These days, I treasure the early-morning moments listening to Rory sleep, peaceful little snores emanating from his cuddly little toddler body. I cover his bare legs with the feather quilt, and everything seems calm, and safe, and warm. This scene feeds my worldview of choice, in which we parents can keep our little ones protected from life’s calamities.
The truth — as everyone watching the news from Japan knows — is that we can’t. Not entirely. Buildings can be engineered to the highest human capabilities. Early warning systems can be put into place. Failsafes can be arranged. And, yet, a beautiful helpless child can be swept away in a tsunami of one kind or another.
It’s the truth, but I can only look at it for a little while before I have to turn away. It’s hard to move forward when continually confronted by your own helplessness. You can feed your kids nothing but the healthiest foods. You can make sure they get their annual check-ups and all their vaccinations. You can love them beyond all reason. And, sometimes, that might not be enough.
So, I retreat into the illusion of my own efficacy. I remind myself how my own situation differs from those in Japan. We live well inland. We aren’t in a particularly seismically-active area. We don’t have nuclear power plants in the immediate area. We can protect our children from disaster. Nothing bad is ever going to happen to our family. And I listen to the little snores, the giggles of laughter, the burgeoning vocabulary. I feel the hugs and kisses and impossibly soft skin of my children. I concentrate on the beautiful mundanities of cooking dinner, changing diapers and bedtime stories, focusing on the love… struggling to push the dreadful truth out of my mind.
(Inspired in part by Liz at Mom-101’s great post on the subject.)
It’s horrible, the feeling of helplessness, because as a parent you’re supposed to have the illusion of having everything under control. MIL was babysitting and let the kids watch the news (we never watch it), and I was upset at having to answer questions from a 5 year old telling me that she saw a giant wave go over a city and a bunch of people died, could it happen to us? OMG. 🙁
Oh, that’s awful, Cristina. Does she have bad dreams? We haven’t really watched the news on TV since the very beginning, getting all our news online instead. I keep thinking Callum isn’t old enough to handle watching the news, but, will I ever think he is?
I love your post. It is perhaps human nature to take things for granted, as if, by some divine act of entitlement, the things we depend upon and trust in will always be there. I can’t begin to imagine what the people in Japan are going through. I do know that the level of dependence that we have on all of the machinations that make our modern lives convenient and easy is staggering. What would we do if tomorrow the grocery shelves were all bare and restaurants were suddenly unable to provide prepared food? Sadly, many of us would perish or resort to violence. There are generations who know nothing about cooking and preparing food. This is why my family attempts, in our little background garden, to grow and prepare foods on our own. It’s hard work for sure and not as productive as we would like, but it raises our level of independence a little and equips us with skills our ancestors held for thousands of years but many of us have lost. We also cook 95% of our own meals and sit around the dinner table every night. It is sad that many lack that connection, relying on fast food, microwaves and television for companionship. It is love and the connections we maintain at home that makes life meaningful.
I look forward to reading more of your posts…
Thanks for the comment, Joseph. I’m definitely on the same wavelength, trying to learn organic gardening, canning, soap making, etc. Agree completely with all your points. I think — probably too often to be healthy — about what would happen if we suddenly didn’t have electricity, or gas prices rose too high to get into the city. I try not to dwell on doomsday scenarios, but also, quietly, try to prepare us, and our home, to be more self-sufficient.