Years ago, I overheard two parents talking at a fifth-grade graduation.

“We’ve got seven more years,” one father said, after which he and his wife were headed to Florida. He was sharing the countdown to his kid’s Big Graduation on one of the Little Graduation days. It may not have been the most sentimental response to the ceremony, which also featured a slideshow and ice cream, but I smiled in commiseration.

Who among us hasn’t done that same math at some point? This dad was just saying the quiet part loud.

In fairness, by the time high school graduation rolls around, many parents have already sat through kindergarten, fifth-grade and middle school graduations. I’m not mad about any of these. We may not have had the same ceremonial markers at younger grades growing up, but we also didn’t have to worry about dodging bullets during a math test. My point is that each generation has its own reasons to party, or at least let out a collective sigh of relief, before turning the page.

Our generation has grumbled about kids’ participation trophies and over-the-top “promposals,” while shrugging at kindergartners hiding in cabinets during mass-shooting intruder drills. Maybe it’s easier to get caught up by the small stuff that feels controllable rather than the big stuff that makes us feel powerless. Consider the posts on countless parenting groups’ pages: Someone’s upset because of a school district’s swimsuit policy at pool parties. Another parent is irritated about a teacher’s note on an unwelcome bag of chips in a school lunch.

Most of the chatter is about the small grievances and demands of daily parenting. And this makes sense. It’s what we are dealing with day-to-day.

But I do wonder how this depletes our focus from a more fundamental risk facing our children: How do we prevent the kind of gun violence in schools that is a regular feature of the news cycle now? Obviously, people have different ideas on how to do this. But think back to our school days. Can you imagine someone giving your English teacher a gun to use in a possible shootout in the hallway? It seems too ludicrous to even imagine, but this is a real idea that lawmakers, particularly those beholden to the National Rifle Association, have put out there.

The probability of a child dying in a school shooting is still very low. But the chances of a child carrying the scars of living through a mass shooting are significantly higher. Last year, the Washington Post did a yearlong analysis on the collateral damage of the “uniquely American crisis” of mass shootings in our schools. They found that, beginning with Columbine in 1999, more than 187,000 students attending at least 193 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus during school hours.

The report noted that the number of children who have been shaken by gunfire in the places they go to learn exceeds the population of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It made me wonder: What would our response have been if nearly 200,000 children had been sickened by school lunches? Food poisoning would have far less of a long-term impact on a child than surviving a shooting. But I bet we would have gotten rid of questionable lunches right away.

In the meantime, we’ve let a nightmare haunt our kids from kindergarten to college graduations. We’ve let them live with the anxiety of a classroom turning into a bloody war zone.

We don’t spend nearly as much time talking about things we haven’t been able to protect our children from, partly because there are countless immediate things for parents to worry about. But this new reality we’ve created for our kids has changed my countdown clock at these minor league graduations. When my youngest finished middle school this year, I was proud of the young man he’s becoming and excited about high school for him.

But in the back of my mind, I was relieved another school year had gone by without incident.

Four more years of high school, then hopefully, four years of college.

Along the way, I’m letting more of the small stuff slide.

Every parent sending a child off to college wants to know that they’re going to be safe as they pursue their education. Unfortunately, sexual assault continues to plague most campuses.

Some victims file complaints with their schools’ Title IX offices -- either instead of or in addition to pursuing criminal charges -- but what happens then? If you haven’t been personally involved in a Title IX investigation and hearing, it’s hard to imagine how it might unfold. We’re familiar with scenes from criminal trials, but this process isn’t like that, even though the university may be making decisions about crimes as serious as rape.

The Title IX process has been the center of political and media attention in Missouri lately, as legislators and lobbyists pushed bills designed to better protect students accused of sexual assault. The Kansas City Star reported last month that Richard McIntosh, a Jefferson City lobbyist, launched a campaign to change Title IX law for every campus in the state after his son was accused and subsequently expelled from Washington University last year through the school’s Title IX process.

The proposed law’s platoon of lobbyists and supportive lawmakers have made this an issue of protecting due process rights for the accused.

So is the process, as it stands now, unfair? I reached out to Lori White, vice chancellor for student affairs at Washington University, where I have taught college writing as an adjunct, to explain the process.

Here’s what White says happens when a student makes a complaint.

-- The student is advised of their options: They can simply get the emotional and psychological support they need from the university’s resources, or they can choose to go through the criminal process, the student conduct process, or both. The support is available regardless of any other action taken.

-- The student decides which path to pursue.

-- If the student files a complaint with the Title IX office, an administrator meets with the student, takes the complaint and determines if it meets the requirement for a Title IX investigation, which looks into sexual assault, misconduct and harassment. If it does, the person accused is notified that a complaint has been filed.

-- An investigator employed by the university interviews both parties separately and any witnesses that either party provides. There is no limit on the number of witnesses.

-- The student who files the complaint can request another investigator from the university’s investigative team if they have any reservations about the hired investigator.

-- The investigator writes a detailed report about the information collected, which is seen by both parties in the case. Either party may provide any additional information after reading the report. The report is delivered to a three-person panel, which typically includes a faculty member, staff person and student. The panel calls each party separately to tell their side of the story and answer questions. The panel may also call and question witnesses from the report.

-- Both the complainant and accused are allowed to have one support person during the hearing, which can be a friend, parent, attorney, or whomever the student chooses. However, only the complainant and accused can speak during the hearing.

-- The panel issues a finding of either “responsible” or “not responsible.” The panel uses the standard of “a preponderance of the evidence,” similar to what is used in civil cases and other cases involving violations of student codes of conduct. It’s a lower standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” used in criminal trials.

-- If the accused person is found “responsible,” there is a range of consequences including probation, educational sanctions, suspension or expulsion. A report is given to both parties explaining the decision.

-- Either party can appeal the decision to the university provost, whose decision is final.

White shared data on cases that have gone through the Title IX process at Washington University from 2013 to 2018. In that time, there were 45 cases investigated by a contractor hired by the university. The accused was found responsible in 25 cases; seven of those 25 were expelled, eight suspended, and 10 got probation or an educational sanction or no-contact order with the student who made the complaint.

Washington University’s crime statistics, obtained through the Clery Report, indicate there were 122 reports of rape on campus from 2013 to 2017. The fact that only 45 Title IX investigations were pursued over a nearly concurrent time period could be due to complainant students’ decisions not to pursue the cases, White said.

“The process is designed to be fair and equitable to all parties,” White said.

The university joined other colleges in the state to speak against the proposed legislative changes to the process, which they say would discourage victims from reporting sexual assaults and misconduct.

There’s no reason to be shocked by the extremists in Alabama who would a force a girl raped by her father to bear his child. This is the holy war they’ve been waiting for. And this is the endgame that all religious zealots seek: the ability to control the most intimate, the most brutal, the most private decision a woman can ever face.

Since Jan. 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional, the anti-abortion warriors have plotted for ways to upend that ruling. And now, Donald Trump, of all people, has delivered their moment. They needed judges who share their view of America as a theocracy, in which their interpretation of God’s will supersedes all others.

White, conservative Republican men can finally decide for all the women what God says about when life begins. The 22 white Republican men in Alabama’s state senate know better than any woman what God wants, and they’re ready to jail any doctor who defies them.

This week, they passed legislation banning abortions at every stage of pregnancy, including for victims of rape and incest, and criminalizing the procedure for doctors.

They must know that some pregnant women will surely die for their vision of God’s will to be done. So they must also believe that God doesn’t care about those lives. It doesn’t matter that less than a quarter of Americans share their views. The rest of us are murderers-in-waiting because we don’t believe that the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, a fully formed human exists.

They are unconcerned with questions like the ones Carliss Chatman, a law professor at Washington & Lee Law school in Virginia, asked on Twitter: “If a fetus is a person at 6 weeks pregnant, is that when the child support starts? Is that also when you can’t deport the mother because she’s carrying a U.S. citizen? Can I insure a 6-week fetus and collect if I miscarry?”

One could also ask, if a fertilized egg is a person, then how many attempted murders has a woman with an IUD committed? How many murders has a couple who has undergone IVF committed?

These are next frontiers for their jihad to protect embryos.

But let’s be careful not to confuse the Republican devotion to a fetus with concern for a living, breathing baby outside the womb. They must know that God hates health care for all people. Or even food stamps for poor children. Their God only promises each embryo nine months in a uterus. After that, the free ride is over.

The Alabama extremists are joined by like-minded cells in state houses in Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky, North Dakota and Iowa. Missouri would be on that list if Republicans weren’t fighting among themselves about tax credits. They all want to outlaw abortion before many women even know that they’re pregnant.

Meanwhile, Missouri has one of the highest maternal death rates in the country. And yet, legislators voted down a proposal last year to have a committee study the factors contributing to the high number of deaths of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth. God must have whispered to them that those aren’t the lives worth saving.

Focus on the fetus!

It bears repeating that abortion remains legal in all 50 states. The zealots’ draconian laws do not take effect immediately. Civil liberties groups are fighting them in court.

While this battle plays out, the Alabama Republican men leading the assault on women are confident God is on their side.

The men in Afghanistan who imposed their religious will over women shared that conviction.

They can offer their comrade Republicans a battle cry: Remember the Taliban.