I fear raising children in the future.

I fear knowing what my children will live through. We live in a world where we preach equality but we practice the opposite. We wake up every morning expecting there to be news of a terrorist attack, a fatal shooting or a hate crime on a certain group of people who woke up and tried living their life just like we did.

I don't want my future children to grow up in the world we live in today. I don't want my children to think they are privileged because of the color of their skin. I don't want my children to think it isn't OK for them to live a certain life or practice a certain religion because it's against the social norms. I don't want my children growing up to perceive being gay as a bad thing, for themselves or others.

I fear that they will need to shelter themselves from the world in fear of being hated on. I don't want my son to think that no is the only word that means no or that my daughter thinks she needs to dress a certain way to prevent something from being her fault. My children can't grow up in a society filled with hatred towards a group of people because that's what everyone else feels, or that turning to guns and violence is the only answer to situations. I believe we go through life every day hoping someone has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel that stops all of the hatred, But in reality, we all know that light will never come the way the world is today and were trapped in it forever.

I don't want my son and daughter growing up to believe that what was once practiced as wrong is now acceptable to be practiced as right and that it's OK to shelter a certain person from the rest to the world. My son should not grow up to be afraid of pursuing a career in fear of being attacked or for my daughter thinking she isn't good enough to do something because "that's a man's job."

Some people are still living in a world where women are frowned upon because others believe they should only stick to certain actions, or where males can't be seen as anything but harmful and mean. I did not realize we were still stuck in the early 1900s. We watch our TV for an hour a day and witness more horror stories than some people have seen in a lifetime.

We have to stop blaming the world's actions on anybody but ourselves, and we need to start seeing the difference between what we practice and what we preach and that it is not OK to do these things. I don't want my children growing up to think they're equal just to be stabbed in the back by the people that tell them to just be "who they are." When will enough finally be enough?