If they’re not in danger of dying or being maimed, have at it. The exception is when I really, really don’t want to hear Emmy’s dentist-drill shriek. I should record it and sell it to terrorists for one million dollars. It’s the worst thing I experience every day, and she pulls it out for both the tiniest cuts and the most spectacular falls. But when she split her chin open and needed stitches, she didn’t cry even once. I don’t even know. This kid used to fall off playground equipment on the regular and just grunt at the inconvenience. It’s this awful developed reflex, and I blame her sister, who used to cry constantly.
(It wasn’t her fault. She has neurotic genes.)
Kids are dumb. Yes. Your kid is DUMB. Even your gifted and talented kid. Get over it. They’re dumb because they’ve only had a handful of years to learn everything you know at age 30 or 40. Remember all the things you fell off of? No? That’s because of the brain damage.
But seriously. Risks are GOOD for kids. I have one very clumsy child and one very anxious child. The clumsy child hurts herself by falling out of chairs planted on solid floor. She is the picture of grace when navigating a room full of LEGO, but just watch as she walks carefully down the sidewalk. There will be a skinned knee. There will be a nazgul shriek. The neurotic child, on the other hand, does nothing until she’s certain she can do it perfectly. She didn’t walk until 17 months, but then when she did walk she fell down maybe three times. Neither child would benefit from constant safety checks. With the one kid, it’s pointless. She’d hurt herself in a rubber room. With the other, she’d spend adulthood in a home for terrified adults. I don’t think that exists, but it would be invented just for her.
Which brings me to this article, which I just read and loved:
Is child trafficking real and terrifying? Yes. Is everyone out to get your children? No. Have a handful of children been kidnapped under unlikely circumstances? Yes. Is it worth imposing a reign of terror upon your children as they grow up, just to keep them safe? NOOOOO.
The retort I always hear is, “What’s the harm in being cautious? At least they’ll be safe.” Well, I don’t know. Maybe… living your life in fear? Raising children who are too afraid to dare anything, ever? Who can’t take any kind of risk as adults in careers where they have to take a leap once in a while to be successful? Learning even worse risk assessment than humans are naturally inclined to? The inability to listen to and hone their instincts over the noise of constant terror?
Pretty much the most dangerous thing any normal person does regularly, is to get in a car and drive somewhere. But somehow that’s still on the table as an OK activity for overprotective parents everywhere to do. This is what’s known as poor risk assessment. The risk that your child will be kidnapped walking two blocks to school is eight billion times lower than the risk that your child will grow up afraid to do anything courageous, no matter how great it could be. Humans are terrible at weighing these against each other. I see my kid walking to school (ok I don’t anymore because it’s three miles away and even I am not that heartless, and also I don’t want to get her up at 6am), and my vivid imagination comes up with all kinds of terrifying scenarios in which she is ripped from my arms forever. It’s terrible, and I sympathize, but the odds are something like fifteen times greater that she will die in a car accident on the way to school. My brain has absorbed the everyday fact of driving around, recognizes it as a huge convenience, and thus short circuits my risk assessment abilities in that area. But the fact remains that, if something terrible happens to either of my children, odds are ever in the favor of it being a car accident.
Everyone has his or her thing. I am freaked about drowning. I almost drowned as a child–in fact, it’s my earliest memory–, and so I won’t let my kids quit swimming until they are up to swim teams levels of competency. I was on a team for almost ten years, and I still feel uneasy around water. I love the water, but there’s a small part of my lizard brain that’s still terrified of it. So I get it. You’re scared about That One Thing, so what’s the harm in posting your Facebook article?
Well… spreading hysteria? Making already fearful parents even more fearful? Don’t spread your neuroses, friends. Yes, drowning is a terrible risk, and lots of kids die from it. But I’m forcing my children to continue swimming lessons well past the point that they really need them purely for safety. However, I’m not posting highly speculative articles on Facebook about how imperative it is that your kid learn the butterfly, OR HE COULD DIE. Keep your irrational fears contained. We all have our own, and we don’ t need more.
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