I don't know what it is like to worry about boys since I was burdened... oh sorry... I mean blessed, with two beautiful daughters. I think just the fact they are girls, compounds the worry of any mother.
Mothers of boys might worry about their sons jumping off the back of the couch so they can fly like superman, or perhaps worry about them shooting their eye out with their first BB gun. As the boy starts growing into a man, I would imagine the worry would go from being tackled at the high school football game, to how much of a daredevil they are when driving their first car.
Of course, there is the worry about what kind of girl he is dating and the friends he is hanging out with. All of the mothers of boys have legitimate worries, but as the mother of girls... it's those boys growing into men I am worried about.
From the time Amber and Kayla were old enough to understand not everyone in this world had their best interest in mind, I tried to give them practical advice. I wanted them to know how to avoid danger, and what to do when they found themselves in it. I tried to cover every scenario that could possibly happen to them, and then give them what they could do to try to get themselves to safety.
The older and more independent my girls became, the more things I found to worry about. I remember picking Amber up from her first day of high school. I saw several "boys" walk out of the building and all of them had some sort of facial hair. I hadn't seen facial hair on a student before! These weren't the boys of elementary school, they were men! Oh, Lord help me... I knew there were going to be a lot more sleepless nights for me.
I talked, I lectured, I bribed and I threatened, to make sure Amber and Kayla knew how to keep themselves safe in a world full of danger. Trusting others had to be earned and until that time, precaution was the key.
Amber and Kayla still have a standing joke about the time I told them about the self defense advice I heard on the Oprah Winfrey Show. An authority on self protection said if someone was pointing a gun at you, start running away in a zig-zag pattern. It will be harder for the shooter to aim at a moving target and you are less likely to be shot.
I'm sure you can imagine how many times this plan has been acted out while my girls were doubled over in laughter. If nothing else, maybe the person aiming the gun would be confused as to why one of my daughters would be running from one side of the street to the other. Hopefully the shooter would just walk away shaking his head and mumbling about how crazy people are on the loose. Either way my girls wouldn't be shot... thank you Oprah.
Amber was first to move out of the house when she started college. I worried so much about her coming and going out of her apartment by herself, I thought I was going to have to rent the unit next to her just for my peace of mind (or my piece of mind because that's all I had left).
After we moved Amber into her apartment, we went through it like the Secret Service would have done before the President could come for a sleepover. We checked every window, hung bells from the inside doorknob, had a baseball bat by her bed, and a kubotan (a small, pen shaped piece of metal, meant to inflict pain with minimal force) within her reach, plus pepper spray was stowed in her purse. All the preparations didn't stop me from worrying... especially for the poor person who made his way into Amber's apartment.
When Kayla moved out, I didn't quite worry as much because she moved into the same apartment complex as Amber, just right below her. We still did the same safety precautions for Kayla, so I felt like we had done all we could.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a party that specialized in selling defense products for women. It's like the Tupperware party of the 1950's, only now instead of listening for the sound of the "burp" of the Tupperware lid, we're now listening for the sound of a taser.
I decided to invest in a cute, pink stun gun for Kayla. The girly color is deceiving because this bad boy has 7-1/2 million volts of electricity coming out of it. We needed to give it a test run, so we charged it up.
We couldn't get anyone to volunteer for us to use the stun gun on them, so we just fired it into the air. The loud, electrical crackling sound, almost scared all the dogs to death. I'm hoping the sound of a scared woman with a high powered taser firing, would be enough to deter any assailant.
Along with the stun gun, I bought a pretty, purple can of pepper spray and a pink kubotan. Kayla can have the stun gun in one hand, the pepper spray in the other and the kubotan between her teeth. She can be the poster child for self defense. It might be wise to call before going to visit Kayla... just sayin'.
Worrying just comes with being a mother. We hope we have trained our children and taught them well, but we know if something goes wrong we will blame ourselves. I will always think, if only I had gone over that one more time...
I have earned every gray hair and every worry line on my face. Being a mother is not for the faint of heart. I'm looking forward to old age just so I can have my mental vacation.
Hey, look at that... I've got on one tennis shoe and one flip flop. Oh well... I think it looks kinda cute.
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