To the Editor:

In the 1980s, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament adopted a poster of a woman holding an infant and offering the baby a small globe. “Children ask the world of us,” the poster read. Universal concern for the welfare of children brought women together to work towards a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.

Today, our country is reeling from the unspeakable violence that has claimed the lives of 20 young children and eight adults.

As we grieve with those Connecticut families, we also recall news photos of grieving family members in Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Gaza — villages and cities throughout the world — all asking what they could have done to keep their children safe.

We ask how could it be that our schools, homes, houses of worship — the places where we live our lives — have all become vulnerable to acts of war and violence?

If children do indeed “ask the world of us,” what is the world we are giving to them?

We have made choices as individuals, as communities, as nations and as members of a world community that have brought us to this place in history. Will we continue to contribute to these tragic and senseless deaths — failing to insist on reasonable restrictions on the sale and use of deadly weapons; funding wars that kill our own and other peoples’ children in the name of peace and freedom; standing by as poverty, hunger and desperation steal the hope from our children’s lives and as our way of life threatens the very existence of our planet?

Whose rights and freedoms are we protecting and to what end?

When will we say enough to a world that values competition, aggression, power and control over community, collaboration, justice and compassion?

What will it take to dedicate our human intelligence and sensitivity to the creation of a world in which all children have what they need to live healthy, productive and creative lives?

We can decide to come together to build that world.

It is time to say enough — for our children, for the world.

Cathey Cyrus
Woolwich