The Lie of Seatbelts.

When I was a kid my mom gave prudent advice about how to behave, and react, in certain situations if I expected to survive childhood.  Some of the scenarios she prepared me for were terrifying simply because I never imagined the existence of any of them.  I never considered them within the innocent, developing world view of my youth.  
She took it upon herself to make me aware of their reality.  

Here are a few genuine examples of what I was cautioned about:

• Don't get into cars with strange men asking for help finding lost puppies, or needing directions, because you could be kidnapped, chained in a basement, and tortured.  Or buried in a school bus like those kids in Chowchilla.
• Don't wander off in the snow because there are snow caves so deep and so cold your cries for help won't even break the surface.
• Don't get too close to jet engines or you'll be sucked in, shredded, and spit out the other side.
• Don't get into cars with strange men or women or you may be brainwashed like Patty Hearst, and forced to rob banks.
• Don't go near old men in trench coats if you don't want to touch parts of their bodies that are disgusting.
• Don't go near dogs that are foaming at the mouth because they have rabies, and if they bite you you'll go insane.
• If you ever get a cut and notice red lines beneath your skin progressing from the cut, toward your heart, get to the hospital immediately.  Those red lines are the infection you got from the cut, and if they reach your heart, you'll die.
• Don't crawl into an empty refrigerator, or the door will close and create a vacuum seal that will suffocate you in minutes.
• Don't breath the fumes from glue, or gasoline, or you'll pass out, and die.
• If you ever get lost in the snow and you have a horse, cut open its belly, and crawl inside.  It will keep you warm.
• If you're driving and the brakes go out, downshift if your driving a stick, and scrape against the guardrail if you're not.  Steer up the first 'runaway' truck slope you see.
• Always go out with a buddy, and stick together.

 When you're a child it doesn't occur to you that these are extreme examples that will most likely never materialize.  As a child, the possibility of each is as likely as a sunrise, or sunset, so you're on high alert around every turn, and in every store.  Your innocent forays in an expanding world are tainted by irrational fears, and that's alright so long as you're still granted access to it.  Who you'll become is hidden within those fears, so you must face them to insure growth.  To face your fears you must enter the world that created them, and you must do it without your parents.  You need to accept the world you live in, and understand its limitations, before you can take your place in it.

Feigned Paralysis

If my faith in Humanity was diminished by the disclosure of the aforementioned evils (and it was), it was demolished by the instructions my mother gave to survive it.  By the age of 10 you hear enough anecdotes about numbness toward others to know it's a warning for something larger, something epidemic. How many times do you need to see a homeless person with a pet dog, and hear someone say, "Oh, that's soooo sad. That poor dog", to be made aware of humanity's misplaced sympathies?

The most telling comment on the state of humanity, for me, is the one we tell our kids when we instruct them on what to do to escape the grasp of evil if they ever find themselves in it.

"Honey, listen carefully.  If you're ever getting raped, or a stranger is trying to kidnap you, yell FIRE! FIRE FIRE!, or no one will come to your aid."

People won't get involved for a sexual violation,

or an abduction.  You need to up the ante and make them believe they may lose something.   Let me hear you say it.
'FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!'.  
Okay, be safe.

Thanks mom. 
Good to know.
People will respond to a fire because it may affect them.  Check.
Getting raped, or kidnapped, on my own. Check.
Got it.

What the fuck?!  
Where am I?

You're in the world, and entering its space alone.  If you're gonna go solo, you need to understand the truth about what you're joining, and the truth is Goodness needs motivation. 

I was allowed to make my entry at an early age, which meant whatever happened was mine.  If I played fetch with a rabid Labrador, or ignored the red stripe growing up my forearm, it was on me, no one else.   I accepted that. Even wanted it.  I think my parents wanted it for me, as well.

My generation didn't have cell phones that enabled a 'check in', or the pinpointing of my whereabouts with GPS.  I didn't have an ID card, or Google.  All I had was a debriefing about men in trench coats, dogs with foaming mouths, ice caves, and abandoned refrigerators.  I had that, and that was plenty.  The devices that were promoted as safety nets and armor have somehow limited the vastness of the world to the generation that has them.  Many don't make their entry until their twenties.  I wanted  the adventure that excused everyone else from blame.  I wanted to know that the choices I made left only one person accountable, and I wanted that person to be me.  Self-knowledge arrives after self-reliance.

Fear in the 70's

I grew up in the late 1960's, and early 1970's, before fear became fiction.  We didn't wear seat-belts in the family station wagon on long trips.  Instead, we packed the back storage area with pillows and blankets and games and stretched our legs over each other, and the family dog.  The four hour trip to Tahoe was part of the vacation.

We never wore a helmet when we rode a bike, and we rode our bikes everywhere.  We rode them to school and to Jack-In-The-Box and to friends homes and on our paper routes at 5 o'clock in the morning.  If we were late somewhere, or the papers didn't get delivered, our parents didn't pick up the phone and say, "I know Mrs. Waltz, but you knew he needed to be there at 5.  My poor son had to endure the reprimands of his coach because of you."  They told us we blew it, and should have planned better.  Then they took the bike away.  If you're gonna survive in a land of lurking evil you need to take yourself seriously.  You need to understand that the only way anyone will help you is if you lie about the danger your facing.

When we catch our children in a lie, or an amoral act, and place the blame on anyone but them, we deprive them of what they hoped to earn through their ignoble act.  If you smell alcohol on your daughter's breath, and immediately identify her best friend as the failed chaperon, your daughter fails to advance in the world.  Your daughter doesn't have to square her shoulders to you for an apology, or the confrontation of disagreement.  She gets a piece of cake, and a pat on the back, and a spine she can't count on.  The lie or the drink or the theft aren't the things that transform.  They're quite ordinary in adolescence.  It's the sincerity of the apology, and the courage behind the squared, disagreeing shoulders that strike away innocence.  It's the decision behind their first attempt at telling you they know they are of you, but they're not like you, that matters.

Blaming someone else so you can avoid the humility of the realization that you will not be the world's first perfect parent is the perpetuation of the lie of yelling "FIRE!", or seat belts.  A child can't tell the truth if their parents continually diminish the need for it.  Do everyone a favor, and let the blame bury them when they're the ones who bring the mountain down.  They may discover that mistakes are common, or even normal.  They may decide to be the first to respond to help, no matter how the request was made.

People Who Still Have Feeling