By Daniella Gray
Copyright newsweek
A Chicago mom is going viral for the heartbreaking reason why her 4-year-old daughter can’t wear her favorite crocs to school.
Dana (@muadana), who did not share her full name, posted a clip on TikTok, explaining that the crocs were bright, colorful and decorated with a light up design.
But when her daughter tried them on, Dana realized she couldn’t let her wear them to school. The reason wasn’t about fashion rules or dress codes. It was about safety in the event of a school shooting.
Mom Dana holding up a pair of children’s pink crocs, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood up.
“She’s only 4, so I couldn’t possibly tell her that the reason is in case someone with a gun storms into her school,” Dana told Newsweek. “No child should have to carry that kind of fear. Instead, I told her the shoes might be distracting and that I’d get her another pair for school. She was sad, but she accepted it. It breaks me that parents have to come up with gentler lies to protect our kids from the truth.”
According to the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, between 1970 and 2022 the number of school shootings has increased more than twelve-fold, with the likelihood of children aged 5 to 17 being school-shooting victims more than quadrupling.
In her TikTok video, Dana, a mom of four children aged 8, 4, 3 and 1 years old with her husband Moe, explained that her daughter’s school had asked families to provide “classroom Crocs”—shoes students would switch into indoors to help prevent outside germs from spreading.
She captioned the clip: “I hate it here.” Dana clarified that her frustration wasn’t aimed at her school or community, but at America’s political climate.
“I was talking about America’s political climate, where gun rights continue to outweigh children’s lives,” she said. “Parents, like me, are forced to make decisions about something as innocent as shoes because our lawmakers refuse to act on common-sense gun reform.
Dana said the rule against light-up shoes wasn’t imposed by the school, but by herself. Before she had children, she had heard another mother explain her reasoning for banning light-up sneakers: in the event of an active shooter, the glow could make a child more visible.
“The reasoning devastated me,” Dana said. “It stuck with me all these years. Now, as a parent, I carry that same fear. The fact that American parents have to think through these kinds of scenarios says everything about how broken our gun laws are.”
Dana’s clip has been viewed 2.4 million times, sparking strong reactions online, particularly from TikTok users outside the United States who didn’t understand why her daughter couldn’t wear the crocs.
“I’m clueless,” one user admitted. “Why can’t they be worn to school?” Meanwhile another wrote, “I’m sad that I know why.”
“As an Aussie, it took me a second to see the problem. I can’t imagine trying to raise kids in that environment.”
Dana said people “can’t believe” that school shoe choices are something parents have to consider in America.
“Honestly, their disbelief says it all,” she said. “The rest of the world sees how dangerous and abnormal this is, yet here, we’ve been forced to normalize it.”
“Our leaders have chosen to protect guns over protecting children,” Dana continued. “Until that changes, parents like me will keep carrying fears our kids should never have to know.”