Being a parent in America is different than being a parent anywhere else in the world. Our food contains different chemicals. Our culture is more expressive. Our health care system is . lacking. And as if all of that weren't enough to worry about, there are the guns. Every day, American parents have to grapple with the idea that our children could experience a school shooting.
There's also the realization that they might not survive it. One mother, like so many, thought about this and decided to do what little she could to send one last message to her daughter in the case she isn't reunited with her at the end of the school day.
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Emily Solberg explained one of the reasons she draws a heart on her daughter's hand.
Solberg, a writer, posted a picture of her daughter with a heart, drawn in black marker, on her hand. In the caption for the post, she explained both the blatant and hidden reasons why she does it.
"I tell friends and teachers it's so that when she misses me, she can look down and see a physical reminder of me," Solberg writes. "She can touch it and know that I'm always there for her, even if I can't be there with her."
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She also shared the less obvious reason she draws it.
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After the first paragraph, Solberg asked her readers, "Do you want to know the honest truth? I send her to school with a heart drawn on her hand every day so that if she ever finds herself sitting against a wall in a dark room, hugging her knees to her chest with her blonde head bent in terror, while silent tears stream down her cheeks as her class waits for an armed gunman to try the door handle against a barricade of desks . She will know that I love her."
Solberg says as a mom in the US, she cannot easily move on as fast as the news cycle does.
Solberg explained that her daughter is not old enough for a cellphone yet, so this would be the only way for her to say goodbye to her child. Solberg posted this image last year and asked, "I wonder how long it will be before the news cycle moves on this time. But I'm a mom in America, so I cannot."
She shared that in the year that has passed since she first shared this post, she had stopped drawing the hearts on her daughter's hand. But because nothing has changed in that time and the mass shootings, both in schools and other public places, have continued, she thinks it's time for her to start the practice again.
"I just keep drawing hearts on my child's hand and praying the only time she needs them is when she misses me," she wrote.
Many people could relate to Solberg's feelings.
Most of the people who saw Solberg's post met it with empathy and even voiced frustration at our government and the politicians that comprise it.
A woman from another country said that she and her husband sometimes discuss living in other countries, but the US is not an option because, "It is simply impossible for me to imagine having to feel this way." Others said this was the reason they've chosen to keep their kids out of public school.
Others made fun of Solberg's sentimentality.
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There are other people who feel Solberg's method is ridiculous. When the Today Show Instagram account posted the photo, along with Solberg's caption, some of the opinions expressed were different than those on Solberg's Facebook page.
"Good grief," one IG user wrote. "Homeschool and you won't have to be so melodramatic."
Another used it as an opportunity to attack Solberg's presumed politics. "?? I'll take liberal parent for $200," one wrote.
"Your kids has a way higher chance of you killing them for being negligent while driving them to school," someone commented.
Another person suggested Solberg leave the US. "Move to a country the outlaws guns," the person commented.
"That's a thoughtful gesture and I think you meant well mom, however ... reminding your young daughter daily, while at school and away from her safe haven she calls home, that the heart drawn on her hand is your way of saying 'goodbye' just in case there's a school shooter, has to be one of the most anxiety ridden reminders your little girl is experiencing in her life now and for every new day to come," another person pointed out.
Many of us might not choose Solberg's methods, and of course we'll never all agree on the politics of gun control, but people should be able to understand a mother's desire to say goodbye to her child in a loving way. With the regularity of school shootings in this country, the possibility is entirely plausible.