You Just Can't Be Too Cautious

I worry about my kids. I will always worry about my kids. I always thought my mom worried too much about us, but I get it. I will personally hurt whomever intentionally hurts my child.

I took a class at church this past weekend about creating safe environments for children. I just watched the news this week as a family lost their 17-year-old daughter who never came back from a run. And I was reminded that there is a registered sex offender who lives in my neighborhood. If there is an open house on my street any weekend, cars come whipping around the corner. So forgive me if I don't let my little kids play in front of the house without me or another capable person watching them.

And if you do allow that for your little kids? Well, I just don't get you. If I can't see or at least hear my kids at all times when it's my watch, then I'm not doing my job. I even struggle letting my 6-year-old son use the public men's room by himself (but I do it...if I am standing right outside). And, sorry ladies, he is coming into the public ladies room with me. I don't live in the deep woods, I don't live in the city. Most of my neighbors are good, safe people. But - and I can't believe I am quoting my mother - there are a lot of weirdos out there.

My kids wear helmets when they ride their bikes and scooters. It just takes seeing a cracked bike helmet one time to convince you how worthwhile that is.

So, forgive me if I freak out when my husband tells me that he's agreed to let the 6-year-old go home from school with one of his classmates. I am sure his parents are fine, decent people. But I have never been to their house. I don't know if they have vicious dogs. I don't know if they have guns. I don't know if they have an unsecured pool. I don't know that they don't have a dirty house (and my standards on that are pretty low, but still, don't know!). I had to put my foot down.

Am I over-reacting? Maybe. But if my kids are ever in harm's way in a situation I have allowed, then it's no one's fault but mine. It will be on no one's conscience but my own. I still have nightmares about the time I totalled our car with two kids in it, and I was six months pregnant. I know it was an accident. I tried like hell to avoid it. Maybe I did keep them from getting hurt but it could have been worse and it would have been on my watch.

I do not keep them wrapped in plastic. They get hurt. Two of my three kids have been in the ER for xrays for stupid things that happened right in front of me. I know I can't prevent everything and I have to give them some element of freedom.

I also know it's only gonna get worse as they get older. 10 years from now, they will be doing things I don't know about and not telling me. They willl lie to me about where they've been probably (and the odds of them having as many "broken watches" as I had are pretty low). I can only hope I give them the knowledge to keep themselves safe. It starts with the parents.