Unless you've been buried under a very large rock of late, then you know about the trouble in Ferguson, Missouri—the riots that started after an unarmed black teen was killed by police. Some parents brought kids along to protests and vigils in honour of Michael Brown.
Though we all (I think) want peace, just as we all want to raise socially conscious children who stand up for what's right, it's a question of when and where.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, Kendra Pierson thought long and hard before bringing her 6- and 2-year-old boys to a gathering in Atlanta.
“It was important for them to be there,” Pierson said. “When they look back, in 10 years or five years, I want them to know they were there.”
But when peaceful protests descend into turmoil, sometimes on the turn of a dime, is it a risk worth taking? You have to wonder. After all, an 8-year-old boy was hit with tear gas during a recent rally.
“It was emotional,” Pierson said. “It was emotional as a mother, it was emotional as a black woman, it was emotional as the daughter of a man who grew up in St. Louis County, it was emotional as the wife of a black man. But for me, the mother part was the most overwhelming emotion I felt.”
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