Am I Going To Be A Rebel Mom?

Last summer, we had our friend's three small girls over for dinner. After dinner, as they helped with the kitchen cleanup, they opened our pantry door to a whole new world to them! They stood in front of my open pantry, mouths gaping wide. "Look! Fruit Roll-Ups!" "Oh, my God! Chocolate-chip cookies!" "You have regular potato chips? We only get the soy kind!"

I thought I'd feel comfortable as a mother. Instead, I'm increasingly aware of a prickly new sensation: that I'm some kind of renegade. Who knew that buying potato chips would become a radical act? Or that letting my child walk home from school alone would require administration approval? How did I, a middle-of-the-road mom-to-be, become a social deviant?

Fear is the new fuel of the American mom. If it's not fear of her child becoming obese, it's the fear of falling behind, missing out on a sports scholarship or winding up with a thin college-rejection envelope.

Apparently I'm not nervous enough. For example, the sun: long-sleeved, UV-protective swimsuits were all the rage at my neighborhood pool, while I could barely remember ever wearing sunscreen as a child, but I do remember my mother popping blisters on my shoulders! The water wasn't safe either: at the beach I saw kids dressed in flotation belts and water wings—for shelling along the shore. And goodbye, cotton candy and hot dogs! At a minor-league game I saw moms and dads nix the stuff as if they'd never eaten the occasional ballpark treat. As if their children would balloon into juvenile-diabetes statistics if a single swig of sugary soda passed their lips.

Half my friend's kids—who already make A's and B's—had summer tutors in order to "keep it fresh." I thought vacation was for relaxing and recharging. What would our pioneer foremoms think? (You want something to worry about, let me show you frostbite, typhoid and bears!) Heck, what must our own mothers think? (Snap out of it! Go worry about something truly scary, like how you're going to pay for retirement!)

I am hoping, once my kids get in school, things will calm down. But then I am reminded, by the ring at the front door, of a fresh seasonal crop of anxiety sprouted, this time over corruptive candy fund-raisers. I know one mom who wants to change her son's schedule because he doesn't know anyone in his classes; she's worried he'll be "socially traumatized" all year. Another is afraid of a learning disability she just read about, though her child seems bright and charming to me.

And then there's playground panic. I had to laugh when an Australian study recently found that playground injuries continue to rise despite safety improvements. One of the suspected reasons: the safe new play structures are so boring that kids are taking more risks in order to have fun.
It's not that I think parents shouldn't worry about anything. I'm personally petrified of SUV drivers on cell phones. I fret as much as the next mom about how to pay for college. I pray my child won't wander onto MySpace and post something dumb.

But you can't go around afraid of everything. It's too exhausting! No matter how careful you are, bad stuff happens (diaper rash, stitches, all your friends assigned to another class). And it's seldom the end of the world.

Watching our friend's daughters ogle our pantry, I realized there's one big, legitimate fear that I haven't heard anybody mention: what's the effect of our collective paranoia on the kids? Yes, these very kids we want to be so self-sufficient, responsible, confident, happy and creative (not to mention not food-obsessed). They're growing up thinking these weirdly weenie views are healthy and normal.

I may be a rebel mom, but at least I'm not afraid of a chocolate-chip cookie!

Now, excuse me while I go "child-proof" my home. Today I am installing those plastic plug-thingys in to all the outlets. Hopefully, this will prevent my child from sticking a butter knife in the outlet! As a child, I was "shocked" to find out that that is not a good idea! (and look how I turned out?!)