Safety First… Or Second… Whatever.

 

So one of our kids was describing their plans (to which I, again, was not invited) to go out with friends. And I was just giving my two cents (or buck seventy-eight) worth of important safety advice, as any self-respecting parent would.

 

After talking for a while, the rolling eyes, the heavy sighs and blank stares told me that I may have gone into that familiar part of town that could be referred to as… Overkill.

 

I knew I might have entered Overkill because my husband was giving me the stink-eye. I glared back, trying to level him with my best Scarlett O’Hara stare-down face. But he returned my stubbornness with a cocked eyebrow that said, “Frankly, my dear…..” The kids didn’t pick up on this, I’m sure. Ha.

 

Flashback a generation or so, and safety wasn’t so much of a concern for me…

 

Summers in the country remind me of many things. I can’t drive past a ditch of bales or a field of anything without being reminded of my childhood. I am the oldest child of a farmer. And I loved to follow my dad around everywhere. And he let me.

 

The funny thing is, the things I did as a kid would probably be ummm… frowned upon in most parenting literature today. And my parents are careful people, but still…

 

I remember when small square bales were the thing. Between my uncles and summer employees there were many hands to help hoist bales… But someone to drive the pickup would be nice. I’m pretty sure this was the summer that I went into first grade. Or so. My job was to sit in the driver’s seat of the truck, and idle forward. Just keep it between the rows of bales. And try not to gun the sticky accelerator because my grandpa was on the top, stacking bales five rows higher than the cab. It felt that way, anyway.

 

Having your driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle was more of a… suggestion.

 

So a few years later (licensed years), I’m taking a 3-tonne of something to CSP (now Bunge). All good. Just drive up the ramp. Lift the hoist when they tell you to, and drive back home. What could go wrong?

 

Well… on the way, I notice a giant grasshopper on the floorboards. Now, when I say grasshopper, I mean a locust the size of my hand (or pinky finger) crouched at my feet, with full intentions clasping his little death-grippy claws onto my leg.

 

So I did what any self-respecting farm-girl would do and I stomped at it until I was certain it had met its maker… During which time, I had taken a fairly hard left towards the ditch. I did the exact WRONG thing and quickly steered back, and after some Dukes of Hazzard style fish-tailing, I was back in the tracks and on my way. I may or may not have ever mentioned that part to my parents.

 

Then there was the time my brother and I were assigned the task of cleaning up the doghouse. In fall, we would make a house of straw bales. Come spring, we realized that the dog had dragged umpteen cow-bones from wherever into her house and they were in various stages of ick and needed to be cleaned up.

 

We figured the best thing would be for us to drag the whole thing out onto the bare field and burn it.

 

So there we were, me in my velour jumpsuit, and him in his ‘I Shot J.R.’ sweatshirt. You remember… J.R. Ewing? Larry Hagman? The TV show, Dallas? Back when evening drama had real substance… You’re too young? Okay.

 

Anyway… We doused the pile with gas, but we had watched enough episodes of ‘The A-Team’ to know that we weren’t going to just throw a match on the whole works. We needed to make a gasoline trail to lead UP to the pile. And then throw a match on THAT. The real question is… ‘WHERE were the parents?’

 

So, to keep a long story short… There WAS a giant mushroom cloud, we DID manage to keep our eyebrows, and there may have been SOME kind of pact involving swearing of secrets, etc, etc….

 

So how do I reconcile my childhood shenanigans with my motherly protective instincts?

 

It seems to be about walking that fine line between teaching, and letting them find out for themselves (which is usually the best teacher anyway).

 

Between protecting them, and trying not to be a lunatic about it. Between being safe, and letting them solve their own problems.

 

So between needing to know everything that’s going on with my kids, and maybe not needing to know everything that’s going on with my kids… Sometimes it’s a hard balance to be a parent.

 

Times have changed a lot. Or maybe they haven’t.