April 20, 2009
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its how things are these days
Lately there have been a host of television shows, news articles, and emails going about how when we were young children we played outside more, were left unattended for longer periods of time, could be trusted to walk all the way to school and home again. All of those things and many many more are what our children do not do these days. I admit that I am one of those parents that doesn’t let my children go to the park unless I am with them. Am I being over protective? Over bearing? Ridiculous? You tell me.
Recently a young girl went missing in Ontario (if you’ve not heard of this you can read about it here), and according to all the news reports, it looks like the girl knew her abductor. The Husband and I have had many conversations about this and how are we going to stop this from happening to any of our children with out taking away their already limited freedoms. And as sick as it is that family’s loss is our teaching tool. We have come up with a code word for Oldest Large Child if the event ever comes up where she has to go with someone, even someone she knows, without prior arrangement with The Husband or me. The Husband thought I was being a bit over the top when I said it does not matter WHO approaches OLC and tells her she needs to go with them and I started listing family members and close friends. If that person does not give her the code word Oldest Large Child is not to go with them, even if its my mother or Father. There are too many horror stories in the news, on the internet, nearly everywhere about children being abducted by people they knew, their whole family knew! People they have known for years and suddenly this person they have trusted for so long does this horrible thing that they could never have predicted would happen and one of the most precious things in their lives is gone and either never seen again, or never the same again.
We can’t live in a bubble of “that will never happen here” because we can’t predict where, when or to whom it will happen. Parenting today is far harder than it was even 5 years ago. There is more out there and as the world population grows, unfortunately so do the amount of twisted people. The ones we can’t trust with our children. And as the world of communication grows, not so long ago the internet was a black screen and was limited to very simple tasks, and we grow in our desires to know more, hear more, see more, so does the reality of the horror of a missing child.
So am I being too paranoid?
