That Was Their Life

Becoming a parent changed me. As I watched my first child's eyes, intent as a starving baby rabbit, on getting his first meals, I realized with a shudder that if anything happened to me, I'd be leaving him in the care of someone who thought it would be a good idea to give him an enema on his first night at home. I started buckling my seat belt. Every time.

I struggled to shoulder the grave responsibility. I'd always loved babies, so there was much to caring for him that I enjoyed, but the enormity of the situation settled on me like a mountain. And the love I had for him was like nothing else. Just the thought that something could happen to him left me without air in my lungs.

I remember the first time I read in the newspaper--as a mother--about a tragedy. A baby had strangled in his crib. The baby was only a month older than my baby. The crib had been too far from the wall, and the child had crawled out and gotten his head stuck between the crib and the wall. My whole body hurt when I read that. I thought, "Could that happen here?" I went into the nursery and looked at the placement of the crib near the windows. I shoved the crib up hard against the wall so that there was no room between the two, then made sure the drapery cords were out of reach.

After that, every tragic news article gave me pause. I asked myself, "Could that happen to us?" Most of the time, I was glad to realize, it wasn't likely. Much of the time, the parents had been more careless than I was, had done something that I could point a finger at as a cause, or at least a contributing factor. Sometimes, these true stories opened my eyes to the need for new rules and precautionary measures that I hadn't thought of before. Sometimes, though, things happened that I realized could happen to anyone. Even me, with all my rules.

But it seems to hold true that being careful reduces the risk of a tragedy. Accidents are caused, after all, by mistakes or contributing factors. Common sense and good rules to live by can avert not all but many a tragedy.

Reading about toddlers run over by someone in their own driveway, for example, has made me very careful about getting my children into the house. It seems like we lose a child a week this way in our community, so I have lots of rules--children are first before groceries, and I hold their hands and make sure they get into the house. Then I keep them in the house, especially if someone is coming or going. Other people's tragedies have made me careful turning into the driveway. I only let small children play only in the back yard. We hold hands when we cross streets. Two-year-olds and one-year-olds are never outside even for a minute without me there to watch them. Stuff like that.

Yes, I know, it can be a pain to have to haul all of your kids--or a finally-asleep child--into every place you stop, but I never leave a child in the car. I am sometimes tempted, but then my mind fills with all the things that could happen, and I grit my teeth and do what I should. Proper parenting IS work--what else did I expect?

I won't say nothing could happen to me. News stories still haunt me. I have seven children to worry about now, and most all the things that could happen to them still occur to me. I view things like a knife left on a cutting board overhanging the counter top or a plastic bag left on the floor in a new light. I still involuntarily play the "Can it happen here?" game when I read the newspaper. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but it seems that being careful with your kids has got to reduce the chances of something happening to them. I realize this could be taken too far, and the child could be overprotected. It's a fine line. But a wise parent conscientiously walks it.

Of course, the flip side is learning to reverse this process as your children grow up. When my oldest son recently asked me if he should go sky-diving, I developed a new skill--talking while biting my tongue. I said, "You have to weigh the risks and make your own decision about whether they are worth it." He's a full-grown adult--years past majority.

Because of the rules I live by, sometimes the things I read about really never would happen to us in the same way--I would never be driving around with all of my children unbuckled, for instance, or with all of them down to the toddlers in the car at 1:00 a.m. I just know I would never let a fifteen-year-old daughter go alone to a concert halfway across the state with one friend her same age. I would never leave a two-year-old and a one-year-old playing outside together while I napped.

I actually get angry when parents waste a child by not only being careless but actually putting her or him in danger's way. They almost always say in the news story following the tragedy that flying, or bull-riding, or car racing "was their life." No, it was their death. A child under ten is too young to have had "a life."

I don't mean to pass judgment, just to use some. It's a necessary survival tactic, right? We use it to distinguish between things we should and shouldn't do--to make the rules we live by. The only sense I can make of a tragedy is to learn from it. To try to keep it from being repeated. What else can we do?