To join the many thousands of protesters jamming Pennsylvania Avenue, the Greer family took the subway for the first time.
Traveling to Washington DC to take part in the super-charged March for Our Lives was an adventure for this young family. They live close by, but never come into the district for days out.
How did they manage it?
“We’re pointing out the monuments as we go along,” said Kelly Greer, who traveled to the march with her husband Jason and two children, Ainsley, 8, and Mason, 5.
“We also take lots of breaks for snacks.”
But alongside the hand-made signs colored in marker and glitter, the juice containers, and the bright knit hats, there was a serious message that parents of even young children wanted their kids to hear.
These parents, driven by their own anger or egged on by their children to attend, expressed a similar message: they needed their kids to be here.
“We mentioned (the march) and once he knew what it was about, he wanted to go,” explained one father, who brought his 10-year-old son.
“I think kids get it. It is not a difficult thing to grasp.”
The March for Our Lives was organized by students from Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in a February shooting. It was an urgent call to action by these young activists to stem the threat of gun violence in the United States.
Appropriately bundled in winter coats on this cool March day, these families with young children had lots of fun. They danced to the music pounding from the huge speakers along the march route; they ate packed snacks; and they proudly displayed their powerful and hopeful homemade signs.
“We’ve got one thing in common: We are beautiful kids who want peace,” wrote one little girl on colored-penciled sign.
And they listened when late in the day, Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez urged them: “Fight for your lives, before it’s someone else’s job.”
Shannon McNeal traveled all the way from Atlanta to bring her daughter Leah Marie, 8, to the rally, taking her out of school to do it.
“I came to the Women’s March (last year) and she did not, and she was kind of disappointed that she didn’t. So when she found out about this she said, ‘Can we go?’” McNeal said.
Asked why she felt it was important for her daughter to be here, McNeal’s reasoning was simple.
Like other parents, she pointed out that Leah Marie already knew what had happened at the Florida high school — she’s a child of the information age — and it was appropriate for her to confront it.
“She’s very aware of the politics even though we don’t talk about it,” McNeal said. “She said she heard some kids got shot at a school.”
McNeal had only one condition. Because of her experience at the Women’s March, she stopped and pulled over to the sidewalk before they got too close to the main stage. She didn’t want them to get crushed.
Keeping warm in her fox-shaped knit hat and black scarf covering her mouth and nose, Leah Marie stood on a cement planter on the sidewalk, answering questions and posing proudly with her hand-made sign. It showed 25 screaming faces; an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle she had printed out and glued on; and the penciled message, “Protect Us From Guns”.
The sign showed her research and handiwork. To make it, Leah Marie first had to Google what an assault rifle looked like.
“I looked up signs for (the march online) and then … I just wanted to make one of my own. Then I looked up AR-15s,” said this third grader, already familiar with the nomenclature of assault weapons.
Nearby, Padmaja Pavuluri and her daughter Auni, 2, also took in the march. A bit later, Auni would dance to a small street band entertaining the crowd.
Although her daughter was far too young to understand the purpose of the march, “I just felt like I had to be here to show my support,” Pavuluri said.
“I’m actually a pediatrician and I know how this affects children. What my own daughter is going through and what everyone else is going through. It’s just heartbreaking that we have to be here,” she said.
“My daughter, in day care, they learn about safe choices. And I told her this rally is all about safe choices.”
These safe choices include being safe while cooking, not yelling or grabbing, she said.
“Even though she doesn’t understand what (the march) regards, and I don’t want her to right now, it’s all about safe choices. And she seems to get it.”
Pavuluri also has a five-month-old daughter, who stayed home with the husband today. “He didn’t want us to come because he was worried about the crowds, but I just had to. I felt I really had to be here. It’s my first rally.
“The amount of kids here is just breathtaking.”
The Greer family each carried a home-made sign as they sat on the sidewalk watching the parade of protesters.
“Protect Kids! Not Guns!,” wrote Ainsley. “Books. Not Bullets,” added Mason, who also drew a big stack of books in colored marker.
Kelly Greer — holding a sign saying, “Not. One. More.” — said her family was having a fun day. But they also understood the purpose.
“We’re working hard to teach them about the really important things that impact their lives,” Greer said, “But doing it in an age-appropriate way.
“So we kind of filtered some of what’s going on, but they have a general knowledge that some bad people have made some poor choices and hurt people and there are ways in which we can change that. So that’s why we’re really trying to teach them, values and whatnot at a young age.”
Is it hard to shield them from what’s happening in the news?
“It is. It is,” she said. “It’s hard, but you know, they understand that guns can hurt people and not everyone needs to have all the guns.
“And so I think helping them learn about this now will help them be more emotionally intelligent as they get older.”