The complicated task of keeping your children safe.
Where do you draw the line between protecting your child and being overprotective? How do you know when he’s ready to sit up on his own without falling over and bonking his head, or when he’s old enough to climb the monkey bars or cross the street … or drive a car?
Generally you have a feel for it. Your spouse or your mother-in-law may not agree with you, but you know. You’ve climbed those monkey bars; you’ve crossed those streets and driven that car … In your own land, that is.
When you move to a foreign country, all bets are off.
Speaking only for myself, I can say that when we moved to the Philippines with our three young daughters, my understanding of life there was a vast pit of ignorance. My husband, who had spent his first two years of college at the University of the Philippines, knew far more than I did. As the following story will demonstrate, though, sometimes his experience didn’t translate into good choices for the safety of our children.
(Or maybe I’m being overprotective. You decide.)
Easter week in Mindanao
One of our early trips within the Philippines was to the southern island of Mindanao. My husband’s colleague and his wife had been invited to stay in the guest house of the National Power Corporation, and they asked us to join them there during Easter week. It sounded like fun, so we packed up our three daughters and one maid and flew to Cagayan de Oro.
It’s a lovely city on the north end of Mindanao, and for the first few days we had a great time seeing the sights. We visited the power house at Maria Cristina Falls, went swimming and picnicking at a beach near Iligan, toured a pineapple cannery, and checked out the Del Monte Golf Course.
Then my husband and his friend came up with another idea. They wanted to drive to Marawi City. Well, I thought, it would be an interesting cultural experience–an authentic Muslim city in a Catholic country.
Our hosts, however, weren’t so quick to approve. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was active around Marawi City, and in those days (the mid seventies) their armed rebellion against the government was at its peak. Traveling there could be dangerous. Although, if we did insist on going, we should have a military escort accompany us.
My husband wasn’t happy. A military escort, he said, would make us a target for the MNLF. He fumed for a bit, and yet he didn’t back out of the trip.
I was a little nervous. But what did I know? If my super-safety-conscious husband was satisfied, then our little outing must be okay. In those days, I wasn’t fully aware of the warring sides of my husband’s personality: the hungering-for-adventure side that was always at war with his safety-conscious side. And I had no idea how powerful his curiosity-seeking-adventurous side was.
The next day we drove to Marawi City. We looked around, found it mildly interesting, and returned without incident.
An unpleasant surprise
The following morning we awoke to horrendous news. During the night, someone had left two severed heads on the compound’s fence posts. We never did see the heads, and, thankfully, no one mentioned them to our children. I doubt that the beheadings had any relation to our trip to Marawi City. But the incident did make me wonder if we’d made a mistake in taking our children to a place where people were decapitated.
The Mindanao trip wasn’t the only questionable choice we made regarding our children’s safely. Next week I’ll tell you about the trek one daughter and I made across the top of what I thought was a dormant volcano. As it turned out, the volcano wasn’t all that sound asleep.
How safety conscious do you think parents should be? Should children be given opportunities to explore the world with fire and knives and trips to exotic places?
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I’m not so familiar with Filipino culture…
Was beheading someone a “common” thing back then?
Somewhere in the province where I live, there was a time when the village elders, medicine-man or warrior would eat the heart of a person who practiced black magic to absorb his power and prevent his revival.
I visited the village when I was in high school. I also visited the execution site. It had quite a different “aura”. 😀
The beheadings I mentioned were the only ones I heard of in the Philippines.
I know what you mean when you say the execution site in the village in your province had a different “aura.” One of my daughters worked for a while Magadan in the Russian Far East where they had prison camps during the Stalin era. We visited her there, and when we walked past one of the prison buildings, I felt something strange and unpleasant.
That’s quite a tale to bring back from a vacation. I’m glad that you didn’t see the decapitated heads (or the decapitation). Gruesome.
Playing it too safe is risky in its own way. “Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” ~ Michael Lillie
I’m glad you shared the quote from Michael Lillie. Thank you.
And I agree that “Playing it too safe is risky in its own way.” I’m glad our children had these experiences.
That is shocking! I am always of the view that everything will be ok, but maybe I’m too complacent. I don’t have kids, but I know my mum worries every single second whilst travelling and I’m 33! I like to think that if I do have kids I will take them travelling with no barriers, but who knows I may become the protective parent.
I would like to say that this story fits into the be-aware-of-what-you’re-getting-yourself-into category (whether at home or abroad). And yet, I still have no idea who killed whom and why. In fact, since we personally saw nothing, it felt unreal–even less real than something your hear about on the radio.
It’s not surprising that your mum worries, Rob. Part of the reason I worry about my grown children is that I’m not there. I can’t see what’s going on.
I was the pretty protective mom of six kids, five of them boys. Everyone always assumes that moms of big families are the “laid-back” kind of parents who don’t over-worry about their kids, but that assumption did NOT fit me!! Who can say what the balance is between adventure and safety??!! All I can say is that it’s not easy to achieve?
Once, some friends of ours wanted to take one of my younger boys with their two boys to the Oregon coast, but she told me there weren’t going to be enough seat belts for all of the kids. I was totally conflicted, but finally decided that if I let my son go under that circumstance and there was an accident, I would never forgive myself. He did get to go, in the end, because their oldest boy, the best friend of one of my older sons, decided to stay home with us, so it worked out in the end.
As a mother of six kids, you can definitely attest to how hard it is to achieve the balance between adventure and safety. I knew a family in Sedro Woolley with eight children that fit the assumption about large families that you mention. The thing I remember is that they let the boys use chain saws and heavy machinery. Since I know nothing about machinery, I’m sure it would have been dangerous for my kids. But their kids did just fine.
Wow! That is quite a story! I’ve never taken my kids abroad, but my mom took my older son to London and Central America. I never worried about those trips, although I worry a lot at home for some reason. I can’t wait to hear about the volcano story!
Your mother is a brave traveler. I lose courage when it comes to caring for my grandchildren.
Nicki, what an experience – I am sure it is something you will never forget! I think we all have all made decisions out of curiosity without examining the immediate and long-term consequences in detail.
I have changed my travel plans on a few occasions when my overly-concerned father claimed that it would be a week of non-stop worrying for him and I know that it is true so I selected a safer destination to vacation.
I know how your father feels. Now that my children are adults, they worry me with their trips and their scuba diving and kayaking in stormy weather.
It is a hard question you are asking. On one hand, as a mother I avoid trips to some countries when the situation is too shaky, countries where I have been myself when I was young. On the the other hand, driving is more dangerous if I consider the number of people who die in car crashes, and yet I let my seventeen-year-old drive.
Our sense of security can be totally off in our westernized world.
I imagine, though, how frightened you must have been the day after your visit to Mindanao.
Our sense of what is dangerous is probably a little bit skewed. I don’t suppose the people in Cagayan de Oro thought they lived in a dangerous place. And as it turns out, the worst accidents one of my children had was falling and knocking herself out in the shower room at summer camp in Seattle. So who knows?
My excursions outside of the US weren’t as exotic as yours. I don’t think those of us born and raised in a relatively safe country ever understand the threat of violence. We try to approach it from “reasoning” standpoint. Like why would someone kidnap an obscure visitor with 3 kids? What purpose would it serve? Many people do get killed thinking that. I don’t know if ignorance is better? How enjoyable is a vacation where you are always looking over your shoulder?
I think, Kate, the difference when we travel abroad is not necessarily that we’re going to a place that’s more dangerous than home but that we don’t know or understand where the danger lies. At home, we know which places to stay away from and we’re used to the environment. For example, one of my late husband’s colleagues was injured in Pakistan crossing a street. They drive on the opposite side of the street from what he was used to, and he looked the wrong way before he stepped off the curb.
But as you said, sometimes the sense of security we have from having grown up in a relatively safe country blinds us to possible dangers.
Seriously Nicki, whenever you can write a sentence like, “we’d made a mistake in taking our children to a place where people were decapitated” – then i think you should be writing a memoir. I’d have freaked out!
I’ve never considered writing a memoir, Mindy. My next job after I get Tiger Tail Soup published is to finish my second novel. That’s about all I can handle.
I don’t think any of us freaked out about the beheadings. Since we didn’t see anything, it felt like a rumor or something you hear on the news.