No end to fear
Recently something I've been afraid of for sometime occurred: someone posted a crime report onto the Takoma Pakk parenting list serv. I've been expecting this action for sometime, so I was ready with my essay with why parents should not worry about crime reports.
In the 15 years I've lived here, there's always been crime. A lot better than downtown DC crime and a lot worse than Gaithersberg crime. It went down a little bit at the end of the Clinton prosperity and has increased a little bit with the current Bush malaise, but it's always been around. I'm sorry for anyone who thought that a $500K house price meant that it was a really safe area.
My problems with getting the reports on a parenting list are several:
1. I get them on my neighborhood listserv and on another city-wide listserv I'm on, and my wife gets like ten copies of each stick-up report; none of this really improves our life at all, but makes us even jumpier than modern life left us before.
2. It is important for parents to be able to protect our children from a pervasive climate of fear. Anyone remember "Life is Beautiful"? While I realize that was fiction, I am moved at the thought that the guy was able to provide a happy childhood in the face of unspeakable evil. The bit of crime we have to worry about should not result in our being afraid all the time. The only way to limit fear is to become content with living with a bit of fear. Growing up in a fearful climate doesn't make kids more able to deal with danger better. Being alert, having a lifetime of experience with bodily autonomy, and being street savy will.
And, for better or worse, it's not a safe world. Don't have kids if you can't stand them not being absolutely safe.
3. Despite the relatively flat crime rates over the last 15 years, we do have a lot more awareness of it thanks to all the "crime alert" lists, 24 hour news cycles, and our country's universal flight to fear in the face of the terror of 9/11. Please let's not add to fear.
Please note that I have had a checkbook that I left on the Metro with my ID in it mailed to me, and had a set of car keys moved from my car door into my mailbox by kind strangers.
Thanks for your attention,
Chris
Here's a bonus poem:
Laughing falling smile
wordless jokes cracking us up
jump hide - where? ha ha!