Are We Scaring Our Children, or Scared FOR Our Children?

Originally published October, 2008 in the Upper Cumberland NOW


Are We Scaring Our Children, or Scared FOR Our Children?

I remember being privately relieved when each of my children reached the age of one, thinking that they were then statistically past the age of sudden infant death syndrome. I remember being secretly ecstatic when they quit gymnastics and I could quit watching them with my heart in my throat try to do back handsprings on the floor and walkovers on the beam. Even now, when they are 22 and 25, I locate them in my head when I hear an ambulance and I breathe a little easier when the ambulance goes away from where I think they are at that time of day. Pessimistic of me I know, but I can’t seem to conquer it. I never wanted them to ride in the same car when they were young drivers, thinking somehow in my warped mind that losing one of them would be horrible, but losing both would be unimaginably unthinkable.
Over protective? Possibly. But maybe not. After all, they did sleep in their own cribs from day one. They did take gymnastics for all those years. They swung from tree branches, played on the monkey bars, tried to fly off of the deck, and the oldest did, on occasion, take the other one to school. But still I worried.
My kids never saw a stranger. They were raised in the business that I had at the time, a sporting goods store. They grew up talking to all the customers, and as far as they were concerned, everybody was their friend. Oh, there were a few blunders along the way, like the time one of them as a toddler walked very slowly and very stiffly up to the counter with a fishing lure stuck on her little lips. Luckily the barbs of the hooks didn’t go through, but I felt guilty, nonetheless. There was the time I let one of them go to the bank with one of our regular customers to get a sucker (Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!). I was in a cold sweat from the time they pulled out of the parking lot and I realized what I had done and what the man could do to her to in the eight long minutes that they were gone.
We have probably all, at one time or another, briefly lost our kids at Wal-Mart or the grocery store or the mall. As we frantically abandon our carts and run wildly through the store, whip lashing our own necks looking down each aisle, we have visions of child molesters going through our heads. Then, when we find our child, we are very unsure as to whether the occasion calls for a hug or a scolding or both. (I vote both.)

So then, there’s this woman, Lenore Skinazy, of New York City, who let her 9-year-old son find his own way home from the Manhattan Bloomingdale’s, and she did it on purpose. He had been begging her to let him find his way home from somewhere, anywhere, so she did. She and her son received international attention (unintentional on her part) for the deed. I just got through reading her article titled “Let’s Stop Scaring Our Kids” in this month's Readers Digest. I wonder if Ms. Skinazy doesn’t have some good points.
According to the article, it’s TV that has scared all of us to death. We hear story after story about children that have wondered off, children that have been kidnapped, and children that have been hurt because of irresponsible parenting. Ms Skinazy armed her child with a subway map, a transit card, $20 for an emergency, and a couple of quarters for a pay phone. I wonder if we can arm our own children with a knowledge that sometimes bad things can happen; and can we give them that knowledge without scaring them beyond reason.
When my children were small, say under the age of 10, I went to church with a woman who also had two daughters. She had cautioned her children so diligently about talking to strangers that whenever anyone spoke to them, they would run away screaming “Stranger! Stranger!” to their mother. My kids were the polar opposites, perhaps being way too trusting. There’s probably a happy medium in there somewhere.
According to Ms. Skinazy, since writing the article and getting all the publicity, she has spoken to a dad who won’t let his eight-year-old out to play in his own driveway, and a mom who won’t let her daughter even go to the mailbox alone, because in her quiet suburban neighborhood there would be no one to witness if someone were to snatch her daughter. And all of this is done even though according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center, crimes against children are down to levels we haven’t seen since the early 70’s. So, I wonder, are the crimes against kids down because people have stopped trying to do the crimes or because we are protecting our kids better?
When did we have to stop letting our kids be kids? When did it become dangerous to be out after dark, and terrifying for kids to walk anywhere alone? When did the monkey bars become dangerous? I certainly remember times when my mother would tell my sister, brother and I to “go outside and play, and don’t come in until I call you for supper, unless you are hurt.” (Of course on those hot muggy days, there were times when ants “bit” us and scratches from bike wrecks became wounds of gargantuan proportion, and we HAD to go in.) I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, and even then when I would walk alone up the street to my best friend Rebecca’s house my mother would caution me about talking to strangers in cars.
It’s sad really, because just about the time it became unsafe for kids to play outside without adult supervision it also became the time when we saw the obesity levels in children start to escalate. Coincidence? Probably not. Of course you also have to factor in the computer games that started with Nintendo and has become more entertaining over the years to the point that for a while the only parts of our children’s bodies that were getting exercise were their thumbs and fingers. Thank goodness for the Wii, which at least exercises some of the other body parts.
One other little tidbit, and I will shut up. I took a class at church when my children were small. It was called “Training Up a Child”. I learned some very valuable lessons in that class that helped my children to grow up as perfect as they are. (That was sarcasm; they’re not perfect in anybody’s eyes but mine.) The lesson that comes to mind right now is this: Never say No if you can possibly say Yes. Think about it! Listen to these phrases: No, no, no, no, no, no, No! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, No! Which “no” at the end of the sentence has more meaning? Kids like to do things that are fun to them, not necessarily those things that we as adults think are fun. So for me, it was, “Yes, you can play out in the rain.” “Yes, you can wash the dog in the rain.” Yes, you can play with your boat in the puddles.” “Yes, you can have a picnic outside in the rain.” But “NO, you cannot hold your little sister facedown in the puddle”. See what was important there? All those no’s amounted to just a little bit of extra work there for me. A few wet clothes, a few wet towels, and a wet dog. But when I said yes, yes, yes, then the NO became more important.
Oh, I know it’s so easy for me as the parent of grown children to sit and write about how to rear children. Hey, I’ve been out of that job for about 5 years now. If I had listened to some of the things my mother’s and father’s admonishing though, things would have been easier. So train up your children. Love them, support them, play with them, protect them, teach them, and yes, even like them when they are teenagers. It won’t be long until they are gone from home.