We all have our own personal worst-fears-ever. My own, based partly on Thomas Harris' first Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon, is a home invasion by a psycho who kills me and my entire family. When I say this is a fear, I have to admit that every creak of our house settling, every thump of our dog turning over, every car door clamming at 3 a.m. becomes the looming specter of a crazed serial killer. My fear-meter has recently gone over to red as I have read of a series of late-night home invasions in our area, resulting in the injury of the home-owner. As I am away all but two nights a week, there are moments when the thoughts creep in, and work becomes intolerable.
Not long after my wife and I settled here in Poplar Grove in 2004, her mother came for the 10 o'clock service. After that service is a coffee-and-snack fellowship time. As we went about our fun, my mother-in-law came up and asked me where my daughters were. I answered, with neither worry nor concern, "I think they might be in the nursery, but I really don't know." I was speaking from experience - they tended at the time to head down that way - and turned out to be right. To my initial nonchalance, however, my mother-in-law (whom I love dearly) expressed shock. "What about stranger danger?" she said, and one could hear the italics. I answered that I refused to live in perpetual fear that horrible things are lurking around every corner of my children's lives. Now, without bragging, may I just say that my daughters are eminently snatchable, fitting a certain profile (petite, the younger is a tow-headed blonde) that seems attractive to those in pursuit of such prey. I am hardly naive enough to believe that there are not those out there who wish unmentionable, unthinkable harm not just to my daughters in particular, but to young girls everywhere. Yet, what could possibly be accomplished by constructing my entire approach to parenting around the constant fear of imminent death and desecration of my children? What possible good does that do?
These reflections are to highlight the fact that we all have fears. Some of them are real fears; the threat to my daughters' safety includes the usual "Don't-talk-to-strangers" stuff, and warnings about the internet (no names or other private info, etc., etc.). Some of them, however, like my own phobia about lurking serial-killers in the closet, are as far-fetched as can be imagined. This doesn't mean I don't leave my doors unlocked at night. It just means that I recognize that my fear is a real fear, but it really has no basis in reality; I am more likely to be struck down by cholera or hemorrhagic fever than I am to be the target of a serial killer invading my home late at night.
We as a country have failed to deal with fears. We refuse to name fears as "fears"; instead we hear incessant gab about "threats" and what we "need to do" to "counter them". This is more in the vein of neurotic behavior than it is the positive outcome of rational, calm consideration. We are, in other words, a nation in desperate need of operant conditioning. We all need to learn to live with our fears, including refusing to allow them to rule our lives.
