Linusitis
In medical parlance, anything ending in ‘itis’ denotes swelling and inflammation: gingivitis, conjunctivitis, stubbed toeitis.
The lone exception, which I’ll call Linusitis, denotes the opposite: a condition of existential mellowness that I’ve trailed around
since birth, like Linus’s blanket in Peanuts, involving a basic trust that things will turn out well, even if you have a noose
around your neck. Not that I have any illusions about the potential for bodily harm in the universe, or even a visit from the zoning
inspector if I put up orange siding. I just don’t worry about it happening.
God knows where this came from. My parents’ idea of a universal safety net made you put your faith in gravity. Maybe it derived from being raised in suburban America in the sixties, arguably one of the safest milieus in human history. Whatever the antics of Mssrs. Kruschev and Mao abroad, you were relatively assured of not being grabbed by a gator or a tribe of head hunters if you wandered more than two blocks from home.
Whatever its origin, I’m grateful for this blanket aura of perceived protection. It’s probably kept many an ulcer at bay over the years. Unfortunately, it’s also creating some confusion for me as a parent.
It’s the job of parents to worry, goes the party line, and I tend to agree with that. But my parenting worries tend to be more about projected negative scenarios than physical endangerment. I’m more concerned about Anna joining the Crips one day than falling off her bike into a rose bush.
Maybe it’s also a guy thing. I’ll be the first to admit that men don’t seem to share all of women’s anxieties about kids. Maybe because we don’t experience the visceral connection of pregnancy, followed by the shock of birth separation, we don’t freak as much over them possibly separating head from body on a trail bike or when dunking a basketball off a stepladder. It’s not that we don’t care about their well-being. We just want them to test boundaries, run with the pack, as it were, and not be too hamstrung by fear.
Try and convince a woman of this, though. Since becoming a parent I’ve had many salutary discussions with women on the subject of child safety. Most recently, with my neighbor Rebecca, whose solicitude toward her teenage sons stops just shy of rectal exams. This woman makes Dr. Spock look like a child support delinquent. She once gave me a description of the motoring habits of a boy who drives--- er, drove--- her eldest to school, so minutely observed it would have done Jack Webb of Dragnet proud. ‘Suspect emerged from house with coat undone... cleaned windshield without wearing gloves…failed to warm up car properly or observe full stop at nearby intersection…’ It’s my fervent wish St. Peter cuts us a bit more slack at the pearly gates.
Forthright soul that she is, Rebecca put my mind at ease right away on the subject. According to her I deserve tarring and feathering for child endangerment, and the only reason Anna is still alive is because she has a bevy of angels sitting at her shoulder.
My wife agrees with this assessment, especially after a recent controversy. Preparing to ride her bike through our development, an enormous cul-de-sac wherein hungry garage sale mavens are the most dire threat to life and limb, Anna inquires if she can ride down the big hill.
‘Absolutely not!’ says Marsha in her best DI mode.
‘But Dad already let me!’
Well, yeah. I mean, she had her helmet on, and both tires were pumped up, even if one wheel wobbles a bit, and I was riding next to her, at least most of the way, because the hill in question, now that I think about it, could be used to train the US Olympic ski jumping team, and Anna was well within gold medal range when she reached the bottom. Let it be known for the record that I yelled ‘Use your brake!’ twice during the descent, and no Telemark landing ensued at the bottom.
Regardless, this sat about as well with Marsha as a bean and borscht burrito. Like her Jewish grandmother, who used to love enumerating homicides in Miami even though she lived in Pompano Beach, my wife worries a lot. Every time Anna ventures outside, the world is ratcheted back to one million B.C., with Pteranadons swooping down to carry her off.
For some reason this panic surfaces more often in the grocery store than elsewhere. Marsha is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that every sexual predator and internet marketer of body parts is there when we walk in, stationed next to the cottage cheese or sequestered among the dryer sheets, waiting to pounce. With such evil lurking about, my tendency to give our daughter a long lead comes under even closer scrutiny. Letting Anna wander by herself into the next aisle could possibly lead to some of my parts being marketed in cyberspace.
‘But Anna has this cloud of noise and verbiage surrounding her, kind of like Pigpen’s dust cloud, which makes her easy to track---‘
‘You’re not on safari with her!!!’
Sigh.
For better or worse, I’ll just keep dragging that blanket around. It beats lighting candles. They’ve been known to singe angels’ wings.
God knows where this came from. My parents’ idea of a universal safety net made you put your faith in gravity. Maybe it derived from being raised in suburban America in the sixties, arguably one of the safest milieus in human history. Whatever the antics of Mssrs. Kruschev and Mao abroad, you were relatively assured of not being grabbed by a gator or a tribe of head hunters if you wandered more than two blocks from home.
Whatever its origin, I’m grateful for this blanket aura of perceived protection. It’s probably kept many an ulcer at bay over the years. Unfortunately, it’s also creating some confusion for me as a parent.
It’s the job of parents to worry, goes the party line, and I tend to agree with that. But my parenting worries tend to be more about projected negative scenarios than physical endangerment. I’m more concerned about Anna joining the Crips one day than falling off her bike into a rose bush.
Maybe it’s also a guy thing. I’ll be the first to admit that men don’t seem to share all of women’s anxieties about kids. Maybe because we don’t experience the visceral connection of pregnancy, followed by the shock of birth separation, we don’t freak as much over them possibly separating head from body on a trail bike or when dunking a basketball off a stepladder. It’s not that we don’t care about their well-being. We just want them to test boundaries, run with the pack, as it were, and not be too hamstrung by fear.
Try and convince a woman of this, though. Since becoming a parent I’ve had many salutary discussions with women on the subject of child safety. Most recently, with my neighbor Rebecca, whose solicitude toward her teenage sons stops just shy of rectal exams. This woman makes Dr. Spock look like a child support delinquent. She once gave me a description of the motoring habits of a boy who drives--- er, drove--- her eldest to school, so minutely observed it would have done Jack Webb of Dragnet proud. ‘Suspect emerged from house with coat undone... cleaned windshield without wearing gloves…failed to warm up car properly or observe full stop at nearby intersection…’ It’s my fervent wish St. Peter cuts us a bit more slack at the pearly gates.
Forthright soul that she is, Rebecca put my mind at ease right away on the subject. According to her I deserve tarring and feathering for child endangerment, and the only reason Anna is still alive is because she has a bevy of angels sitting at her shoulder.
My wife agrees with this assessment, especially after a recent controversy. Preparing to ride her bike through our development, an enormous cul-de-sac wherein hungry garage sale mavens are the most dire threat to life and limb, Anna inquires if she can ride down the big hill.
‘Absolutely not!’ says Marsha in her best DI mode.
‘But Dad already let me!’
Well, yeah. I mean, she had her helmet on, and both tires were pumped up, even if one wheel wobbles a bit, and I was riding next to her, at least most of the way, because the hill in question, now that I think about it, could be used to train the US Olympic ski jumping team, and Anna was well within gold medal range when she reached the bottom. Let it be known for the record that I yelled ‘Use your brake!’ twice during the descent, and no Telemark landing ensued at the bottom.
Regardless, this sat about as well with Marsha as a bean and borscht burrito. Like her Jewish grandmother, who used to love enumerating homicides in Miami even though she lived in Pompano Beach, my wife worries a lot. Every time Anna ventures outside, the world is ratcheted back to one million B.C., with Pteranadons swooping down to carry her off.
For some reason this panic surfaces more often in the grocery store than elsewhere. Marsha is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that every sexual predator and internet marketer of body parts is there when we walk in, stationed next to the cottage cheese or sequestered among the dryer sheets, waiting to pounce. With such evil lurking about, my tendency to give our daughter a long lead comes under even closer scrutiny. Letting Anna wander by herself into the next aisle could possibly lead to some of my parts being marketed in cyberspace.
‘But Anna has this cloud of noise and verbiage surrounding her, kind of like Pigpen’s dust cloud, which makes her easy to track---‘
‘You’re not on safari with her!!!’
Sigh.
For better or worse, I’ll just keep dragging that blanket around. It beats lighting candles. They’ve been known to singe angels’ wings.