Fear and Precious Cargo

Would you trust me to drive your children to school? You don't know me. The news is filled with creepy people, unseen dangers, seemingly normal men and women who snap one day and feed their spouses limb by limb into the wood chipper - or drive all night wearing a diaper to avenge their scorned astronaut love.

Our society has been beaten into submission with 20/20 news specials about horrible things happening out of the blue - to the point where we have no earthly conception how real these dangers are - and how frequently they occur. A country that spends $36 billion dollars every year in Las Vegas is filled with people who can't do math, don't undersand odds and risk.

It's the "common man" test. Is the average person off the street good enough (decent, responsible, and safe) that, for example, they could be entrusted with the most beloved things in our lives, our children? The answer is, of course, no way in hell - back off, I've got a licensed handgun, and if you get near my family I will exercise my Second Amendment rights. Bottom line - we Americans are decent folks, but like the settlers in old Western movies we draw our guns first when strangers come on the property, then afterwards invite the travelers to dinner.

Recently I was forced to deal with a parent from the exurbs of Cincinnati about a carpooling issue with children. I suppose I am so used to working with other parents from my local Catholic parish - who have, almost to a person, proven themselves trustworthy - that I forgot that the default setting for most parents is "fear".

This may or may not have been compounded by the fact that I live within the city limits - an item that was met with obvious distrust when they figured out that the name of our neighborhood was not the name of a subdevelopment (hardly the first time that has happened). And it might have been exaggerated by the fact that this mother seemed genuinely confused by a father calling to coordinate the activities of his daughter. I'd say something sarcastic - like, welcome to Ohio, where it's still 1951 - but I suppose this is common even in sophisticated Blue States.

Moms usually run the show - and this is even the case in my family - but I happened to be the guy on the phone, and although I'm a dude I'm not a potted plant when it comes to my kids and their activities.

It dawned on me that my first reaction was to trust this other parent, her first was to do the opposite. Am I the the fool for not assuming that she could be the crazy person? Or is it simply a matter of making sure other people "check out" first, at least to some degree?

On different occasions in the past few years I've had to drive my daughter and several of her friends in a minivan to a girl scout activity or birthday party, and it was the most sobering experience once I realized that I was in charge of the precious cargo from five or six families at once. It was a good feeling to know these other vigilant parents trusted me, but I have never been so nervous, driving one mile per hour below the speed limit and checking my blind spot several times before changing lanes.

There is some irony in the fact that people move to "the exurbs" to be safe, but from everything I've observed the sprawl and the anonymity don't draw them any closer, and don't help calm their paralyzing neurosis about the dangers that are "out there", and more paradoxically present than in a more busy "city" neighborhood. But don't we want to live in communities where people can be trusted? More importantly, how do we get there?