Uh. Okay, but no thanks. I'll pass on the fear mongering and constant "vigilance." There's enough fear running around loose in the world, mine doesn't need to join it. The last thing I want is for my boys to be bubble-wrapped, Purell'd and unprepared to navigate our crazy, beautiful world. I'm of the belief that painful experiences, physical and emotional, are a huge part of learning to be a decent human being. So I refuse to hover. Besides, I'm a bit lazy and trying to control every little thing is just too much trouble.
My own Mom encouraged exploration and adventure. I was a tomboy and a bit of a hyper handful so she probably just wanted me out of her hair. I spent a lot of time playing outside unsupervised. I have a scar or two and some great stories to prove it. Once I begged my older sister to let me ride on the handlebars of her new banana seat bike. We hit a curb and crashed spectacularly and I ended up in the hospital with a concussion. I don't remember being scared at all, it was quite a blast really until I hit pavement. What I do remember is feeling a little too wild and free and knowing something more powerful than me was at work. In this case: gravity. I discovered that elusive boundary between wild abandon and the need for common sense. I was learning first hand a little bit of how the world operated and gaining healthy respect for things beyond my control. My mom wasn't lecturing me about it or making me read it from a book. I'll always want my boys to go out there and explore, get a little dirty and banged up, and to come home and tell me about it. And if I'm lucky and they do, I can tend to the wound, offer some comfort, help put things in perspective and hopefully we can find something about it worth laughing at.
I remember what it was like to get my heart broken by a boy I loved. I also remember what it was like to be the new kid sitting alone in the lunchroom. Would I go back and spare myself the pain of a break up? Had my mom sit with me in the lunch room the first week of school? NO. Because I learned from those experiences what rejection and loneliness feel like and now I can spot it in others. The most compassionate people are those that have been through some pain. The quickest to pick up the fallen are those that remember what it felt like to fall.
So when I read parenting treacle like that article, aimed at me and designed to make me feel part of an elite and smug sisterhood of protective mommies, I can't help but barf a little. Don't you, too? Motherhood doesn't give us the right to be martyrs of constant worry. It means, by some sheer miracle, I've been given the incredible honor of helping two young souls navigate their way through the world for a brief time on this earth. It will not serve them well to have me clutching the helm out of fear, even though there is plenty to fear besides broken bones and broken hearts. Of course I want to protect and nurture my boys, my love for them is bigger than I ever could have imagined before I had them, but my ultimate responsibility is to prepare them to belong to something bigger and much more important than themselves. To do that I have to allow them to live, knowing living is sometimes messy, scary and painful.
I know a lot of really great mothers. One of the greatest blessings in my life is their friendships. The ones I admire the most keep the apron strings loose as best they can, despite their fear and worries. They lead their kids by example and live a full life, laughing and learning from mistakes they make along the way. They focusing on the joy of the ride, not all the things that could go wrong. They bravely put their faith in the greatest Protector there is, knowing full well their sons and daughters have always truly belonged to Him anyway.
