a weaving & a reckoning

for care, for children, for us all...

Mar 21, 2025

I am sitting with the weight of it all. With the stories my students have shared, with the ways our systems are failing them, failing us, by design. And now, with Trump’s executive order dismantling the Department of Education, a blow that cuts even deeper into an already broken system that has left so many children behind.

As an educator, as the wife of an educator, as someone who works inside correctional facilities with youth who have been abandoned by nearly every institution meant to support them, I cannot stay silent. I will not.

These systems were never designed to truly care for the most vulnerable, but there have always been those of us—teachers, mentors, counselors, community members—who have fought to create spaces of safety, learning, nourishment, and possibility despite that. And now? Now we are watching the intentional dismantling of even the bare minimum.

I sit with my students, and they tell me what they have survived: sexual assault, gun violence, addiction in their homes, being taken on drug runs as children, losing family to incarceration or overdose, sacrificing their own meals to feed younger siblings. Many have been in and out of foster care, shuffled from home to home, often without stability, love, or the resources they need to thrive. Others have been homeless, navigating a world that refuses to see them, that treats their suffering as an afterthought. I sit with them, and I listen. And I hold the unbearable truth: these are children. And the weight they carry should not exist. And yet, here we are.

And it is not just them. It is all of us. It is the pain that ripples out into the world, through generations, through systems that refuse to acknowledge their own violence. It is the exhaustion of knowing the harm is not incidental—it is intentional. That the suffering of the most vulnerable has been manufactured, maintained, and monetized. And it is a call, a roar, a begging for us all to wake up.

We are failing them. Not because we have to, but because adults in power choose to. Because too many people remain comfortable in their silence. Because accountability is terrifying to those who benefit from the chaos.

And make no mistake, this is not just about education. This administration has made it clear that it seeks to erase, oppress, and control. Trump’s executive orders are not just dismantling education; they are actively attacking LGBTQIA+ rights, stripping access to gender-affirming care, criminalizing identity, and silencing queer stories and histories. To live in fear of existing, to be told by the highest powers that who you are is invalid, unsafe, unwanted—this is violence. This is systemic cruelty. And it is happening in real time.

I know what fear does to us. I know what it does to families. I am the child of two adults who were also these children. They survived, but they did not make it out alive. Addiction, mental illness, situational poverty, shame, stress, and gun violence took my parents from me. Violence took my parents from me. And I am steadfast in ensuring that I get to see a world where these deep-rooted wounds no longer have to keep us in cycles and systems of pain.

I support my students not only with tools for healing but with the most basic needs—food, transportation, access. The very things so many take for granted are the very things that determine survival for these kids. And I refuse to let them go unseen.

I support them not only through my work but through my politics—because the political landscape is the personal one, too. Policies shape lives. Elections determine futures. Every law, every budget cut, every dismantled protection affects real people, real children. The system thrives on keeping us disconnected from that truth, but I refuse to look away. And I ask you not to either.

We are living in a country where a man in power does not care about us. He does not care about our children, our planet, our peace. He profits off our pain, our ignorance, our blind allegiance. He thrives when we bypass ourselves and each other. This is not leadership. This is destruction masked as power.

But listen, we are not powerless.

We can change our minds. We can change our hearts. We can change our choices. We are not bound to the systems we were born into—we are the ones who get to decide if we will continue them or dismantle them.

And yet, in the midst of all of this, I still believe in care. I still believe in tenderness. I still believe in the transformative power of being seen, of being held, of being given a chance. And I believe in community—because I know I cannot do this alone. None of us can.

I am calling in help. I am calling in those who see the truth and refuse to turn away.

When you support my work, you are not just supporting me. You are supporting them. You are investing in something beyond yourself, beyond me, beyond this moment. You are investing in the radical and necessary act of care.

Because I know this:

✨ Magick happens when we start receiving the tenderness we need.✨

If the world hasn’t been tender to us, we struggle to be tender with ourselves and each other. But we can change that. Miracles happen in the space of compassion, and magick in the space of tenderness.

So, I ask you: when was the last time you received either? When was the last time you offered it?

We are all grieving right now, and that grief is fuel for what comes next. We must choose wisely.

✨ The heart of every situation is choice. ✨

Each of us holds the power to make choices that either support freedom or sustain suffering. Will we see the beauty or the poison? Will we open our eyes to the systems built on harm and choose to dismantle them with care, or will we look away?

I choose to see the resilience, the expansion, the possibility beyond what my eyes can yet perceive.

I choose to rise, over and over again.

I choose to believe that care is our greatest currency. That love—radical, active, engaged love—is the only thing that will get us through.

And my hope is: so will you.

For the children of this world here and now. For the children we once were. For the children we will always be.

We have a choice. And may we make the one that leads to liberation—for them, for us, for the future we are still capable of creating.

Here’s how you can take action:

📢 Speak Up: Have conversations. Name the harm. Don’t let this moment pass in silence.

🗳 Vote: Elections matter. Every policy, every law, every funding decision directly impacts lives.

💵 Donate: Support organizations that are on the ground providing food, shelter, education, and care to vulnerable youth. If you feel called, you can also support my work—every dollar goes into creating safe, healing spaces for these kids as well as the adults that I work with in this world who are also healing from similar experiences.

📚 Educate Yourself & Others: Read. Listen. Learn. Share resources with your community.

💞 Take Care of Each Other: Acts of care are acts of resistance. Love is revolutionary. Community is everything.

This is not just a moment. It is a movement. And we need all hands and hearts on deck.

With Great Purpose by Keri Kenney

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