Outrunning a missile

Hello Everyone,

When I was in university, I had a job on a sod farm, and there was an incident that came back to me recently after watching my siblings raise their kids. The boss at the sod farm wanted to spread some fertilizer on a field. Problem was, the fertilizer came in a giant bag that contained more than he could fit in the spreader at one time. Also, the bag opened at the bottom. So, he lifted the bag with a forklift, filled the spreader, then had me hold the bag shut at the bottom, while he spread the first load on the field. But the bag still had hundred of pounds of fertilizer left, and it was pressing down on the small opening I was keeping closed with my hands. Inevitably, it was going to force my hand open and spill out on the ground. We just hoped that I could keep it closed long enough for my boss to finish with the first pass, then fill up again. I remember watching him drive back and forth on this field as fast as was reasonable, while my hand was being slowly opened by the pressure of the fertilizer pushing down. A little trickle started falling between my fingers as I tried to calculate how long my boss would be and whether I could hold out that long. What does this have to do with parenting? Because parents are trying to keep their kids alive long enough that they grow up and understand the dangers around them. They are desperately trying to keep the bag closed while their kids obliviously rush towards the water without life jackets, play with electrical sockets, refuse to eat, wonder off, play with power tools, investigate poisonous cleaning products, put everything in their mouths, poke a dog in the eye, etc. In a way, it's like outrunning a missile. You know the missile is faster than you, but it has limited fuel. You are going flat out to try to outrun it, hoping it runs out of fuel before it covers the distance between you. Parents can't be everywhere. The odds of a mistake are low at any one time, but if nothing were to change (i.e. if the kids never grew up), eventually it becomes a statistical certainty that a mistake will happen. Parents just hope that their kids grow up and recognizes danger (and presumably avoids it) before that happens.

wes

#Parenting #Philosophy