The Luxury Of Safety
“I want to help — but I’m torn.”
“The pictures and stories — they move me. But I know I also need to keep my family safe.”
Dear friend, I get you. Over a year ago, life brought us to provincial Southeast Asia. “Us” being myself, my beautiful young wife, and our adorable blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 18-month-old daughter.
Every day here is a revolving door of local friends, neighbours, and complete strangers begging to take our daughter to homes I can’t see into, to do activities I can’t supervise. Our nights are spent under our fine-woven nets, protecting us from the bite of the world’s deadliest insect. The nearest reliable hospital is half-a-day away, meaning we’re one mosquito bite, one bike accident away from being in a really bad spot, and that every little fever becomes an emotional, stressful debate to “pack and go,” or “wait and see.”
Very few days pass for me without the real fear that something terrible might happen — something for which I’d never forgive myself, something for which I’d have to stand in front of parents and grandparents, and somehow shoulder the blame for my decisions.
I don’t share this to earn some medal, or for the pat on the back. I share this so you can be certain that, even in light of what I’m about to say, I’ve been there, too. I am there.
The truth is, you’ll never meet a butcher without an apron. You’ll never see the Hazmat team in jeans and tees. Because you can’t meaningfully engage in a mess without getting some on yourself. To say, “I’d love to help people ravaged by war and persecution — as long as it’s safe,” is like saying, “Sure I’ll help you clean out your septic tank — as long as there’s no feces.”
But how can we engage? How do we own our roles as protectors, while answering our heart cries at the same time?
It’d be nice if we could keep a foot in both worlds. But let’s be honest, if you’re hoping to engage Syria from suburbia, or gun-violence from the golf course, you’re going to be stuck — stuck with throwing up your hands, or paying someone else.
The only way we’re going to call ourselves to a more direct engagement is to tackle our own definition of security. To begin to let go of some of the the long held illusions about what keeping our family safe really means.
We often say we want to create “a safe place where my kids can grow and become whatever they want,” but have we really considered whether this approach actually accomplishes that goal? What if measuring exposures and padding environments doesn’t free our kids to become anything they want, but cripples them into only choosing lives that maintain these same “safe havens,” or to trust in their circumstances, rather than in spite of them?
We lament, “I could do it, I just can’t ask my family to do the same.” Do what? Learn about kids whose lives differ drastically, but only due to a birth-place and family they didn’t choose? To learn that their own reality isn’t most other peoples’ realities? To learn, really learn, not to feel entitled to their luxuries, but to give them up for the sake of others?
The irony is, if we never take this plunge, we never learn that safety itself is one of these luxuries. Instead, we guilt-trip ourselves into skipping-out on engagement, all the while teaching our kids that they are owed something that is a but a distant dream for a majority of the world.
So you tell me: which choice really is better parenting?
Some say, because of their family, engaging is too risky. And maybe, in reality, it is. But I can honestly say, every day we rest in the fact that for us, we can’t risk not to.
