with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
|
Ever since I moved from a small town in Iowa to the Orlando, Florida area, I have come to hate watching the news. It seems like every day there is a new story about horrible things happening to innocent people.
The worst are the stories about crimes against children. As a mother, I have an instant need to find my babies and wrap my arms around them, keeping them safe from anything that would hurt them.
I was reminded of this feeling earlier this week when I was reading the Orlando Sentinel’s Moms At Work blog about a little girl who was raped and murdered, allegedly by her Sunday school teacher. As Lisa pointed out, hearing about strangers who hurt children is terrifying. But reading the story of Sandra Cantu, an 8-year old thought to have been victimized by her best friend’s mother, is beyond unthinkable. This isn’t a random stranger being accused of heinous crimes. This is a woman that the little girl - and undoubtedly her parents - trusted.
It begs the question, who do you trust with your kids?
Stories like this really hit home for me because I don’t have the luxury of watching either of my children 24 hours a day. Both my husband and I work full time and we don’t have retired family members in the area who can share the child care responsibilities. If the mortgage is going to get paid, we have no choice but to entrust someone else with the care and safety of our children.
But what if we’re doing it wrong?
What if our judgments and characterizations of our child care providers are completely off base?
It’s unnerving to think about the consequences of those kind of mistakes. And yet, for my children’s sake, I have to. I can’t put my head in the sand and hope for the best. I have to face the realities that there are bad people out there who do bad things - and that you can’t always tell by looking at someone if they are bad or not.
The only thing I know to do to protect my children is to prepare them. Unfortunately, that means making them aware of the dangers that lurk outside our home. That means having to explain to my son that bad things happen to children - and that someone, some day, might try to hurt him.
It breaks my heart to have to be the one to shatter his innocence.
But better me than anyone else.
Of course, it isn’t enough to scare him. The point of having these talks with him (and later with his sister) is to teach him what to do if the situation arises. The point is to arm him with the knowledge and tools necessary to protect himself.
And pray to God that he never has to use them.
This is a scary one. Right now we’re so lucky because we live near my adult daughter who watches her little brother for us. We move in October due to the military. While we will know a few other families that I trust somewhat, I will NOT trust them like I do my daughter. I don’t want to put fear into my son, but sadly you have to warn them and by warning them, you’re putting a sort of ear into them.
Lin | April 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Listen. Its fine that you work full time. Most common molestations/rapes etc happen by family members. You can only prepare your kid.
The news story’s focus on outside forces but the bad stuff happens within extended family’s.
At least ALL of my friends who have been molested were by trusted family members.
Basically rule of thumb is to not let kids have one on one time and to realize that the news will always instill fear in parents.
gwendolyn | April 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
I don’t feel comfortable leaving my kids with anyone I don’t know very well. But, maybe once their speech becomes more sophisticated, I may feel differently.
SKL | April 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Being married to a cop compounds that problem. Lil’ M has spent exactly one night in the company of people who are NOT his family. And that was only recently.
Mister is completely paranoid and wouldn’t even allow me to hire a babysitter in a five-star hotel.
All you can do is educate and pray.
Finn | April 22nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
I’ve been lucky to have my mom as childcare since I went back to work when my daughter was 3 months old. She’s 3 now. But, we’re thinking of starting her in preschool for the social and learning aspect. She needs more at this point than just playing with her grandparents.
For me, the thought is horrendous. Having had the luxury of my mom as childcare, has me spoiled and very nervous.
I can’t even imagine having to have such conversations with her innocent little self and all of a sudden filling her brain with new ideas…but it’s a must I suppose.
Melanie (Modern Mami) | April 22nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
We trust practically no one outside of our extended family. We purposely moved where we are to be close to our parents and siblings so that we had the support (not to mention the relationships my son gets to have with his grandparents).
We trust the family across the street — it’s the only house that our son is allowed to go inside. And I have a couple of close friends that I know I could trust for emergency situations or when the family is unavailable.
You are right to teach your children about the dangers. Like my dad always says “Would you rather have a scared kid or a dead kid?”
Robyn - Who's the Boss? | April 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
My son has only spent the night at my brother’s and at our nanny’s. It would take a long time to build up the kind of trust we have in our family and our caregiver and also for my almost-three-year-old to feel safe and loved. But soon he’ll get the talk about strangers and bad people in the world and you’re right–it breaks my heart to even have to have that discussion.
kirida | April 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
For the past year my daughter has been able to go to the house next door and visa versa, and both of us moms are relieved to have someone so close to play with.
But even seemingly innocuous things like playdates and parties, as they age parents no longer automatically stay with their kids. The father in the house behind mine growing up turned out to be a pedophile. My mom was horrified: we’d been there on playdates, we even had a kid-sized passthrough between our yards, our families had been getting together for barbecues and the likes for years.
I guess you just have to keep reminding your kids of the lessons about danger, and that it is not just “stranger danger”, it can be someone you know. And hope that if the situation strikes they remember the lessons.
Mich | April 22nd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I’m one of the lucky ones because we have family on all sides to take care of our kids. My stepson is 11 and is beginning to watch my daughter, 7, for very short periods of time. We also have an excellent teenage babysitter for late nights, or the kids go to grandparents’ houses for sleepovers.
After school care is delegated to the school.
I don’t let myself get worked up about what happens to other kids. I don’t keep my head in the sand. I teach my daughter about safety, about privacy. You call in what you think about, so I think about my kiddo being safe everywhere she is, and trusting that it will be so.
lynn @ human, being | April 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 am
There is no parent that is with their child 24/7 until the child is 18. Work or don’t work, you still can’t have your eyes on your child every second of every day. Plus, what kind of kid would that result in? Kids need the freedom appropriate to their age. This is what’s really scary:
We are powerless to completely prevent our children from being hurt.
We do everything we can to make sure they are protected. We are vigilant. And still… shit happens. Like the girl murdered by her mother’s best friend. Is it the parents’ fault? Should they have known? No. By all accounts, there’s no way anyone could have known or prevented it. Even “trusted family members” can become abusers. It’s happened in my own extended family with the strictest of parents!
So, yes, we need to give them the tools to protect themselves when the are able, give them the freedom appropriate to their age and maturity level, and use our judgment regarding who they are allowed to spend time with (including friends and parents of friends).
Robyn | April 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Extended family isn’t always safe. And we’ve had three teachers arrested for either child porn or molestation in the past five years, so, really, our kids aren’t even 100% safe at school. They MUST be taught how to say no, run away, and tell an adult NO MATTER WHAT the person says.
Finn is right: educate and pray.
Robyn | April 23rd, 2009 at 9:13 am
I dont think that children are really 100% safe with anyone. You can only use your instincts, my sons demeanor and hope for the best. From what I understand, the statistics state that most kidnapping and abuse cases are actually family members so I really have to go by a person to person basis. So far, for me, I trust my mom, his preschool teacher, and two of my friends that have kids his age. I don’t have family near by (so my mom is usually not an option) and to be honest, I don’t trust my husband’s family all that much, anyway. The director of my son’s schools husband is a police detective and has a million security features including cameras everywhere so it makes me feel safer., although you still never know. However, we never go out on “dates” or anything like that unless my mom is in town. I have only left him with my two friends and their kids on 2 occasions where I had to work after hours and my son didn’t seem to want to leave so I took it as a good sign.
Oceans Mom | April 23rd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
My kids are 7 and 10 so I guess it’s different for me…my kids spend the night with friends ALL the time, and other kids stay here nearly every weekend. They also play outside in our neighborhood for HOURS, with really no supervision.
I’m trying to teach them “street smarts”…they even know that it’s okay to talk to strangers, but not okay to go anywhere with strangers. I’ve been proud of their instincts (or maybe what they’ve been taught) so far.
Statistics will tell you that a kid is 40 times more likely to die in a car accident than to be abducted by a stranger…and yet none of us are paranoid about putting our kids in a car every single day. I’m talking about the REAL Department of Justice statistics…not the paraniodness that CSI Wherever and Law & Order generate (I do love those kinds of shows, but I realize that they are a whole lot of fiction)
So, the answer to your question is that I trust MOST people, and I trust my kids to make the decisions that they’ve been taught or involve me (or another trusted grownup) when they don’t know what to do.
Karla E | April 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 pm