Friday, July 3, 2009

The Over-Protective Mother's Club

Ok, I'll admit I might be just a teensy bit over-protective. Of course, I always insisted my kids wear helmets when they biked. They had to look both ways before crossing the streets. Those seem like normal and reasonable precautions. But today my daughter reminded me that I used to make her use hotpads when she did sparklers for the 4th of July. (In my defense, those little metal things can get REALLY hot!)

Yeah, maybe that was a little obsessive. But I was determined for my kids to reach majority in a reasonably healthy configuration.

Have you ever been accused of being over-protective? What silly thing did you make your kids do that seemed imminently sensible and prudent at the time?

4 comments:

Glynis Peters said...

I am afraid I was the type of mum, who said it will be hot.If they chose to hold it and ignore me they found out the hard way. ;0

EmilyBryan said...

I still remember the fight I had with my daughter about wearing a bike helmet. Finally her little friend across the street saved the day. He said, "You can either look stupid or have an accident and be stupid."

She decided to wear the helmet and look stupid.

Patricia Barraclough said...

If you had my son, you wouldn't consider any concern for his safety over done. At 14 months, he managed to get the back door open and escape into the Colorado snow in PJ's at 4 am. He never slept for long and I had to try to listen all night. At 3, we moved to Sacramento, CA and the second day in the house, he stacked packing boxes in his room to try to reach the window so he could slide it open to get to the swimming pool in the backyard. In preschool, he would climb their 6 or 8 ft. chain link fence to escape (this with 6 adults in the yard. He would also end up on top of the playhouse. He has always climbed trees, rocks, mountains. He kayaks, canoes, shoots rapids. He does tree work- climbs to the top with a chainsaw and starts cutting. He has lost a finger, stitched himself up as have the doctors), and been attacked by a bear in our back yard. I always tell him to be careful and he rolls his eyes. The surprising thing is he is careful. I hate to think how much more damage would be done if he were not.

EmilyBryan said...

OMGosh, Pat. Your son would have killed me with worry. Bless your heart! If that's careful, I can't imagine what he'd be like as a daredevil!