When I was a little younger and a lot more naïve, I used to work for a large-circulation newspaper. In my four years there, I witnessed several disasters and tragedies through the lens of the observer, the journalist. I was able to detach myself. I had almost nothing in common with the victims of these horrible twists of fate.

But becoming a mother changed all that.

Today, I can’t think of anything other than the families of the 20 slain elementary school children in Newtown, Conn. My heart is absolutely broken by this tragedy, knowing that these events are entirely random and incredibly agonizing.

I know that this evening I will hug my son a little tighter and pray a little harder, and in the back of my mind I will hope that it’s enough.

The truth is that it won’t be. In the next weeks and months parents everywhere will look for ways to prevent this from happening again. Parents who wear police uniforms, parents who make laws and parents who lead our country are heartbroken, too.

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. Each time I learn the news I react not as a president but as anybody else would as a parent,” said President Obama on Friday afternoon. “The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10. They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.”

Parents who run schools and parents who teach at them will look over their shoulders, and the parents of students will be anxious until their children come home safe. They, too, will hug their children a little tighter, pray a little harder, and hope that it’s enough.

Those same parents will work to tighten security at schools, installing more checkpoints and metal detectors, finding ways to keep the bogeyman at bay. Parents will call for more or less gun control, depending on their point of view, and it will spark debates on issues that have been argued for decades.

But at the end of the news cycle, we have to realize that we are parents. We love our children more than anything in the world, and we can’t imagine the pain and anger felt by the mothers and fathers of those 18 children. We can’t imagine what it’s like to lose an innocent child in an act of violence and self-loathing. We can’t imagine what we can do to prevent another senseless tragedy.

But we have to try.