Thursday, April 24, 2008

You would never endanger your kids but it is ok to put yourself at risk

Adults expect children to do things to keep them safe, but don’t do those same things themselves. Who pays the price? There is this commercial done by the Canadian Red Cross that had me crying and trying to not throw up. It was that hard to watch, even now I feel ill thinking about it. Why, because it showed the truth. It shows this scene with two little kids in a rowboat, with life jackets on. The kids are sitting together holding each other. They have these unbelievable looks on their faces. There is a voice talking about how you would never endanger your children by letting them go out in a boat with out a life jacket on. Then it starts pulling out and you can see that there is no one in the boat with the kids. The voice then starts talking about how if you make your kids put them on why don’t you. I don’t remember the exact words because this horror started to fill me as I started to understand what was going on. The last scene you see is of two little defenceless children to small to row a boat or know what to do sitting in a boat in the middle of a large area of water. The scene ends just as you start to see their father floating face down just out of reach of the boat. What makes me sad is that even after seeing this commercial there are going to be people going out without their life jackets on and their kids get to see them die.

So you would never endanger your children but for some reason people think that they don’t have to keep themselves safe. You are not willing to do what you demand your children to do. I see it all the time. Parents with no life jackets on, or worse some times not on the little ones: even though it is against the law not to have them on. Then you see the same adults drinking as they relax out on the boat. That is always a bad mix. There are deaths related to drinking and boating every year, usually because the person did not put on their life jacket. There are always things we tell our kids not to do or to do to keep safe that adults just don’t seem to do. Bike helmets, why don’t people put them on? Are our heads harder then our children’s? I know that the watermelon demonstration is enough for me to put a helmet on and expect my kids to have theirs on. Seat belts, well it is the law but some people still don’t put them on. We usually find out when they are dead or in the hospital. It is ok to keep your kids safe, but at the same time to put yourself at risk so your not there for your kids. I just don’t understand this. I will not put myself at risk, I want to be a part of my kids lives not a memory.

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