Motherhood is a powerful thing. When you are fighting to protect your child, anything becomes possible. If the need arises, logic and rational thought become overpowered by the fierce instinct to do what needs to be done. Your instinct may drive you back into the flames of a burning building once you realize your child was left inside. It may send you up against a powerful animal many times your size, even if the battle seems impossible to win. You will do it. Mother-instincts give you the courage to risk your life, even die for your child, without a moment’s thought or hesitation. But what happens when you find yourself in a situation where you can’t rely on instinct alone? When you’re forced to make frightening, potentially deadly decisions, in order to keep your child safe?

Imagine you have a 16 year old daughter. Imagine that the most dangerous gang your police department has ever seen decides to recruit your daughter to help them blanket your city with crack cocaine. What would you do? Could you go undercover within the gang, risking your own life and your daughter’s, to try to bring them down from the inside? Carla Shultz from Springfield, Missouri found herself faced with that difficult decision. But Schultz felt like she had no choice- her daughter was in danger. In the news story from the Ozarks news-leader.com website they describe Schultz’s frightening ordeal:

In the summer of 1994, Shultz immersed herself in the gang. Armed drug dealers cut and packaged crack in her house before stashing it everywhere inside, including electrical sockets. When the supply ran out, she went with them to Chicago’s ghettos for another shipment. Once, Shultz said, the so-called Chicago Boys stole several guns from a rival gang and drove them back to Springfield under the hood of her car. Shultz performed dozens of drug buys for police and wore a wire to capture conversations about the burgeoning business.
Shultz, who was like a mother to the gang members, is certain they would have killed her had they learned she was a spy.
“They would’ve killed me and Kari. I know for a fact they would’ve,” she said. “But if you get pushed into a corner, you do whatever you have to do to get out of that corner.”

Thanks to Schultz’s help, police were able to arrest and prosecute the gang members that were involved in running the drug ring. Justice was served, the town was free from the most notorious gang it had ever seen, and most importantly to Carla Schultz, her daughter was safe.

The thing is, sitting here in my warm house, snuggled up in bed with my laptop, I find it easy to judge Schultz’s actions. I would never do that, I think to myself. Why didn’t she just pick up her daughter and run for safety once she knew how dangerous the situation was? How could she willingly put herself and her child in such a prolonged state of vulnerability? From the safety of my bedroom it seems like a foolish and ridiculous risk to take, and I silently vow never to put my family through such a nightmare.

But I don’t think I could ever really understand. Not until I am face to face with the moment in which I need to do something drastic in order to keep my child safe. I don’t think I have any idea what I am really capable of.

After all, I am a mother.