Elisa's Journal

Is the same with all dad's out there? My husband became a quivering mass of paranoia once he became a father. All of a sudden, Acts of God could be as common as meatloaf for dinner. Trouble was his children's constant companion, ready to take over their souls or wreck their lives. He won't let them bike the one mile to school, because god forbid a car might swerve 20 feet to pick them off the bike trail. Or a tsunami might just sweep them away, even though we're 100 miles from the coast. When his daughters started getting phone calls from boys, he'd answer the phone and, once he identified the voice as postpubertal, he'd hang it up without uttering a peep. My kids wear insect repellent in the dead of winter, even to go out and get the paper. They're slathered with sun block before they play outside under the street lights after dinner. Every sniffle and sneeze is some terminal disease. Fortunately, parents often balance each other out. So my kids realize his fears are, if not a little annoying, unfounded. They also realize that they're all based in love.