Keeping Children Safe
Giving. Thankful. Family.
Hearts and towns across the world light up as we approach the holiday season. Our respective traditions, cultures, surroundings and circumstances offer so much warmth, support, and love. Opportunities for giving abound; we are a community aglow.
Thankfully, we’re not raising our families on the border of Syria and Turkey, nor in Somalia, which has the highest rate of first-day deaths for infants. The challenges to our community, family and children’s well-being rarely approach headline news.
That is, until a devastating gun disaster occurs.
Forever etched in our hearts is December 14, 2012 when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adults in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Each of us, in the weeks to come, will be transported back to this atrocious incident, to a time when the very core of our beings — our hearts, minds and souls — collapsed in one horror-filled instant.
We felt an immense range of emotions — from all-consuming empathy for the immeasurable suffering of others, to the piercing terror that this could possibly happen to our family, or to someone we might know.
God forbid.
As parents and civic-minded adults, we at ParentMap feel it is our moral imperative to focus on the critical issues surrounding guns, violence and families, and to see movement in our laws.
ParentMap supports I-594. Throughout 2014, our team will offer content in our print and digital publications and at our events, with the goal of advancing a fair and comprehensive conversation about gun violence.
We urge you to join us, along with sponsor and partner Seattle Children’s and host Town Hall, on December 12 for a symposium, “Gun Violence: Keeping Children Safe.” You will hear from a family recently affected by guns; a judge’s perspective on gun violence based on his experiences at the bench; and health care professionals whose life work is devoted to our children’s safety.
Monumental movement is happening in our own ParentMap universe. This November issue is Linda Morgan’s last as our managing editor. Our beloved and dazzling Linda has envisioned hundreds of brilliant articles that have graced the pages of ParentMap magazine these last 10 years. Our collective parenting knowledge has been enhanced as we’ve been educated on the latest trends in health, safety, and development. We have been touched deeply — and have enjoyed good laughs — thanks to Linda’s wisdom and wit (From Transformers to Twitter and Twerking).
She is an inspiring and talented editor with impeccable journalistic standards, exceptional insights and humor.
I believe this final issue beautifully reflects the great talents and dexterity Linda has brought to ParentMap and to you, our loyal readers.
— Alayne
