Parenting in an Unrecognizable World

When I was a teenager, I would take my ten-speed bike and ride it for hours around my home town, a suburb of Manhattan. I’d ride in the streets, then along the extensive but somewhat dilapidated boardwalk that ran parallel to New York Harbor, which eventually opened up to expansive views of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. My parents never worried. They never thought someone would kidnap me or that I would get into some sort of trouble. They never thought that, maybe, I wouldn’t make it home.

Throughout my childhood, I did things like drink from our hose in the summer, run around all day in the neighborhood until I heard my mom call us in for dinner, and eat lunches picnic style in our backyard without even thinking about using hand sanitizer first. I went to ball games and concerts without worrying about what was in my bag or if I could even bring one. Traveling on an airplane was fun, but not half as much fun as standing right at the gate while waiting for my beloved grandfather to walk up the gangway.

When I was a child, we were truly free. Sadly, my children will never fully experience this carefree lifestyle. They probably don’t even realize what they are missing.

I wonder how I can parent my children when I have so little experience coping with this terrifying new world we live in.

Not long after the attacks in Boston, a friend posted on Facebook that our children will never know what it’s like to live in a pre-9/11 world. We all commiserated and comforted each other in the familiar Facebook comment section, mourning a loss for our children that they themselves will never fully understand.

What my children do know is that they will have their bags searched at every concert or large public gathering; they know to take their shoes off and empty their water bottles at airport security; they know not to even look at strangers; they know not to ride their bikes in the street, let alone go around the block by themselves; they use hand sanitizer and wipes before and after every snack; they know where to hide in their classroom should the school go on lockdown.

And I have to ask myself: did I do this to them? Did I make them into these compulsive little adults as I tried to protect them from each new yet unfathomable peril that has been repeatedly hurled at us over the past decade or so? In part, yes. We moms want to protect our children from every danger, known and unknown. We want to control their fate as best we can while malevolent forces work in secret, dark corners to chip away at our freedom and happiness. We want them to be safe.

But I don’t know how to fully protect them from the sort of evil that we have experienced in recent years. I did not live this way as a child; I do not know what it was like to live during times of great trial, like the Great Depression or two World Wars. I am at a disadvantage to understand myself how planes can be flown into buildings or how a lone gunman can target innocent children while they are in school.

And yet, these horrific events are forcing me to learn how to parent my children in a world that is so different from the one I grew up in. I have to catch my breath, wipe my tears, and remind myself that my reaction – my words – will ultimately frame my children’s childhood as we all cope with horrors like the one that recently occurred in Boston. I want my kids to be carefree and happy; I want them to remember their childhood with fondness not fear. But I want them live.

It sometimes seems like an impossible task. I cannot comprehend the evil we have experienced; my life experiences belie my ability to do so. And yet I must, as we all must, carry on. We have to muster the strength and the courage to give our children the best possible childhood experiences, amidst the shock and terror that unfortunately seems to be serving as an all-too-familiar, albeit unwelcome, backdrop.

No, I don’t really know how to successfully parent my children in a world like this. I am doing the best I can in an effort to give my children the foundation of freedom and liberty that I learned in my own childhood. And I cannot fail, I cannot allow evil to win. Our children represent the good, the idealism that can change the appalling path some would like to put us on.

And so we have to carry on, we all have to try, or our grandchildren will suffer even more than we have.

* This article originally appeared on The Mommy Vortex.