Over the holiday break, I was watching the nightly news with my wife when an amazing scene unfolded on the screen. A man walking on a frozen pond broke through the ice with a splash and began flailing in the frigid water. Others nearby heard the commotion. A good Samaritan ran quickly to the edge of the ice to provide aid and also broke through. More responders came, each following the same pattern: shuffle fast to the edge, crash through and instantly transform from potential solution to part of the problem.
This continued until six people were in the drink. More rescuers arrived, scooting across the slippery surface, always standing, and often moving in clusters, unknowingly increasing the weight on the thin surface.
“What the heck?” I began my Mr.-Know-It-All rant. “Don’t these people know the fundamental rule about an ice rescue? You get down on your belly to spread out your weight!”
In one of the roles she was placed on Earth to play, my wife tried to temper my preachiness. “Well, maybe their parents never taught them.”
I gave her a hard look. “What idiot parents wouldn’t teach their kids something that could save their lives?”
She turned back to the TV, knowing she had me like a fish on a hook. “Did you tell our kids about it?”
Ugh. But I wasn’t ready to give up. I called our children into the room and quizzed them on ice safety. The results weren’t good: two tepid nods, two blank stares and one unambiguous shake.
I was exasperated. “How are we supposed to remember all these things?” I had switched to “we”; if I was going down for my lame parenting, my wife was going down with me. “I can’t even remember who’s had what vaccinations?”
“The schools tell us if we miss one.”
“Then maybe the schools ought to be teaching this stuff,” I retort, sounding desperate. “You know, Basic Survival Skills for Modern Living, a required class.” But I was walking on thin ice.
I fell silent as my brain frantically compiled a list of safety advice we’d covered, toddler to teen: no small objects in your mouth, no paperclips in the wall socket, look both ways, bike helmets, seat belts, safe sex… there’s no end.
What if we’ve missed some?
I felt a smidge of solace when I remembered a safety tip half the parents in Fort Collins seem to have missed: how to stay alive when you must walk along the side of a road. You face the oncoming cars, which gives you a shot at evasive action if a driver drifts toward you. In these days of mobile devices screaming “Look at me!” why turn your back on traffic?
I feel this urge to press a big pause button on life so that my kids would temporarily freeze, like in that childhood game. They would stand there, eyes and ears open, while I read down a scroll of cautions and wisdoms that will protect them in this big, bad and beautiful world.
According to FAA rules, pilots must go down a checklist before they can take off. Perhaps the FPA (the P stands for Parenting) needs to mandate a checklist that mom and dad must go down before we can let our kids take flight.
