Oh, I'm still here...A little preoccupied lately with my latest venture, but still here...
Borrowing from Lewis Thomas tonight because, as usual I'm up too late, ruminating on the state of the world, with that monitor's hiss the only steady reminder of the reasons for my worries.
Every time I look at those girls of mine I worry. I'm sure it's the natural state of being for a parent (well, a decent one anyway), but that doesn't make it any easier for ME right now, at this moment in history. Because you know what? I'm not so sure other parents--even the decent ones--are worrying ENOUGH! How could they be? If they were, would they mindlessly send them off to public schools filled with uninspiring teachers pushing multiculturalist lies into their rapidly developing and vulnerable minds? Would they be hosting parties where kids get to drink because, well, they're gonna do it anyway, might as well be *safe* under my roof when they do (their parents' wishes be damned apparently). Would they be dressing their little girls--barely out of diapers--in miniature tramp-wear? I kid you not when I tell you I have seen 5 year olds wearing less to the mall than I'd wear to the beach! But their parents don't seem to mind...
But these aren't the only things that worry me.
I worry that my girls will grow up and be more like these people--or wish I were more like them--than they will be like me, despite my best efforts. In truth, my biggest fear is not that I won't be able to protect them from this crazy world, but rather that they will be sucked into it and become part of it in a way that will make them think of me as the crazy one, that it won't be the three of us girls looking out at the world in confusion and disgust together, but just me, all alone, sitting here wondering where I went wrong?
Let's face it, in order for me to be successful in protecting them from what I deem dangerous (aside from the obvious physical dangers like predatory adults, cars in parking lots, choking hazards, accidental bathtub drowning and falls down stairs), I have to make them UNsuccessful in the social world outside this home. If most people think differently than I do, if they worry about different things--like what the cool kids will be wearing to school in the fall, how to get the best tickets to the Hillary Duff show without taking out a second mortgage and whether or not Paris Hilton really has "changed" since prison--and I'm successful in raising my kids to be like me, won't they also be outcasts of sorts? Won't they be late-night lonely ponderers like me instead of blissfully slumbering (literally and figuratively) people like everyone else I know?
Gosh I hope not. I hope there is a happy medium. And if they find it, maybe they can turn around and teach it to me.
Posted by insomnomaniac at July 10, 2007 1:13 AM | TrackBack