"You may fall and someone may run over your fingers?" What kind of a message was that - no wonder Cathy is afraid of getting hurt! I suppose by the time I came around, bumps and bruises were becoming the norm, and the hysteria of first time parenthood overprotectiveness had eased. I found a Christmas letter my parents wrote in 1972 where they describe me as "our little tornado" because I had been walking and getting into things since I was 9 months old.
I didn't want Derrick to turn out to be some kind of wimp, being raised primarily by his mother with sporadic "dad time". So whenever he fell down, I would say "oh you're ok - jump up now". My rough and tumble attitude was transferred to him through nature, nurture, or both. When he injured his wrist in 8th grade playing football we had it x-rayed, and he was told it was probably a sprain so he should take time off and wear a splint for a couple weeks. The splint lasted 1 or 2 days until he said, "it's fine" so he could return to football. Off and on he mentioned some wrist pain, but always came back to "it's fine". 6 years later an MRI revealed that a small bone had been broken all along! Of course I felt terrible, and blamed myself for not looking into the injury further in the beginning. I felt that because I had raised him to be tough, he didn't complain about something that he really should have.
The moral to this story is that there is probably a happy medium. There is a perfect parenting zone somewhere between "someone may run over your fingers" and "oh, you're fine - get up". But parents are not perfect, and that is what makes us all individuals. Every now and then you get two individuals who's strong suits and shortcomings make the perfect combination - which is what makes Cathy and I great sisters. She is there to tell me to watch out for danger and be afraid sometimes. And I am here to tell her, it's ok - get up and finish your ride.
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