The function of TV news in America these days is to keep parents in a perpetual state of shivering fear.
Child molesters! Guns! Gangs! Drugs! Disease!
And of course it will all become better if you wipe down your entire house with antibiotics, lock the kids in their rooms with educational toys, and take your anti-anxiety pills.
We do take reasonable steps to protect Andrea’s safety, but existing in a miasma of fear and paranoia is no way to live—hence our moratorium on TV news.
In an evil-genius kind of way, you do have to admire an industry that consists of showing you content to increase your anxiety, and then selling ad space for products that will lessen the anxiety just created. Kudos, Madison Avenue.
The other day I got a true taste of parent paranoia. Shopping with Andrea at Albertson’s, I turned my back on her for just a second to pick up some hot dog buns, and when I turned back she was gone. Just gone. No sign.
So I walked through the store looking for her. One circuit: no sign of her. Another, faster, circuit: still no sign.
What if some pervert abducted her? Holy crap. Should I abandon the cart and run to the parking lot? Argh.
At this point sweat was dripping down the small of my back. Some f–ing pervert must have taken her!
Then they paged me on the store speakers. Went to customer service, and she was bawling her eyes out as one of the staff hugged her.
Nobody said anything, but I could tell, oh yes, I could: Bad dad.
We debriefed after we got home, and she had gotten herself lost somehow and asked one of the staff for help, which was the right thing to do.
Still, bad dad.
Niclas Lindh.com
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Need to get that kid on a toddler leash. Just tether her to your belt.
I hope part of the debrief was:
“And this is one of those things that we never tell mommy.”
Turns out that you’re out of the running for the father of the year award:
http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?i=3252434&l=http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/14789853/detail.html
Mommy was promptly informed. Honesty, and all that.
We did use it as a teaching moment about the importance of not wandering off, though, you can be sure of that.
Bah. A middle finger to those who look down on their noses at you, the whole ‘bad dad’ and all of that.
Half those people haven’t ever had children and don’t know what it’s like, and the other half conveniently forget that they’ve experienced the same thing. I don’t know -any- parent who hasn’t experienced a similar situation.
That being said, I’m glad you two are safe and sound.
And I agree with the whole media blegh.
I’ll shut up now, since I’m being oh so succinct today.
Perhaps it’s mostly in my head—parent guilt is a very powerful force…
Apparently it’s always that way with the first kid.
By the third you’re encouraging them to play in the street and drink scotch before school.
Hmmm … that sounds suspiciously like the voice of experience.