This picture is of me — someone who has done this work for decades and is not flinching.
I write The Relentless School Nurse. I write as a school nurse, not as a metaphor, but as a lived, professional identity. For nearly a decade, this space has been where I bear witness to how policy decisions land not in theory, but in children’s bodies, brains, classrooms, and futures.
Across four decades in nursing and ten years of writing, one truth has remained constant: when systems fail children, silence is not ethical. Speaking out is part of the work. And nursing is political.
My last blog post was about the detention of a 5-year-old preschooler by ICE. What followed should have been a serious, difficult, and necessary conversation about child welfare, trauma, and public health. Instead, much of the response devolved into personal attacks, attempts to discredit me, to question my integrity, my professionalism, and my right to speak at all.
Let me be unequivocally clear: I will not be silenced by personal attacks.
And I will also not tolerate them.
Harassment, intimidation, and dehumanizing language are not “differences of opinion.” They are tactics meant to shut down moral witness and distract from the real issue at hand: a child was detained, and harm was done. I welcome disagreement rooted in facts and humanity. I do not accept cruelty masquerading as debate.
As this conversation has unfolded, we are also confronting more devastating news from Minnesota: reports that a nurse, a U.S. citizen, a healthcare professional, practicing his right to protest, was killed during a federal immigration enforcement action. As investigations continue and details emerge, one truth is already apparent: when fear, force, and dehumanization are normalized as tools of policy, people get hurt. Sometimes they die.
This is not theoretical.
This is not partisan.
And this is not an abstract policy discussion.
This is about children being detained and traumatized.
This is about families living under constant threat.
This is about communities — including nurses — absorbing the consequences of enforcement practices rooted in fear rather than care.
As a school nurse, I see daily what trauma does to children’s bodies, brains, and futures. I understand toxic stress not as a buzzword, but as a clinical and public health reality, one that interferes with learning, development, and long-term health. Fear does not stay contained within institutions. It follows children into classrooms, onto playgrounds, and into adulthood.
Detaining a preschooler is not a neutral act.
It is a child welfare issue.
It is a public health issue.
It is a moral issue.
I welcome thoughtful, respectful disagreement. Democracy depends on dialogue.
What I will not accept, here or anywhere, is harassment, threats, or the normalization of cruelty, particularly toward children or toward those who advocate for them.
So let me be explicit about boundaries:
This space is for fact-based, humane discussion.
Personal attacks, threats, and dehumanizing language will be removed.
Disagree respectfully — or disengage.
And let me say this plainly:
Children are not criminals.
Nurses do not abandon their ethics for comfort or approval.
Silence in the face of harm is not neutrality — it is complicity.
If centering children, families, and human dignity makes you uncomfortable, I invite you to reflect on why. Discomfort can be instructive. Cruelty is not.
I will continue to write.
I will continue to speak.
I will continue to stand with children, families, and my nursing colleagues.
Relentlessly.
