Boomer Said
A lot of "this" reminds me of "that".
Yeah I agree, we end up punishing ourselves and our children because of what happened to some kid on the other side of the country...I do believe we lose far more than we gain by being overprotective.
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I don't know how much of being a boy comes into play, but I've always had that explorer instinct..."I've never seen that road before, I'm going to see where it goes"...."that tower looks really tall, I'm gonna climb it"....and I consider myself very well adjusted to the outside world...confident but cautious. Whereas, for example, there were a set of sisters in my little town that were never allowed past their sidewalk, it actually was a big deal for them to literally put their toe over the line and step into the forbidden zone, giggling and squealing with delight...I still make fun of them for that. After we were grown they became two of the most neurotic girls I've ever known....they would never, ever go to Wal-Mart alone, and even together one or both would often have a panic/anxiety attack and have to run out of the store. If either one watched a scary movie, the other would have to stay with them for a week....and about a million other things like that.
We had a few familys like that in town, and most of them turned out the same way...well, to a lesser extent, but similar. Too much sheltering equals bad mojo for the psyche...but naturally too much freedom has it's drawbacks as well. Each child is different, all three of mine are, and it's finding that middle ground for each of them is what is most important....balance.
I didn't intentionally mention the little girl to add to the hype, but I can see how it did and does. I had planned on a more whimsical small town tale...but the little girl won out...I wrote that with a very heavy hand {heart}. I left out most of the details, because the case is very easy to find on the net...easy enough with what I did give, but there are a few tid bits to the story that are truly horrible, and I don't want to draw attention to it. This happened the same time as the Atlanta child murders were being broadcast every day it seems on the news...so that summer was already tarnished, and then something like that happened so close....it's just one of those things from childhood that I now know helped shaped my personality.
