Too Close To The Freeway?

            When I was around 15 or 16 years old my sister and I were good friends with another set of sisters the same ages. We would spend a lot of our time out running around together at the movies or eating out, like teenagers do. I don't know about the other girls but my sister and I had a fairly liberal curfew, although at the time I know it seemed extremely limiting. I think it was 11 it may even have been midnight, I can't recall. But within those hours we had some wonderful and ridiculous times. We hung out at the Café 50's or Bob's Big Boy. We hung out in large crowds and small groups and sometimes just the four of us. But one night has always stuck out in my mind, and it eventually became one of the best tools I have in my parenting arsenal.

            The four of us were sitting around in my sister's room which she had recently converted to her own "living room"--complete with sofa bed, end tables and spinning chair-- when we decided we wanted to go out and get some dessert. It was about 9 or 9:30 on a weekend night. No problem. Somehow I ended up chosen as the delegate sent to inform my mother of our plans. I recall finding her in the kitchen doing some never-ending mom task. I told her that we wanted to go over to Baker's Square and get some pie. She said No. Never one to really accept a "No" as anything other than a request for more information, I pressed further. Why not? I don't recall the discussion lasting long because my Mom's answer stumped me so profoundly. Her response, "It's too close to the freeway."

            To this day I have no idea what that meant. I'm pretty sure I argued a bit, trying to establish what the freeway had to do with our inability to obtain dessert. I know I made the point that we had been to this Baker's Square a million times, and it had always been located next to the freeway, but in the end it was one of those things I just had to walk away from without any satisfaction. I remember walking back into my sister's room and announcing that we couldn't go. When asked why, I told them "It's too close to the freeway." We all sat around for the rest of the evening hypothesizing what correlation there could be between our safety, which had to be the X-factor, and the location of a freeway to a Baker's Square. We did the math. Was a car going to fall off into the building and kill us all? Was some freeway bum going to jump us in the parking lot? Was she afraid we'd pull a Thelma and Louise squared and take off spontaneously for parts unknown, after robbing the Baker's Square? In the end the other girls left early, and probably went to get dessert, and my sister and I were left to wonder. I don't know if it has ever even crossed her mind, but for years it was one of my favorite "My mom is crazy" stories. Until that strange twist-of-fate day about 18 years later, when it all made sense.

            It was a hot summer day. The kids were all out of school. Hot. Bored. Cruising the cul-de-sac looking for something to do, when my oldest daughter, about 13 at the time, hit upon the solution. She and the neighbor girl decided they wanted to walk around the corner to the 7-11 for some snacks and air conditioning. For a lot of reasons this didn't sound like a good idea to me. It meant these two small girls would be out on the major street by themselves without any means of contact or protection (these were the pre-cell phone years.)  They had walked it before, in larger groups or with the older brother of the friend, but never alone. It was the middle of a week day. Not a lot of people out there paying attention, everyone in a hurry. Additionally, there was a tattoo shop in the same mini-mall as the 7-11. Outside the 7-11 there was a pretty steady string of vagrants and outcasts just hanging around with their brown paper bags. There were a million and one alarms that went off in my head. Not all, if any, were even reasonable, but there was that core instinct that it was just a bad idea.

            Of course the teenage girls did not share my core instinct. They thought I was over-protective. Paranoid. Controlling. Unreasonable. Crazy. Yep it sounded pretty familiar. I suggested they walk the other direction to the doughnut shop. This did not help my reputation. The doughnut shop, as they quickly pointed out, was further away. Albeit on quieter streets and with less disreputable ambiance. It only made me appear crazier to them. Every objection I had was met with a more than reasonable response. I really couldn't even argue my point successfully. It was just a feeling, how do you justify that? In the end I watched them walk away in the same confusion and frustration I had felt and there was nothing I could do about it except to call on the oft over-used "You'll understand when you have kids of your own."

            I've always tried to have good communication with my children. I've never been a parent fond of the "Because I said so," rationale-- accept in the case of my younger son who just exhausts one's ability to reason-- a parent's greatest revenge. I wasn't comfortable with this empty space left between my daughter and I, where she thought I was being arbitrary and unfair (a space I have become much more comfortable with over the years.) Later that evening I sat down to try to explain the inexplicable.

            I started out telling her my "Too Close To The Freeway" story. I explained to her that to this day I have no idea what was bothering my mother that night, but that somewhere inside her she had to have been feeling something she couldn't voice in a way I could understand. When you are young you are invincible. Nothing bad will ever happen to you. The bad things all happen far away. You are insulated-- protected from their impact. Hear no evil, see no evil…evil doesn't exist in your world. When you are a parent you know different. One mistake, one single moment in time can change the course of a life. Can end a life. Can devastate a child, a family, a community. And it all hinges on you.  That's a pretty damn big burden. And as parents, the only thing we really have to rely on is instinct. How much does that suck?

            We talked about instinct. We talked about how humans are the only animal conditioned to ignore their best instincts, often to disastrous results. We talked about those moments of intuition, those moments you hesitate and hear that little internal alarm and just know something without any rational reason. We hypothesized about why a person would suppress those feelings, what did they hope to gain or achieve? It turns out, she understood these experiences already, which was wonderful to know. We made a connection. She understood the feeling, if not my specific concerns.

            From there it was cake. I was able to explain to her that some days in her young life I would have these feelings. I wouldn't be able to rationalize them to her because they may not even be rational. I promised I would make an effort to weigh which ones really we're over-protective paranoia and which were really legitimate instincts. I promised her I would always be honest with her about what I was feeling, and I would allow her to try and reason with me, but that sometimes I would just need to say no to something because it was Too Close to the Freeway.

            Over the years it became our code for the feelings we could not explain. She generously accepted it as a response on several occasions after that, without much fuss. I generously caved on the things she could reason successfully on several occasions, with much fuss. And on one or two occasions, as she became older and wasn't ready to share a feeling, she would simply say "Mom. It's just Too Close to the Freeway." The other kids don't appreciate it as much as she did. Like always, they didn't get the full experience. But it still works. They all understand my craziness, and I can put up with their teasing, most of the time. Eventually, they all got to walk to the 7-11 alone with friends, thanks to her perseverance and "Never say never" attitude. In the end, what may have been one of the most confounding and confusing moments in my younger life, became one of my most valuable and inspirational moments as a parent.