We're all in this together

The other day I read something in the news that I can’t get out of my head. It was a statement made by Margaret Mizen, mother of the 16-year-old boy who was recently killed in a frenzied knife attack in broad daylight in a London bakery:

There is so much anger in this world, and it is anger that has killed my son…If I'm angry then I'm going to be just doing exactly the same as this chap. We have got to get rid of all this anger that is around.

And about the killer’s parents, she said,

What can you really say to them? You can imagine, that's their child, they held that boy in their own arms as a baby. They must be in pain. It's so painful that their child has been so cruel and so wicked.

I know that if I were in Margaret’s shoes, I would have neither the grace nor the dignity to respond this compassionately. I would be angry. And vengeful.

But somehow, as a mother, I can understand her empathy. 

Motherhood – whether through birth, adoption or other means – gains you entrance into a club, a network of women everywhere who understand what it’s really like to be a mother. Members of this club understand the highs and the lows, the unrestrained joy and the pure exhaustion of it all. You see it in the knowing glance that says ‘hang in there’ when your two-year-old is screaming in the grocery checkout line. You see it when another mom helps you get two kids, a stroller, a tricycle and groceries across the street before the light changes. You see it when you get on a plane with two kids under the age of four and there is but one friendly face in a sea of irritation.

What Margaret Mizen says is absolutely true. There is too much anger in the world.

I wonder what it would be like if all moms did what Margaret has done. Perhaps if each of us could reach out to another mother today – regardless of her parenting style or where she lives or whether or not her son has just killed yours – we can all make sure that, just for today, the anger stops with us.

An original post to Silicon Valley Moms Blog, where Amy writes about what it’s really like to move away from the Center of the Universe from her new vantage point in Gloucestershire, England.