Scarier than a Meat-a-saurus.

A couple weeks ago, we rented Jurassic Park for the boys.  For the week preceeding the movie watching event, Papa made sure to get the boys really excited about it.  There was an entire week of growling, denying he was growling, and Asa saying they thought it was Papa doing it (but silently wondering if it was in their heads).  Once the big night came, Dr. Hammond delivered.  The boys were on the edge of their seats.  I had almost forgotten what a good movie it is!

Once the movie was over and the lights were back on, their was no question as to the scariest part of the movie for the boys.  The most disturbing, frightening scene of the entire movie was not when the lawyer was plucked up and eaten off of the port-a-potty.  It was not the T-Rex chasing the Jeep, or even the raptures stalking the kids in the kitchen.  It was when the lawyer bolted out of the Jeep, deserting the two children inside.  They were all three sitting there, and when things got scary, he up and ran.  Both Asa and Addison were truly upset that this grown up would jump out and leave the kids behind.  Asa, in particular, was terrified almost to the point of tears.  Why?  Because it's just not supposed to happen.  That's why.

We spend so much time trying to decide what color crib bedding to register for, which bottles are least likely to create gas, and what multiplication cd has the catchiest songs.  We worry about the right age to start going to the dentist, whether or not our 24 hours a day is enough one-on-one time for everyone, if we are being strict enough to get through the 2's and have a decent human being on the other side, and if our kids are watching too much of the Human Planet Series on Discovery.  We stress.  We fret.  We worry.

When it comes down to it, the single most important factor, the only thing truly important to our children, is that we are there.  We are supposed to be there.  We are their constant.  We are their rock.  We are their solid, stable foundation.  Our rules, our punishments, our love, our presence, is stable.  We create their ability to trust, to love, to rely on others.  If we have no cribs or coordinated bedding or video monitor or all natural organic maple syrup, or hormone free milk, or advanced math curriculum, or television.... our kids would be far better off than if they had all of these things, but lacked adults in their life that they could count on to stay in that Jeep.

At around three or four years old, kids start to realize that their parents provide them with all of their needs.  Clingyness, nightmares, and social anxiety are all normal and pop up out of the blue.  For my boys, they would wake up in tears, unaware that their nightmare was just a dream.  9 times out of 10, they did not wake up because they were scared of a monster, or a witch, or an injury... They were scared that something had either happened to one of us, or that for some reason we didn't give them food.  Why?  Because their little subconscious brains began to realize that their very existence depended on the certainty, the trustworthiness, of their parents. To new parents, this should be comforting.  Children love you when you are strict, or when you put the diaper on backwards, or when you don't drive the newest car in the neighborhood.  They love you because you love them.  They develop the ability to trust because they can trust in you.  They form healthy relationships because you show them healthy relationships.

I am incredibly thankful that my boys were able to watch the "blood sucking lawyer" abandon those kids when danger came... and find it unacceptably frightening. What is really scary would be to have a child that expected such a reaction; that witnessed that behavior and have it fail to shock them. Whatever else happens, at least my kids know that they will never be left behind to fight a T-Rex... and a T-Rex takes on many forms.  A bad grade.  A broken heart.  A failed attempt.  A crisis.  All of those things that are etched in our memories from our own childhood and adolescence.  When that dinosaur comes crashing in, no matter how old they are, I hope that our constancy now will help them always remember...

we'll be in that backseat with them the entire ride.