Safe

One of the standard, commonly understood rules of parenthood is "keep your children safe." It's just one of the primary jobs of parenting, and we all pretty much know that. It doesn't take a religious viewpoint to understand that when a mother leaves her young children alone while she goes to the bar (or farther), it's bad. Keep you children safe. Yeah, we get that.

I recently overheard a conversation between parents. One parent was inviting another parent's children to a special birthday party. There would be one of those air-filled jumping things there ... you know the kind. The invited parent's first question was, "Is it safe?" You see, we get that. But I thought about it. The logical conclusion of "keep you children safe" is not, actually, a good thing. We know that term as well -- "over-protected." It's a bad thing. Still, you see it everywhere because it's very common. They sell us anti-bacterial soaps and sprays because our children need them. They warn about safety issues until we're afraid to have an adult speak to our children. They replace sand at the playground with padding to keep our children safe. Oh, yeah, and while they're at it, perhaps they'd better replace those swings and things because it's possible that our kids could get hurt. We take the mantra, "Keep your children safe," to its logical conclusion and kids become sheltered and twisted rather than simply safe.

So, obviously the answer is to not keep your children safe ... right? No, clearly that doesn't work, either. So what's a good parent to do? The good parent keeps things in balance. "Safe" doesn't simply mean "free from injury or peril of any type." It also means things like "able to handle everyday circumstances" and "exposed sufficiently to common bacteria so their bodies build immunities" and things like that. You see, we've mixed up "safe" with "danger-free" and missed the real point.

Funny thing. I think we do that a lot. "Love," for instance, shifts from "wanting the best for" to "being nice to" or something like it. Then, if you love your children, corporal punishment is evil, obviously. "Love" is "nice to," not "wanting the best for." Never mind that the best may sometimes require something that isn't so "nice." We do that with kids. We do that with spouses. We do that with God, too. You see, a "God of love" is supposed to be nice ... right?

I'd bet that if you thought about it you could come up with a whole bunch of things like that.