When We Know Better, We Must Do Better: From the NICU to the Nation

“When we go numb to harm—whether in a NICU or a nation—we make space for cruelty to thrive. But when we choose to feel again, we become the heartbeat of healing, justice, and change.” — Mary Coughlin

When We Know Better...

There’s a particular kind of ache that never leaves you.

It’s the ache of standing by—knowing what’s right, feeling it in your bones—and doing nothing.

Ask any seasoned NICU clinician and they’ll tell you: they carry memories like stones.
Like the baby who grimaced in pain during a procedure—tiny fists clenched, brow furrowed, heart racing—and didn’t receive pain relief because someone said, “It’s just a heel stick.”
Or the mother who reached out instinctively to hold her baby, only to be told, “Not now. It’s not touch time.”

Those moments haunt us.
Because we knew better.
But we didn’t speak up.
Or we did—and were shut down.
Or we rationalized, deferred, minimized.
And in doing so, we became bystanders to harm.

It’s not always overt cruelty that wounds.
Sometimes, it’s the silence of those who could have intervened—and didn’t.

And right now, outside the walls of the NICU, we are witnessing the same phenomenon, on a massive, national scale.

A country being conditioned to tolerate cruelty.

Children being separated from parents.
Rights being stripped, gaslit, erased.
Institutions of care and justice dismantled.
The truth twisted.
The press silenced.
Power consolidated.

And too many of us—good people—are whispering versions of the same line:

“Someone else will fix it.”
“I don’t want to get involved.”
“It’s not that bad yet.”
“I’m just so tired.”

We know this story.
We’ve seen how it ends.

We see it in the baby who flinches at every touch.
In the parent who questions their worth because no one trusted their instincts.
In the clinician who walks out of the NICU one day and never returns, burnt out by the moral injury of staying silent.

And we are seeing it now—in the fabric of our society—fraying thread by thread.

But there’s another truth we must name:

We have been traumatized for so long, many of us are now dissociating.

We are not apathetic.
We are overwhelmed.
Our bodies, our hearts, our collective nervous system have absorbed so much unrelenting stress, outrage, and helplessness that we’ve begun to go numb.

This is what trauma does.
It disconnects us from what we can’t bear to feel.

And dissociation—while it may protect us short-term—becomes dangerous when it calcifies.
Because authoritarianism doesn’t need us enraged.
It only needs us resigned.

And that resignation is what allows injustice to root deeper, spread faster, and mask itself as “normal.”

But here's the radical, defiant, trauma-informed truth:

We were never meant to be bystanders.
Not in the NICU.
Not in our communities.
Not in democracy.

We are meant to feel.
We are meant to care.
We are meant to act.

Just like we’ve learned to say:
“That baby needs pain relief. Now.”
Or: “That parent deserves to hold their child.”

We must now say:
“This is not normal.”
“This is not okay.”
“We will not comply with cruelty.”

The same clarity, compassion, and courage that drives us to protect the most vulnerable in the NICU is what must now guide us in the public square.

Because silence is not neutral.
Numbness is not a strategy.
And waiting for someone else to fix it is not an option.

So ask yourself:

• Where am I being a bystander?

• What pain am I rationalizing?

• What harm am I allowing because I feel too small, too scared, or too tired?

And then ask:

• What might awaken in me if I felt again?

• What power might return if I remembered I am not alone?

• What world could we build if we stopped standing by—and started standing up?

With fierce love and unshakable hope,
Mary

P.S. If this stirred something in you—don’t just sit with it. Stand with it.
Speak up. Share this. Start a conversation.
Because silence has never been the path to healing.
And we need every voice in this moment—including yours.