Kid power: This country’s children are standing up to demand change

In the past few weeks we have watched an incredible groundswell of passion, commitment and determination from kids across this nation. A few weeks ago, I myself watched the 10 am walkout of three schools in Brooklyn in memory of the 17 dead in Parkland, Fla. Not just the high school, but also the middle school a block away and a local elementary school (upper grades) who also had organized a planned commemoration.

However divided adults might be about guns, violence, the Second Amendment and a person’s right to bear arms, the fact that there have been thousands of young victims of gun violence just since Sandy Hook cannot go unaddressed, and these young activists are determined to see that it doesn’t.

How can any of us not be proud when we see teens behaving with such integrity and fervor? There’s powerful energy in this movement and as of this writing the March For Our Lives is just days away.

For the younger children, to see their big sisters and brothers or cousins or neighbors engaged so intently in sociological organization and protest, is a lesson impossible to teach in a classroom.

The impact of this movement is bound to change much of this generation just as The Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and the Women’s Movement did, and as the “Me Too” Movement is doing at this very moment.

Someone recently commented that the protests of the past are not powerful in the way they used to be. I strongly disagree. In fact, the power of protest in the past year and a half has been awe-inspiring and parents throughout the city and country should be overwhelmed with pride at the young voices leading this particular movement.

Apathy is the frightening factor. It is natural that, along with youth, should be visions of the future. Not a future of what is, but visions of a future that might be.

Thanks for reading.