"I want to share the pain," wrote a friend in Australia, where the Sandy Hook victims' photos dominated the front page. "The pain is gut-wrenching. It's in my heart, my head, my womb." One side of me knows just what she's saying: We are all connected, human-to-human.

And another side of me, the reporter side, knows what sells papers. Even 10,000 miles away.

While I understand the media, I actually don't quite understand my friend. She wants to be share the pain, but how is this actually sharing?

I ask not because I am belittling her hurt. I feel it, too, in the same organs. I'm really just trying to figure out what purpose sharing the ultimate pain of certain parents — but not of every parent in deep pain — serves. And also: Who are we sharing it with? I don't think we're sharing it with the actual families, are we? Their situations and ours are so different. So are we sharing it with our fellow onlookers? What makes this feel like we are "doing" something — and what, in fact, ARE we doing?

Trying not to sound like a sociologist from Mars, I took to my blog (freerangekids.com) with these questions, and one more: If we do NOT want to share the pain, does this make us "bad"?

Well, this opened a discussion among a silent, almost closeted, group: Folks who feel a little queasy about the outpouring of empathy. "My sympathies go out to the parents and families," wrote one mom. "I cannot imagine what they must be going through. On the other hand, I have heard as much as I want to hear about it. Evil exists in this world and as insensitive as it sounds, talking endlessly about this event is not going to shine any light on why it happened."

Shhh ... I feel the same way. I even worry that focusing so much on it does the opposite of shining a light. It creates darkness: a belief that, because 20 children died suddenly somewhere, then all children are in danger all the time, everywhere. That belief can lead beyond sensible safety precautions to community-corroding measures, such as the school in Anchorage that held its annual Christmas concert over the weekend, but required all guests to sign in.

Uh — how did that make anyone safer? All it did was add a new layer of bureaucracy, while subtly suggesting that the school considers all visitors at least POSSIBLY mass murderers. (Unless they have proper IDs, then they're fine.)

Another reader voiced this rather taboo thought: Why leave teddy bears in shrines when you could send toys to children in need? And another: Why don't we grieve for all murdered children this way, including the poor ones killed in housing projects? And here's one more subversive thinker:

"I don't need to watch interviews with 7-year-olds to know that they will need a lot of time to heal. I don't need to see the pictures of the children and adults who were murdered to know that their families will miss them forever. I don't need to know what happened at the funerals to know that this is one of the hardest days of these parents' lives. And I don't need to talk to my friends about how devastated I am. Because although I feel sad, my life will be the same as it was before in just a matter of days. The lives of those who were actually there and who lost loved ones will never be the same. My wallowing will not do anything for them."

Wallowing is not always voluntary, of course. The sadness hits different people different ways. But to retreat from the mass misery is not evil or uncaring or even a bad idea.

In this era of vigils 10,000 miles away, it's just not common.

Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)," and, "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([email protected]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.