We the Parents and the Children

In 1992, my husband and I bought a little house in Dayton, MN. I was pregnant with our first child. It was a small town, a far suburb of Minneapolis, far enough away that our friends joked that we had moved to Canada. There was almost nothing there; a convenience store, a video rental joint, an elementary school and a church. Other than that, it was homes, woods and farm land, beautiful and peaceful. We affectionately referred to one of the roads that ran through Dayton as “the cows and horses road.” The Mississippi river rolled along across the street from our house on a dirt road.

In order to get to Dayton, you needed to drive through Champlin. That was where the restaurants were, small businesses, grocery store and secondary schools. Our kids eventually attended Champlin Park High School, and most of their friends lived in Champlin and Brooklyn Park. We lived this suburban existence for 20 years.

Many things have happened in the years since then— I’m no longer married and now live in southern California. Though I no longer live in Minnesota, it is my home state and I will always have affection for it. Not the winters— I will happily live the rest of my life never feeling what 20 below zero feels like again. But I’m a Minnesota girl and always will be. My great-great-grandfather was the mayor of Minneapolis. I take pride in knowing that my state was also the birthplace of Judy Garland, Prince and Bob Dylan. Home to political powerhouses like Hubert Humphry and Walter Mondale.

Saturday morning, I got a call from my oldest son, Tucker. “Have you heard the news?” he asked. I had not; I was barely awake, getting ready to walk my dog. He told me there had been a political assassination in Minnesota and another attempted assassination. He told me the names. I was stunned, as was the nation. I walked my dog with tears streaming down my face. How can this be happening? Again, horrific national news is centered in my home state. I was still living there when George Floyd was murdered. Now, I’m watching from a distance.

When I got back with the dog, I started reading about what had happened. Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette had been shot in their home, they were still alive and in surgery. The address of their home; Champlin, MN. Sen. Hoffman represents the district I lived in for 20 years. I saw his picture and recognized him as one of the leading voices in the pursuit of removing the protections of perpetrators of sexual violence in MN, such as the laws that repealed the defense of spousal and domestic abusers, as well as the removal of the criminal statute of limitations for sexual assault in MN. This cause is particularly close to me as I had testified at the state legislature in support of removing the statute in 2019.

Later in the morning, I learned of an even closer association with these horrific events. Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, murdered in their home by the same person who attempted to kill John and Yvette, were the parents of a teammate of Tucker’s on the CPSH swim team. Tucker attended many pasta dinners for the team at the Hortman’s home in Brooklyn Park on nights before swim meets. Melissa and Mark were parents who sat on the bleachers with us, cheering on the team. Somehow, knowing this close association that touches my child in a personal way shook me to my core. He still lives in MN, and all I wanted to do was hug him. From a distance, all I have are words, and they feel insufficient in the face of what my child is feeling. He is an adult now, with a wife and a home in northern MN, but in my mind’s eye, I’m sitting next to the Hortmans watching our kids doing their pre-swim-meet chant, psyching themselves up for the battle in the water. Innocent times. And my eyes fill with more tears.

I have a dear friend who still lives in Champlin, and I was texting with her yesterday during the shelter-in-place order. She knows the Hoffmans. “They are the nicest people,” she wrote, “His focus is defending the rights of people with disabilities. She is a hilarious preschool teacher. They are public servants of the first water.”

The closeness of yesterday’s events to my own life makes me recognize that, but for a few life circumstances and random choices, the Hoffmans and Hortmans could be any one of us. And it is us— We the Parents and Children— who make up this country, who get to decide how we will move forward. We, the parents who want safety for our children, and we, the children who want to feel safe. In the simplest terms, that is who we are, one or the other, or both.

Hortman and Hoffman were drawn to public service in the truest sense. They chose to step forward in service and respected the power bestowed on them by the people of their community. They are us, and we are them. The only thing that separates us is the title they received, bestowed on them by us, that puts them in the room where the conversations are happening. I wept before I knew how close these two humans were to my own life, partly because I knew they were from Minnesota, but mostly because I knew what this meant in the large picture. We are under attack, all of us, and elected officials are more vulnerable because they chose to be so on our behalf.

Most of the people in roles of public service are there because they want to help. But not all of them. Some of them are there because they are drawn to the power of those positions. I watched a video last night of a Sheriff’s deputy in Riverside County, where I live in California, showing this deputy beating a man in handcuffs and holding him down by the neck with his knee for 30 seconds. (Did we learn nothing from George Floyd’s murder?) I read an article in the Desert Sun newspaper about it and was hooked by this statement—"When I first saw the video, it disturbed me because once again it reminded me of the power that law enforcement possesses. When that power is placed in the wrong hands, we get results like this."  

This comment made me think of our current administration, officials elected to serve We the Parents and the Children, who are only there because they want the power, not to serve our best interests, but theirs. Almost half of us voted to put a convicted felon in the White House because he promised to make us safe— a fundamental human need, safety. Too many of us bought his story, and then this convicted felon released hundreds of perpetrators of violence against our elected officials in Washington, DC back into the community. This convicted felon makes self-serving choices with impunity and emboldens others to do the same. When that power is placed in the wrong hands, we get results like this. We get lawmakers gunned down in their own homes.

How safe do you feel?

Use your voices, write letters, and call your representatives; it really does matter, and tell them how you feel. Flood their offices with your needs and wishes. If you don’t, they only have their own opinion to guide them. Your representative and senator are there to represent you. You must tell them what you think!!! Until we have mid-term elections, that is the tool you have to voice how you feel; that is how the system is built. Protests are a powerful action to be sure. But if every person who attended a protest also wrote to their representative, they would not be able to ignore you. So write a letter or make a call, or both.

And while you’re at it, thank them for their service. They are literally putting their lives on the line for you.