As I write, I’m lying in bed with my 9 year-old daughter. We’re staying in a B&B in the Adirondacks. We spent today experiencing a number of firsts for both my kids. It was the first time they’d ever been for a ride in a canoe. It was the first time they’d ever ridden in a tractor. It was even the first time they’d ever eaten chicken parmesan. I spent the day watching their faces. Faces of curiosity and bewilderment. Faces of happiness and excitement. My son was literally jumping for joy after his ride on the tractor. Suddenly a trip that he wasn’t sure he wanted to take took on a new life. Tomorrow he gets to wake up in the morning and help the B&B owner make chocolate chip pancakes. Then we will experience another first when we go horseback-riding.
It always takes me time to unwind on trips. After a hectic week at work and the usual juggle of work and family, my mind takes its time to process the fact that I’m on vacation. I vowed not to use my computer much on this trip, to dedicate my time to my kids, to really take in the moment of being with them and living in the moment.
While I was poking around my phone in the car this morning (even though I vowed not to use it much), I ran across the headline about Etan Patz’s murderer being found. This is a story that I have long been following about to come to an end, with the truth about what happened to him coming to fruition. And it’s a horrible truth. I can’t even imagine the agony his parents have been going through for the last 33 years. And now they to relive every waking moment. They have their closure, but it has come so late.
I was 9 years-old when the “missing and murdered children case” erupted in my hometown, Atlanta. For two years, every night starting at 6pm on television we heard, “It’s 6pm, do you know where your children are?” This went on all night until midnight, every hour on the hour. Kids stopped playing in the streets, parents worried about their children’s safety at all times of day. We all braced ourselves for news of the next tragedy and waited for the murderer to be captured. When Wayne Williams was finally caught, we were relieved, but life would never return to normal.
Those words I heard on the news have stayed with me my whole life, and I take extra caution with my children as a result. We live in the suburbs where it’s much easier to keep your eye on a child than in the city. We don’t live close enough to the school or to a bus stop to even make the decision of either of my children walking to and from anywhere alone yet (they are ages 7 and 9). But I admit that I am not the kind of parent to let them regardless, probably as a result of growing up in Atlanta. Facing the deaths of 21 innocent children in my hometown left a scar.
Yet I am far from over-protective. I believe that being a child means riding a bike and running down the street. It means being able to walk home from school alone at a certain point. My daughter has informed me that next year, starting in 4th grade, she will be allowed to walk home with a friend. Will I let her? I am sure that I will. I don’t want them to live in fear and I want them to have happy lives. Everything that we let them do and don’t do now will impact their entire lives.
So, as we head to a dude ranch tomorrow, with plans of having many more firsts for my children, I will embrace the time I have with them. I’ll put my phone down. I’ll make sure that this trip is one of many memories for them to look back on when they are older. The time they rode a tractor for the first time. The time they first went horseback riding. One of many trips we took together.
But I’ll also be thinking about Etan Patz’s parents and the trips they didn’t get to take with him. And the all the firsts they didn’t get to have with him. And how unfair it all is.
I’ll hold my children’s hands a little tighter tomorrow, but I will let go.
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