Lenore Skenazy, who spends her time debunking the more absurd anxieties of helicopter parents at her website Free Range Kids, passed on this inspiration from one of her readers…
Welp, I think I’ve finally read enough of Free-Range Kids to make a Bingo board. Make a 5×5 grid, put Free [Range] Space in the middle, scatter the other options randomly over the grid, and play along!
- SCARY BLACK PEOPLE
- SCARY MEN
- SCARY PO’ FOLKS
- FACTS SCHMACTS, WE’VE GOT A WITCH HUNT GOING HERE
- MAD SNATCHERS BEHIND EVERY TREE
- I MADE IT UP AND NOW IT SCARES ME
- PHOTOS ARE WINDOWS TO MY CHILD’S BEDROOM
- ALL CHILDREN ARE 2 UNTIL THEY TURN 18
- THE ETERNAL CRIME WAVE
- EVERYTHING BAD ON THE NEWS HAPPENS HERE…
And so forth. You should go look at the whole thing. It’s hilarious. Except… every once in awhile when Lenore is making fun of such things, I pause and think, well… I DO worry about that one a bit… although none on this list jump out at me.
I would never have the nerve to be Lenore Skenazy, and here’s why: I have this superstitious dread — related to the old superstition of “naming calls,” whereby mentioning a thing you fear could make it happen — that if I mock people for having a certain irrational fear for their children, that very thing might happen to one of my kids. As a sort of cosmic justice thing for engaging in hubris.
Silly, I know. But have you ever heard that saying, “Making the decision to have a child… is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” Well, my heart walks around in five pieces, spread from here to Thailand. And then five more pieces for grandchildren.
And a condition like that can sometimes overcome one’s resolve to be calmly rational…
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The ever-sensible Carolyn Hax often cautions about the damage overly anxious parents inflict on their children. I speak as the child of a very anxious mother who was always afraid the car would blow up like it does on TV, even after my dad repeatedly explained how much special effects was involved. Of course, my own anxiety probably has the same bio-chemical underpinnings as hers, so….
Gee, thanks. Now I’ve got to think about cars blowing up — because, you know, it’s POSSIBLE…
You know–they just burst into flames after the slightest crash! Also, there are hit men in parking garages. Monsters in basements, or serial killers.
I have to remind myself that what we read in the news is there because it is *news,*–not commonplace, and TV and movies are fictional entertainment, unless they are also based on the news. Modern British crime dramas are particularly bleak and depressing views of life–and then I remember how few people are actually murdered in England….
Near as I can tell, it’s the leading cause of death in Oxford…
The first year we lived in Maine, 1991, there was one murder–a domestic violence one. Funny how Cabot Cove had so many!
I’m watching Inspector Morse right now. Don’t tell ME they don’t have beaucoup murders in England!
Dang it, I can’t find it now, but right after we came back from England, I was looking up some of the places where we’d been, and found a story (from the Oxford Mail, I think) about a body being found in the Thames right at Folly Bridge.
There was a photo of police on the scene. In the background you could see the building in which was located the flat in which my granddaughter was staying with her Dad. The police were at the entrance to a pedestrian/bike bridge that ran from the main bridge down to the flatblock.
It was the most awesome location for a flat I’ve ever encountered. The river actually ran right under the picture window in the living room, and you could sit on the patio and dangle your feet in it (had it not been winter).
Which made me think, yeah, it really IS just like in “Inspector Lewis”…
Anxiety is a slippery slope thing. Some people manage to scramble in place with only minor episodes popping up here and there, but others unknowingly slide into the deep, dark places of their imaginations – while they continue to tell themselves all is “normal”.
I think anxiety is more insidious than depression; the triggers can remain buried so others may very well never realize the issues that color one’s perceptions and reactions.
Yes, this!
Last week my wife was put on anxiety medicine by her doctor. This is the first time in her life she’s ever taken medicine on a regular basis.
She’s a public school teacher. She was having trouble sleeping due to work stress. He tried over the counter sleeping medicine and that helped – for a few days. Some of her fellow teachers finally told her that she might need anxiety medicine- that many of them have to take it to for the same reason- school stress.
Her doctor mentioned, in passing, that he sees a lot of teachers in his practice for the same issue.
edit – “she tried”
The most useful course I took as an adult was playwriting. I finally realized how plots in fiction (the sort that has plots) were propelled– Now I know what is the most likely outcome of a cliffhanger! Improv, also–you want to keep the story going.
Life is not usually like that.
What–me worry?