Published Thursday, January 31, 2008 2:24 PM
Updated Thursday, January 31, 2008 2:25 PM

 

Never fear, mother's here

When my mother attained adulthood and left the protection of her parents' home, my grandfather composed a letter of observations and insights to guide her in the world beyond his reach. Number one tip: Never stand under a chandelier.

Written on Pop's personal letterhead, the loving handbook remains a Jackson family classic. Meaning, we make fun of it mercilessly. It's less a collection of wisdom and experience than a diagnostic checklist; one could march into any doctor's office with this letter and leave with a prescription for Paxil. And apparently the symptoms are genetic.

When I completed my freshman year of college, this same grandfather gave me my greatest gift ever - his white Dodge convertible and my first car. A car!  No more walking to Ingle's! No more bumming rides! No more embarrassment from my roommate's vanity plate! This bubble of ecstasy lasted about an hour until my mother popped it with her insistence that I - wait for it - wear a helmet. It was, after all, a convertible. Her neurotic plea somehow clashed with my vision of cruising campus in this open-aired harbinger of freedom and cuteness. I'd suffer less indignity in "Celly B," the eponymous Toyota.

Obviously, the helmet never happened. My mother claims she was never serious about it, but her fears for my safety were. Now that I have children, I totally know where she was coming from. Maybe it's just the family neuroses, but every day when I kiss the girls goodbye for school, I secretly think, Wear a helmet! I can't even look as Jim walks them across the street for carpool - there might be a residual drunk driving around at 7 a.m., or someone might not see a large adult man and two backpack-laden girls walking a dog, or a hubcap might fly off and.... Sadly, this is how I live.

Until I became a parent, I felt like Meriwether Lewis. The world was my uncharted territory, waiting for me to stake my flag into any experience it had to offer. I canoed rapids and rappelled down cliffs. I traveled to Europe by myself. I befriended weird people at the Art Bar. Not much scared me, and if it did, it was an exhilarating fear. Yet the moment I left the hospital with my firstborn, that same inviting world suddenly became a haunted house, with chainsaw-wielding madmen jumping out of every dark corner. And the vulnerability of parenthood made the brightest corner seem dark.

I know that life is not the set of "Silence of the Lambs;" it just seems that way now that children are living with us. I also know I can't solely rely on the family genes to skip a generation, because that has yet to happen. So one of my top parenting goals is teaching the girls to approach the world with healthy caution instead of paralyzing fright. Unfortunately for my nerves, the only way to do that is to educate them on how to stay safe, send them out there, and pray for the best. Yikes. A few weekends ago, my eldest daughter went a friend's house for the afternoon. When she returned I asked her how her day went.

"Awesome!" she reported. "We rode bikes and went flying down all the floors of the parking garage!"

Calm face, calm face. "Oh?  Where did you get the bike?"

"I borrowed one; they had, like, three. And I also borrowed a helmet, because I knew you'd want me to." Heart, be still.

"Good," I told her, "Now go wash your hands for supper." (Danger lurks in the smallest places.)

So she not only listened, but she did so in my absence. Apparently, those anti-smoking commercials bear some merit. I realize she won't always hear my voice in the back of her head, and I still have two other kids to go. But this was a promising start. Maybe I should create my own list of ridiculous advice. It could go along with the newspaper clippings and urban legends. If I can't send my kids into the world with service detail and GPS systems that directly connect to my cell phone (maybe I can; I'm a little behind), I can equip them with my own wisdom and experience and love. And I can warn against standing under chandeliers - unless they're wearing their helmets.

Tara and Jim Bailey, the parents of three young daughters, take turns sharing their life stories in this space each week.