Safety first

Remember the blog project I did last year with three other women? Well, Froggie decided to resurrect it with me and we each got to invite another friend to join us. She invited a mutual friend (someone I met through her) and I invited a friend whose blog I really enjoy reading. So now it's Froggie, Mom of Many, Moma Rock and Merrylandgirl. Hope you enjoy the topics that we'll be exploring!

This week, Moma Rock picked the topic: Is our world more unsafe now, than it was 50 years ago? Or, are we just more aware of it now, than we were back then?

Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock

To write this post, I did some personal research first. I asked my parents what safety issues existed when they were kids.

From my dad:

When I was growing up our parents still had the same fears as you do today, Kidnapping, drunk drivers and bullies but not to the extent it is today. When I was starting kindergarten my mother always had me walked to school and back by an older neighbor's kid. It was more about crossing big intersections then anything else. When I got older I always walked home alone or in a group from school. We had no buses that would take us to school in those days in the city. When I was 10 years old and in Hebrew school 4 days a week I walked in the dark back and forth. We had no fears of being kidnapped, only rich people's kids got kidnapped for ransom. If someone took me, papa would have said “you took him, you keep him.” They were always bullies and that has not changed in 50 years. But I never walked out of the house afraid of being mugged, stabbed or shot as it is today in some neighborhoods.

From my mom:

Our world was more sheltered than it is today. We were not exposed to violence on TV or in the newspapers. We lived about 8 or 9 blocks from the school so Mama Mollie or my Grandpa walked me to school. Back then we went home for lunch so one of them would meet me at lunchtime walk me back and then come back at the end of the day to walk home. As I got into higher grades we would walk down the street to school and meet up with kids who lived on other blocks and all walk together. We never worried about anything happening although Mama always warned me not to get into cars with strangers. One day our neighbor was driving down the street on my way to school and even though I knew him I refused to get into his car. As we got older my friends and I would go out on summer nights and walk all over the neighborhood past dark. We lived across the street from a park and weren't even afraid of going in there. I never heard of any gangs at my school. The greasers were tough but I wouldn't call them a gang like today. I don't think anyone owned a gun. The only drugs we heard of were reefers (marajuana).

This topic allowed me to look back at certain points in my life where safety could have been an issue and how it was handled. When I was in high school, I didn't have much of a social life. However, when I first started driving my car to school, my parents equipped it with a car phone (one that only works when plugged into the car). One time I forgot to call when I arrived at school and they had the school office page me. I do know how they feel now, as I panic when I don't hear from my husband every morning when he arrives at work.

After I graduated high school (in 1994), I started going to midnight showings of "Rocky Horror" a lot and my parents weren't thrilled with me going by myself. One night we got in a huge fight about it and they ended up driving me there and picking me up. They wanted me to go with friends and didn't realize that I had already made a nice group of friends at the show. The only other time they drove me after that was for New Year's Eve because it was snowing out. I didn't mind it as much that time as I hated driving in snow. There was only one time I could not have felt safe and the cast still managed to make me feel safe anyway. It was regarding a cast member who had murdered someone and was already arrested for it. After they show, they made sure no one walked alone to their cars.

When I was in college (mid-late 90's), I was meeting people online a lot, including guys. I met my first boyfriend that way and our first date was truly a blind one. I hadn't so much as seen a picture of him but I knew I could trust him for some reason. He didn't want to go through the process of meeting my family, but they wouldn't let me leave the house with him if they didn't. Then we just ended up driving all over the Chicago suburbs looking for a late night diner. After we had broken up over a year later, I was still meeting people online and my parents even let me go to another state to meet one of them in person. They tell me how they don't know how they let me do that, but I guess they trusted me a lot!

The other aspect of safety during my college years was just general on-campus safety. During freshman year, my mom had equipped me with an alarm system and pepper spray. Needless to say, I held on to the latter, but never used the former. I thankfully never had to use the pepper spray and it ended up exploding in my pocket one day during junior year, stinking up the room and practically burning my leg. I never carried it again after that. There was a safety service during my school years where someone would be able to drive students from one building to another. I used it a lot during freshman year and then just felt fine walking around campus after that. I stayed alert and tried not to be so paranoid about campus safety. When I had to park my car further from campus, I'd have friends or the guy I was dating at the time walk back with me, as it was late most of the time. I remember some safety concerns I had sophomore year, thanks to a situation my roommate got into and how she still managed to leave the door unlocked anyway. There was a time when my neighbor's boyfriend came in my room and sat on my bed in the middle of the night. He almost kissed me! He realized he had the wrong room and ran out, but he could have been a rapist! I got so lucky that time. I was so upset about her lack of concern for our safety.

A few years after I graduated college, I wanted to go to Israel on a Birthright trip. That was another topic of consternation between me and my parents, but they finally let me go after hearing about one of my best friends who was living there at the time and said he felt totally safe. They also got a lot of reassurance from the people running the program. My paternal grandma wasn't so thrilled about it and when I told her it was free, she said "You can get shot for free." I didn't tell them when I actually went and when I got back and they found out, my late paternal grandpa was the one who had a fit over it while my grandma just asked if I had a nice time. Ironically, even with all the terror threats going on, I felt safer there than I ever had on the "L" train in Chicago.

As a parent, safety takes on a whole new meaning. I am constantly worrying about the safety of all three of my children. Hearing about the kid in Brooklyn who was found chopped up or the baby that was stolen from their room doesn't give me much comfort either. Last week I mentioned my older son "disappearing" at FAO Schwarz when he was almost three. I remember getting lost in a store as a kid and how, as a result, I hate to become unintentionally separated from any adult in any store, even during my adult years. (I freaked out when a friend of mine wandered off in a big mall and didn't have a cell phone on her.) It's even worse when the person who gets lost is so little and hard to spot amongst a crowd! I have been diligently teaching my children about stranger danger and safety rules. Our neighborhood doesn't have a lot of sidewalks and I am constantly yelling to my kids to not run ahead of me and to stay on the side closest to the grass. There have been some close calls and then the kids wonder why I get mad at them. The other thing I do is constantly make sure my house is locked to a Fort Knox level. I've been doing this even before I ever had kids. When I had a home with a garage, I'd circle around the neighborhood to make sure that I did actually remember to close it. I wasn't taking any chances.

In general, I think safety is more of an issue these days because of the Internet. In my day, I had pen pals and wasn't worried that they were predators or perverts. These days, I won't let my kids on social networking sites at all. I also get edgy about people posting pictures of my kids on their Facebook pages, let alone tagging them in these pictures, no matter how close a friend they are. I also think we're more aware of safety issues due to online Amber alerts and so many articles about bad things that happen to people. There's definitely more information out there. People can even learn how to make destructive devices, thanks to the wonders of the Internet. I don't know if I'd prefer to live in an age of ignorance and innocence or an age of information where I can become more cautious as a result of being more paranoid. I just know that I am sorry for ever giving my parents a reason to worry about anything and hope my kids don't triple those reasons for me in the future!