What's A Mother to Do?

So my husband constantly teases me about how paranoid I am when it comes to the safety of our son. I am a mom that takes my son's picture everyday before school so, God forbid, in the event that something happens, I know exactly what he was wearing. I make him wear bright colors to amusement parks and have ingrained in his brain, our phone numbers and address. It doesn't help that I recently went to a seminar about protecting our children which discussed how to safeguard your child from a sexual predator. Immediately after the seminar, I went home and removed all of my son's pictures from my facebook page (hence why you won't see any pictures of him on here.) Taking his pictures down was extremely hard for me to do because, as most of you know, he is the apple of my eye and I love to brag (as any mother does) about all the things he is accomplishing. But in the grand scheme of things, I would be beside myself with grief if anything ever happened to my precious son. There is a lot of good in this world....but there is also a lot of evil out there too.

I know that bad things are going to happen to my son in his lifetime. It is inevitable and a fact of life. I know that I need to put my faith in the Lord and trust that He has a perfect plan for us, but I also feel it is my job to prevent the things that I can from happening. For example, my fair skinned little Irishman wears sunblock to school everyday and gets his vaccinations on schedule. I teach him to look both ways before crossing the street and to never go anywhere with strangers. These are easy things I can do to protect him. But what about when he is out of my supervision? How do I keep myself from developing high blood pressure everyday when I drop him off at school?

Kieran complains that I spend too much on present's for our son's teachers, but I usually turn the tables when he complains and ask him if he wants our son to be one of the teacher's "pets" in the event of a 7.0 earthquake while he is at school. Neurotic? Maybe. All I know is there are 14 other kids in my son's class and only one teacher...who is she going to help first? I am sure a gift card to Nordstrom's isn't going to solidify my son a spot as "teacher's pet" but letting her know we appreciate her investment in our son's academic career couldn't hurt.

My parents live in a rural area with a pool and every time we go to stay there, I explain to my son over and over again why he must never go outside without an adult. Not only have I taught him that he could fall and drown in the pool, I have also taught him that he could get bit by a snake or run into a coyote. Yes....I am that paranoid! I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just want to protect him. With all that being said though, I do worry that my obsessive paranoia will transfer over to my child and cause him to grow up fearful of the world around him. I struggle with how to effectively teach him to be safe without destroying his sweet innocence in the process. So, what is a mother to do? Unfortunately, the scary truth is that there are a lot more dangerous things and people out there nowadays and we have a lot more to worry about when it comes to protecting our kids. But how far should we go to keep our children safe and at what cost? That is the million dollar question!