Living Free

Americans seem to pride themselves in two things:  freedom and independence.  However, I see my generation of parents, willingly handing over these cherished rights in the name of fear.  We are afraid of all sorts of things including getting sued, not being liked, lack of financial stability, and feeding our children the wrong foods (though we are not sure what they actually are).  The core of our fears revolved around our children; we are afraid our kids will get hurt, sick, abducted or the most unthinkable fear of all . . . die.

I once asked a friend who was visiting from South Africa what the biggest difference he saw between our two countries was.  He replied, “You don’t see people in America on the sides of the road or in their yards.  Where are all the children playing?  Americans think other countries should have freedoms like they do but they don’t live like they are free.”

I think the point he was making was that we are imprisoning ourselves to our fears.  We shut ourselves up in our houses or fenced in yards and hide behind computer screens, often times not knowing our neighbors or experiencing our world.

Most of my childhood memories involve other people and being outside.  Today, I see a generation of children sitting alone behind their electronic devices.  As time has gone by technology has helped us tremendously.  Seat belts and car seats are way better than mom’s arm, no doubt.  Cell phones outweigh the phone booth any day.

But with technology, comes a whole new way of living.  We are aware of everything that happens instantly.  So when a child is abducted in Florida, we feel the threat.  When a child falls off a boat and dies in Connecticut, we feel the pain.  When a child dies from an allergy complication in California, we feel the panic.  All these feelings combined can bind us in the grip of fear.

I can’t help but contrast the way children are being raised today with the way their parents were raised.  We’ve all seen those posts about surviving childhood in the 80’s.  We ate more processed food, played unsupervised, used playground equipment that would break every safety standard of today, sat in the back of pick-up trucks, or piled in a station wagon.  And we lived.

I grew up in the 80’s with a creative father.  He installed zip-lines, water slides, and playgrounds that were HIGH with fireman pole escapes.  We explored in the woods for hours without the fear of ticks, snakes or bears (well, maybe a slight fear of bears), drove ATC’s (without helmets most likely) places that we might never be found again and most dangerous of all, drank soda (gasp).  We pretty much survived unscathed (other than the summer when we all got metal in our eyes from the new zip-line).  One summer my brother and his friends constructed a human catapult and a “swing of death” as my mom liked to call it (though no one actually died).

As much as my dad sought to make life fun, I wondered how my mom dealt with the anxiety that went with watching your kids fly on a trapeze, and barely miss the rocks.  She told me about one incident that happened when my older sister and I were very young.  She was walking a few paces ahead of us and when she turned around a rattle snake went between her and us.  She said that she realized then, that life was full of dangers and to live worrying about it would not make them disappear. She realized instead, she needed to trust God with us and let us experience life.

 

Since I became a mom, I must admit, worry can nag on me more than I wish it did.  There are so many “what ifs” in life that it can actually paralyze me with fear, especially in regards to my children.  But when I dwell there, among the” what ifs”, I am not a better mom.  I stifle my children from experiencing life.  Yes, they may scrape their knee when climbing that tree, or possibly even break a leg or worse yet get bit by a spider that is living in that tree; but boys like to climb trees.  What kind of mother am I, if I force my boys to keep both feet firmly planted on the ground at all times so that I don’t have to worry about injury?

When safety trumps everything else, I’m not so sure that way is better.

I have also learned that God doesn’t give us grace to deal with the “what ifs”.  He gives us what we need for the issues we are currently facing.  So if I work myself into frenzy over whether or not my child will be abducted, His peace is not there to calm me, because my child has not actually been abducted. When we are preoccupied with what might happen, we let worry superimpose a possible future on a real present.

Recently I took the kids on a 17 hour road trip to Nova Scotia to see my sister.  As we were driving I found myself mulling over various accidents I had heard about and I started to panic that we would get into an accident. I had to force myself to stop thinking about the “what ifs”.  I prayed for safety and released my fears to the God who keeps me in the palm of his hand.  I visualized His angels flying next to our van and His peace came to me.

Later during that same trip, my older children went with their cousins to jump off cliffs and swim in caves.  I spent about five minutes thinking about hypothermia, drowning, getting lost, coyotes, and of course spider bites, but I had to let it go.  Fear is paralyzing.  It stops you from living.

Philippians 4:6-7 says it best, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Living in the gripping fear of something bad happening is exactly where the parents of my generation dwell.  We do not allow our children to walk to the park, to play unattended, to hike in the woods, to do much of anything.  Organized sports with ultra-safety equipment . . . that’s about as much fun as they can have.

Think of boys in generations past.  Twelve year old boys were hunting, fishing, working the fields, providing for their families, joining war efforts even.  Their moms were not fretting over them as we do.  They were allowing them to gain the skills and experiences necessary to become men.

Recently a friend of mine was watching my boys and when I returned she told me that my middles were in a full-fledged battle, however she was surprised that it ended peacefully.  No one cried or bled (this time) or said hateful words; just a good old fashion wrestling match. Parents of girls don’t get that this is actually fun for boys.  If I stop my boys from wrestling because someone could get hurt (and they sometimes do) is that better?

The bottom line is there will always be a safer way, but is it the better way?  The safer way is to never leave your house because accidents happen in cars and people die.  Don’t send your kids to school, because a shooting could happen at school.  Don’t go in the woods, because ticks are in the woods.   Don’t travel internationally.  . . the list goes on.  Life happens and we cannot protect our children from everything that could go wrong.  When we try, in my opinion, we are not better parents.

I tease my kids that they will say to their children someday:

When I was young we used to throw balls at each other as hard as we could and you would try to hit the ball back at the person with a metal bat.  It was called baseball.  It was actually quite fun.  And guess what else?  We used to submerge ourselves in water.  It was called swimming.  But kids got hurt and some even died so now you kids have virtual swimming and baseball.  Stare at the screen a little longer – that is much better for you.

At the end of the day, my children are in the hands of God.  That is all the safety they need.  I must do my best to provide the boundaries I feel are best for them, but not at the expense of life.  Do I want my children to grow up and reminisce about their mad X-box skills? Or do I want my children to learn to ride a bike, go on a roller coaster, drive a car, and hardest of all perhaps, to fall in love?

Yes, there is risk involved.  It’s not the safest way, but I think it may be better anyway.