I’ve just finished reading The world according to Garp, by John Irving; a crazy, bloated, funny, clever, sometimes tedious novel. I much preferred his later work A prayer for Owen Meaney, but reminding myself that Garp was written in 1978, I am stunned by its originality. Back then, no wonder it caused a stir.
One of Garp’s main themes is the frantic desire of parents to protect their children. Ironically (plot spoiler alert) it is precisely Garp’s paranoia about his sons’ safety that endangers them.
It’s a theme most parents are excruciatingly familiar with. Just as well Garp isn’t around now, with the plethora of drugs available and a whole new world of virtual predators out there on the Internet, just waiting to corrupt and devour our offspring.
When my own kids were little and again when they were testing teenage boundaries, I used to say sometimes, ‘My first and most important task as a parent is to keep you alive until you can take responsibility for yourself. That’s why,’ as the teenage eyes rolled to the ceiling, ‘I am ringing your party host’s parents to check that there will be adults at this gathering.’ Or whatever it was I was doing that they felt was unnecessary and embarrassing and of course, something no one else’s parents would be doing.
It’s an enormous relief being a parent of adults and not infants and children because if there’s an accident, it’s unlikely to be my fault. Cold comfort, I know, if something did go badly wrong, but I suspect it would make a difference somehow.
Reams of newspaper columns have been written on the phenomenon of ‘helicopter parents’ who barely let their children out of their sight for fear of dire happenings. The worrying epidemic of childhood obesity is blamed partly on the fact that parents are so fearful of the wicked world they won’t let their kids walk to school or play in the park.
I think we are so much more fearful than previous generations partly because we know so much more. We know how many priests and scout masters abused young boys, how many drunken uncles pawed their nieces in what appeared to be picture-perfect fifties groups and families.
I suspect a bigger reason for our fear, however is the fact that we have grown up with the idea that we can control the world and what happens in it, or at least in our small part of it. We have antibiotics for the diseases that killed our forbears, and we find it hard to accept that there are still illnesses for which there is no known cure. Risk management is the growth industry of our times, we are insured to the hilt, some of us cannot even accept ageing; it is hard for us to realize that we will never be able to control everything.
Of course we have to teach our children basic safety and common sense. It’s our job to warn them about risk-taking behaviour. But the recent tragic deaths of Jill Meagher and Pat Cullen only underline the fact that accidental and tragic deaths happen to sensible, lovely people and that the best parent in the world can never entirely prevent this.
Baby boomers are known for our half wondering, half boastful claims that we don’t know how we survived our own childhood and teenager years. It’s true; my own kids and their peers are so much more educated, sensible and responsible than we were about lots of things from sunscreen to designated drivers and letting their parents know where they are (thank you technology).
Garp’s paranoia about his children’s safety maimed and killed them. Our over-protectiveness is unlikely to be so extreme. But as cosseted westerners who yearn for every risk to be managed out of existence, we need to learn to protect our kids when they are little, teach them the basics and then let them go.