by Janet Brooks Child Advocacy Manager
On a warm summer day, my twin brother came scurrying into our home seeking permission from our mother to go fishing at Murray Park. He and his friends each had their own fishing pole and had planned an exciting excursion. Since my brother and I did almost everything together, I instantly begged for permission to go as well. “But you don’t even have a fishing pole,” my brother said. Mom readily chimed in that we could make a fishing pole and the decision was made. I would join the festivities.
We hastily found a willow, attached a piece of kite string and tied a safety pin (hook) on the end. Voilà, I had a pole and was hopping on my bike with “the gang.” As we rode off into the lazy days of summer, the admonition of my mother was to ‘Have Fun.’
Now don’t get me wrong— I had a fabulous mom. She raised seven children and we all survived to adulthood. However, she, like most parents in that era, was not as aware of the safety precautions that we know about today. She did not realize that unintentional injury is the leading cause of death to children. She did not include in her farewell adieu to “wear your bike helmet, don’t get too close to the water, put sunscreen on, and don’t go near strangers!” She did exclaim, “I love you!”
In my child advocacy work at Primary Children’s Hospital, I commonly hear the joking phrase, “We are lucky we survived!” As I constantly promote safety topics such as car seat use, wearing a helmet, supervision and life jackets around water, and a multitude of other safety memorandums, my only reply is “Yes, you are lucky that you survived.” We know so much more about precautions and safety these days. I hope that each of us has moved on from the past and embraced all of the new knowledge and technology we have today to keep us safe.
With summer here and our own children home from school to roam the neighborhood and seek our permission to “go fishing,” I hope you will include in your farewell adieu that you would be happy to supervise your kids on their outing, that they must put on a helmet before riding their bike, that they should not go near open bodies of water without supervision, and that their good old mom loves them more than anything else in the whole world.
Please, help make this a fun and safe summer. Oh, by the way, I was the only one that caught a fish those many years ago with my sophisticated willow fishing pole!
