces.

And you'll always be my baby.

Love,
Mom