Parenting

"How do you do it?"

The question was posed to me by my sister after seeing yet another school shooting reported on CNN.

"How do you do it? How do you send your kids to school each day?"

It's a fair question especially given the recent spate of shootings taking place around the country. No place is safe, no area too remote. Internal angst and bullets are equal opportunity terrorizers.

• Aug. 24, 2006 Essex, Vermont. Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend's mother.
• Sept. 13, 2006 Montreal, Canada. Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson College. Anastasia De Sousa, 18, died and more than a dozen students and faculty were wounded before Gill killed himself.
• Sept. 26, 2006 Bailey, Colo. Adult male held six students hostage at PlatteCanyon High School, sexually assaulted them and then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself.
• Sept. 29, 2006 Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal John Klang.
• Oct. 3, 2006 Nickel Mines, Pa. 32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
• October 9, 2006 Joplin, Missouri 13 year old male student, obsessed with Columbine, walks into his own school carrying an assault rifle, fires it into the ceiling and then thankfully the gun jams. He runs out of the school but is caught by authorities.

And those are just the ones that have been carried out in the past two months. What of the number of vicious plans that have been thwarted? The following cover only March and April of this year. Sadly, there have been four times as many since.

• March 1, 2006: Muscatine, Iowa A 17-year-old male former high school student was arrested in connection with a plot of a Columbine-type school massacre, which he allegedly shared online with a 19-year-old female. Police reportedly found crude explosives at his home.
• March 2, 2006: Greenwood, Ind. (Incidentally, the high school from which I graduated) Four high school students were arrested for allegedly plotting to harm or hold hostage the high school's principal. Students who overheard the suspects talking about bringing guns into the school notified school administrators, and police were called to investigate.
• March 20, 2006: Rochester Hills, Mich. An 18-year-old male high school student was arrested and charged with writing a threat on a bathroom wall to bring a gun to school and start a massacre he called "Columbine Part Two."
• March 24, 2006: Foley, Ala. Two male high school students, ages 15 and 16, were arrested and charged with planning to carry out a shooting plot at their high school on the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School attack on April 20.
• April 5, 2006: Atco, N.J. Four teenagers, ages 14 to 16, were arrested and charged in connection with a plot to kill 25 people in their high school lunchroom on the anniversary of the Columbine attack. Students reported the information to school administrators, who notified police.
• April 7, 2006: Pierce County, Wash.Three male middle school students, ages 12, 13 and 14, were arrested in connection with a plot where they allegedly planned to steal guns, force their school into a lockdown, set fire to the school, and kill an administrator, group of teachers, and "preppy" students. They then allegedly planned to blend in with the other students to escape the building and avoid police, with a backup plan involving stealing a teacher's car to get away. Police are seeking a 14-year-old female who may also have been involved in the plot.
• April 17, 2006: Platte City, Mo. Two male students, both 18, were arrested in connection with a school shooting plot targeting an assistant principal, students, and other faculty members. The principal reported the incident after the suspects allegedly told other students about their plan, which included planting explosives and bringing weapons to the school on the seventh anniversary of the Columbine shootings.
• April 20, 2006: Riverton, Kan. Five male high school students, ages 16 to 18, were arrested in connection with a plot to disable the school's camera system and commit a shooting rampage between noon and 1 p.m. on April 20, the seventh anniversary of Columbine. A threat related to the alleged plot was discovered on Myspace.com, and a North Carolina woman who chatted with a suspect online notified police in her state, who contacted the sheriff in the suspects' county. Police reportedly found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect, and papers about firearms and Armageddon in two students' lockers.
• April 22, 2006: North Pole, Alaska Six students were arrested in connection with an alleged plot by a group of seventh-graders to shut off power and phone service at their school, and kill students and faculty members with guns and knives before escaping their small town of about 1,600 people. A parent reportedly notified police of the planned attack.
• Columbine. A school shooting that has gone on to warpedly inspire other seriously misguided, jilted, misfit youths. They scour the Internet for information on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They download instructions for homemade bombs. They secretly obtain weapons, make hit lists, and plan their own day of bloody reckoning.

So again, given the mucked up state of the world, the uptick in recent shootings, and the fact that not even an Amish one room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere is safe, my sister has every right to ask me such a pointed question.

My answer?

I don't know.

That's right. I don't know.

Believe me, it is not that I don't think about it. And anyone who reads me regularly knows I certainly do not live in a dreamworld of denial. Rather, I think about it every, single day that I drop my daughters off in front of their schools and ask God for one thing: That I see them again at the end of the day.

Anyone who has a child will understand what I'm about to say. For those who do not have children, allow me to enlighten you.

We care. We care more than you might think is humanly possible. We love deeper than you could possibly imagine. And it is a love that only exists when you have every emotional thread, fiber, blood vessel and capillary invested in the well-being of another human being - One you have nurtured, one whom holds your heart hostage.

With rare exception, we parents are wonderful, loving, focused, self sacrificing people, and we would all gladly jump in front of a train to protect our offspring. I have often been quoted as saying I am capable of killing someone with a spoon if they touch my children.

That is how strong the love is, that is how powerful the rage would be if someone tried to harm them.

So depositing them at school is not an act of detachment, in fact, in this day and age, it is an act of bravery. An act of hope. And more than anything, an act of faith.

Faith that the administrators follow their highly touted child protection rules when allowing adults past the main office. Faith that, in the event of a security breach, lockdown procedures are implemented immediately inside the building. And faith that all the other parents are on top of their game, knowing exactly what their children are feeling, facing, experiencing, and up to.

I have often said that I don't know how you take the next breath if something fatal befalls your child. How a parent draws the next breath that slams home to them they are still alive and their child is not. That their life is moving forward, while their baby's is now stationary.

I pray for those who must endure that next breath. And I pray equally hard that I am never face to face with that oxygen which means I am in this world without one of my children.

Many parents turn to homeschooling as an answer. They figure if their children are never out of their sight, then nothing bad can happen. Perhaps they are right. But the big bad world is still going to be there when their children grow up. And I personally believe that by sequestering my children from it, they would miss out on much of what they need to grow into aware, experienced adults.

My opinion. My belief. Not a blanket condemnation of anyone who chooses to homeschool their children.

So, how do I do it everyday?

Well, I wake them, feed them, make sure they brush their teeth, and pack their lunches. Next, I head out in the minivan, soaking in every giggle, every homework complaint, every song they sing, every sound they make.

And then I hold my breath for seven hours until I see them again.

About the Author : Linda Sharp is an internationally recognized author and columnist appearing across the Internet and in print publications worldwide. Her latest book, "Femail: A Comic Collision In Cyberspace" is available now.