Letting Your Child do Dangerous Things
He could be killed. Well, yeah.
I will never understand, never tolerate, parents who are paranoid about their children taking risks. What — it’s a good idea to create more paranoid humans in this paranoid world, or at least, in that paranoid country — the U.S?
I grew up in Ohio, and was free to do anything I wanted to do. But that was the 50s — normal times.
Here in Panama I think parents take their children’s lives very seriously. These kids do terribly dangerous things, and it’s the parents’ job to laugh. L-A-F-F for you non-native English readers. ‘Ha ha ha.’
Parents in Panama are grown-up children who were raised in this tradition — cheating death.
Sure it’s wonderfully dangerous, and it is wonderful overall. You’d have to be Latino, or better, Panameño, to really get it. Or an ancient Ohian-German.
Ego me. No, not ‘ergo!’
Oh, I get a sinking feeling in my gut when I see children playing in the drainages during fierce thunderstorms. The drainages go straight to the river in our back yards.
But then again, I get that same feeling when I lie in bed at night and remember the motorcycle roadrace I was in the day before. It’s nuts and scary but really makes life very special.
Fred
