"We Protect Our Kids from Everything but Fear"

So says Paula Spencer, author of a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307337421?ie=UTF8tag=wwwviolentkicomlinkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0307337421″emMomfidence!: An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happier Parenting,/em/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=0307337421″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”” style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” / in a a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17770831/site/newsweek/”emMy Turn Newsweek Column/em /a this week:br /br /blockquoteIt’s not that I think parents shouldn’t worry about anything. I’m personally petrified of SUV drivers on cell phones. I fret as much as the next mom about how to pay for college. I pray my kids won’t wander onto MySpace and post something dumb.br /br /But you can’t go around afraid of everything. It’s too exhausting! No matter how careful you are, bad stuff happens (diaper rash, stitches, all your friends assigned to another class). And it’s seldom the end of the world.br /br /Watching my daughter’s friends ogle my pantry, I realized there’s one big, legitimate fear that I haven’t heard anybody mention: what’s the effect of our collective paranoia on the kids? Yes, these very kids we want to be so self-sufficient, responsible, confident, happy and creative (not to mention not food-obsessed). They’re growing up thinking these weirdly weenie views are healthy and normal./blockquotebr /br /Rush Limbaugh a href=”http://www.momfidence.com/live/blog/blog/534″read Ms. Spencer’s emNewsweek/em column on his show /ayesterday afternoon–and said a href=”http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_032807/content/01125111.guest.html”this to his listeners:/abr /br /blockquoteWe have all of this paranoia: “This is going to cause this! This is going to get you sick! This is going to get you this! This is going to cause that,” and every day there’s more of it released, and it’s just absurd. So she’s right. There is a climate out there that’s creating paranoia and fear of nature, human and otherwise, to the point that people are expecting that it’s entirely possible to have a flawless existence — one with little danger, one with hardly any disappointment, one with no failure — and we want to shield all of our young people from the slightest bit of confrontation, the slightest bit of pain, discomfort, and all of the lessons that life teaches./blockquote br /br /I guess we’re just raising the nexta href=”http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20041112-000010.html” Nation of Wimps/a.