So there are pictures circulating on social media of children being tear gassed/pepper sprayed by police at the protests happening all over the country the last few days following George Floyd’s murder. I’m not sure which image is most pressing to share or whether I should be using them at all without their parents’ consent, so I’ll just let you google this if you haven’t seen any yet yourself. I’m using a picture of my own kid from one of the protests this past weekend instead (yes, with her consent.)

But the very first comment on every post like this I’ve seen so far is something along the lines of “but why bring a child to a protest in the first place?” – basically accusing their parent or guardian of irresponsibility, followed by a lot of emotional labor on the part of the original poster or others to explain why that’s the wrong question, wasting everyone’s energy and shifting focus away from the much bigger problem at hand here.

Let me save you some time.

1) First and foremost: this whole thing is about the fear every black mother and father in America has every single day for their children’s lives. Yes, it was triggered by George Floyd, but we all know our fellow citizens have been under siege long before he was ever born. And he too was someone’s son, and someone’s father. Should he have never left the house? How about his kids? Why do you suddenly care about the welfare of children, when you’ve known all along that this is their daily reality?

I’m going to leave that point short and succinct in the hopes that it really sinks in. Go ahead and re-read it a few times if you like, and please find some BIPOC voices to listen to if you don’t believe this is true.

2) Second: parents everywhere – particularly mothers, don’t even try to deny it – face criticism about the job they’re doing basically from the second they become pregnant to their dying day. It doesn’t just come from well-meaning family and friends – random strangers in the grocery store, on the street, in schools, all over the internet, offer their unsolicited “advice” all the time. I’ve been a mom nearly 18 years now – if I had a dollar for every time I got this nonsense.. well, I’d donate it to the Columbus Freedom Fund because screw anything else right now.

Yes, it takes a village to raise a child. We should all be looking out for our kids. But what kind of village are you being for them, really? You don’t know these families’ stories. You don’t know the context behind the black dad with the toddler eating chips on his shoulders, facing down a cop pointing a tear gas canister at his head. He could be just trying to get home from the park before curfew and got caught in the fray. He could have tried to get a sitter and it fell through at the last minute after he’d already committed to bringing much needed supplies to the event. Or you know what, he could have made a reasonable assessment about the situation – hmm, maybe that POLICE SWORN TO SERVE AND PROTECT WOULDN’T HURT A CHILD AT A PEACEFUL PROTEST IN BROAD DAYLIGHT – and thought it’d be a safe way to teach his kid about exercising their First Amendment rights. Ask yourself why your first question isn’t why an American citizen can’t trust their public servants to uphold the US Constitution, and why your instinct is to immediately judge this parent instead?

3) And finally, let me tell you about some of those last 18 years I’ve been a mom. I attended countless anti-war demonstrations with my baby strapped to my belly in the early 2000s. I led a youth group at my local UU church teaching her and her peers about social justice. Have you ever seen a four year old find the courage to ask a grumpy adult to sign a petition against child slavery in the chocolate industry? I have. And two days ago I watched my daughter get on her knees and at the top of her young lungs fiercely leverage her white privilege to appeal to the humanity of a line of police in full riot gear who had already pepper sprayed a black congresswoman. I’m not sure I have ever been more proud of her. But I don’t say all this to brag – I’m saying that this to me is an essential part of raising our children to become active and aware citizens of the world.

Yes, sometimes it’s risky. Sometimes we need to put safety first – it’s our number one job to keep our children alive. But you want to talk about responsibility? We have a responsibility to teach our children that systemic racism, police brutality and governmental tyranny are obscene. We have a responsibility to teach them that democracy is a living, organic movement dependent on everyday people continuing to fight for it, not just an abstract, dry concept that was decided upon 300 years ago. This means we have a responsibility to take them to protests at every age. We can’t wait till they’re 18 or over to start teaching our children how to be free.

Because guess what – black parents don’t have that luxury.

Now, stop asking why that parent brought their child to the protest. Ask yourself why you weren’t there too?