Into Thin Air?

It was a dilemma. A big one. Do I watch the evening news with my kids in the room? I mean, the talking heads are dissecting the Jaycee Dugard abduction, discussing a little girl snatched on her way to the bus stop one morning. I didn't want to scare the hell out of them, after all. I remember being a kid, hearing about Jaycee Dugard and Michaela Garrecht. I hadn't slept for days after Michaela went missing. It wasn't as if she'd gone off to play and just disappeared. That would have been horrific enough. Snatching a child in broad daylight in a public place and driving off with virtually no regard for who might be watching? That was bold. That added a whole new dimension to the child predator scenario. Did I want my children to worry about kidnappers? Have them constantly look over their shoulders? Afraid to be alone?

It could happen to anyone. Anytime. The world became a whole lot scarier when I discovered that bad things actually did happen to kids, even if they followed the rules. The question, of course, was that I now have a four year old and an (almost) ten year old. I didn't want to keep them up at night worrying about elusive 'kidnappers'. What's a mom to do? I'll tell you what I did. I let them watch it. Every second of it. I hope it sunk in. I hope they walked away from the news program with a better respect for the world outside our front door. Because? Really? I'd rather have to eventually pay for their psychotherapy than pay private investigators to find them, or worse, pay for a funeral. No thanks. I totally understand why my mom always found it useful to instill a little fear in us.

As kids we'd been taught about stranger danger and not talking to people we didn't know. Never take candy from a stranger, don't go with a stranger even if he says he needs help finding his dog. Even if he tells you your mother is sick and he'll take you to the hospital to get her, don't go. Stay in groups. Always take a buddy. Guess what? None of that seemed to apply in Michaela Garrecht's case. Jaycee Dugard's either. They never got the opportunity to employ any of those warnings. All the rules that were supposed to keep us safe, rules we trusted to keep us safe, were out the window.

My kids may suddenly become afraid of the dark or afraid to play alone outside in our backyard after watching that news program...and you know what? I can totally deal with that. Its my job to keep them safe. Even if I turn them into nervous wrecks in the meantime. It really is just too bad any of us have to consider it as an option.

The whole thing is heart-breaking. What else is there to say?