Every day when I send my daughter off to kindergarten, I am making a huge assumption. I am assuming that she is safe. I am assuming that everybody is always nice to her and that her days are filled with learning to read and riding unicorns over rainbows. No, I am not just sending her blindly out into the world in some sort of naive parental stupor. I meet with her teachers and stay as involved as I can while still trying to maintain a healthy distance so that she can go become her own person. But I still assume that she is safe.
I suppose what I am about to tell you should really only reinforce how safe I think she is, but somehow it just makes me feel worried instead. Last Thursday when I asked her what she did at school that day, instead of answering me back with the usual “Nothing. Can you please carry my empty backpack? It’s too heavy.” I was instead treated to “We had a school lockdown and we all had to get locked into our classrooms with our teachers and turn out all the lights and be really, really quiet.”
You did what now? Please explain further, oh innocent child of mine who does not ever have to think about such things. “It was a practice, in case a bad person ever comes into the school or if there is danger. We pull all the blinds down and turn out all the lights and lock all the doors, and then everybody sits really still and we have to be as quiet as mice.” Hmmm. On the one rational hand, this is great news. They have a plan in place in case of an emergency, and I know that no matter what happens, my daughter will be safe. On the other, crazier, more emotional hand, now every time I think about that school, instead of thinking about magical ponies with rainbow manes dancing in a fountain I am thinking about a post-apocalyptic nightmare with all of the surrounding buildings on fire, gangs of genetically mutated criminals trying to break into the school, and zombies roaming the streets beneath the backdrop of a mushroom cloud.
I get it, I get it. They are keeping my children safe. But I live in Vermont for freak’s sake! This is not supposed to be a concern up here! We are all supposed to love each other and borrow cups of sugar and ride each other’s cows and smile at friendly strangers! The last thing I want my daughter to be thinking about is lockdown drill! And yet, I am still glad they are doing it. But I wish we lived in a world where they didn’t have to. Being a parent is just chock full of stupid contradictions. I wish that had been in the manual.
My kindergartener just had a lockdown drill today. Same scenario, same explanation, except that he was nearly in tears when he told me about it, and then he started asking questions…why would somebody hurt us? Would they strangle us? Make us stop breathing? He told me hey even had to hide behind his teacher’s desk! I feel as you do, yet I am also livid. WHY would they tell kids that young the WHY of it all?! When I works in an elementary school, we had an “emergency drill.” When kids pressed further, I told them it was for a situation like if a bear ever somehow got into the school, we’d have to be really quiet and hide. My other beef with this is that, as the parent of such a young student, I would like to be notified that such a drill will take place, so that I can be prepared for the questions, the shaky voice and the tears!