Ivette Enriquez

WRD 103

Textual Analysis Final

“Parents are just bad at risk assessment…We are constantly overestimating rare dangers while underestimating common ones.” said Christie Barnes, a mother of four and the author of “The Paranoid Parents Guide.” Lisa Belkin is sure to mention Christie Barnes quote in her article in this week’s Sunday New York Times. In her article entitled “To Keep a Child Safe, Just…” she notes how nowadays parents try to avoid their kid from being in danger. Belkin argues that the dangers the parents seem to pay attention to the most are the rare dangers, while in the meantime they just seem to not think much of the ones that happen more frequently.

In her article, Lisa Belkin illustrates how some parents are more naïve about the types of real dangers that their child may make. She explains this by describing how driving is one of the most dangerous activities but yet parents choose to drive with their kids all the time: they would rather drive their child a few blocks down to their friend’s house than have them go alone out of the fear of being abducted. According to surveys by the mayo clinic, Belkin lists the five things that parents are most worried about: “Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs”. The last two are understandable. Drugs are an increasing problem among the youth of the United States; however this does not mean all kids are involved in problems with drugs. Dangerous strangers is also a reason that I would understand, because I think every parents would be afraid of having their child taken by a stranger, but unless you plan to be paranoid about every person you meet, then this reason just doesn’t seem to be a real danger.

I believe that Lisa Belkin wrote this article in order to let the parents know that of course the world is full of dangers but maybe we need to focus on the smaller dangers that are more prevalent in society, instead of the less common stories that rarely make the news. Don’t focus on the dangers that have a slim chance of happening because if you do, all the other dangers that are happening everyday will probably catch up to your child as they are more at risk to them. Focus on what is really important, on how you can really protect your kids. She writes about how parents tend to over worry, and how as the time goes by, their worries just grow and grow. “Perversely, our worry seems to be increasing at a time when actual risk is decreasing. Homicide is down, kidnapping is down, traffic deaths are down.” The risk of facing one of the dangers parents worry about the most are down but yet the parents worries are going up.

I believe the article, “To Keep a Child Safe, Just…”, was intended for parents who seem to over worry. I think it was especially made for those parents who are always making a big deal out of everything. For example, if their son gets hurt at a football game, they’ll make a huge deal out of it and even take it as far as going to the press to get attention. Belkin is trying to reach out to all the over protective, over exaggerating parents that take it to an extreme. She wants to show them that yes there may be dangers going on in the world, but those dangers will always be there. You can’t stop your child from doing something he loves in the fear that he might get hurt. There are other incidents parents need to worry about-but these are the incidents that get less attention.