Little Children Crying

Today as I dropped off my daughter, Margaret Rae, at her preschool, she was crying. It is only her second week at the preschool. For the last four and half months, she has stayed home with my wife, Jenn, before Jenn found work. At almost two years old, her old daycare must seem like a lifetime ago.

She is somewhere new and she is scared.

I didn’t really want to leave our home in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the home we owned, she was born in the living room, the home where a friend painted a mural of the Blue Ridge mountains in Margaret Rae’s room before she was even born. We wanted to stay there. It was where our community was and her old daycare was, but I needed a job and ultimately a better life for us all. I had to pack up my family and moved to Boston this past January.

When I see the picture of the little girl crying, who is almost the same age as my daughter, as the Border Patrol is about to separate her from her mother. I see Margaret Rae in her.

I see a child who is somewhere new and scared.

A child whose mother made a difficult decision to leave home to make a better life for them in a new place, leaving a home behind where they had their own memories, leaving behind their family and friends in hopes that there would be a better future for them all.

My decision to move is considered laudable by our society, yet that mother’s decision is considered criminal by our society. Yet it is the same exact decision: To provide a better life for our children.

And my heart breaks for both children. Yet, I know Margaret Rae is being cared for by amazing professionals and is safe, meanwhile the other child could currently be sitting in a cage separated from her mother for days or even weeks before they are reunited.

These two little children just want to be with their parents, who in turn just want them to have a better chance in life. Yet, our society has deemed one should have that chance while the other should not. We should all be ashamed.

List of Resources to help: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/18/heres-list-organizations-are-mobilizing-help-separated-immigrant-child/