Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Every time I look at one of my social media feeds lately, it seems like that's the main message. Be afraid of taking your kids to the pool. Be afraid of taking your kids to the beach. Be afraid of taking your kids to the playground. Be afraid of letting them play in the front yard. Be afraid of letting your kids eat this, drink that, play this game or watch this movie.

I say this as a person who loves to read, who loves to be up on the latest studies and whose kids still hold hands in parking lots:

CALM THE FUCK DOWN, PEOPLE.

It's not like parenting isn't scary enough just knowing that your heart and soul is out there wondering around, being made fun of for not liking Justin Bieber or something equally stupid. It's not like it's not terrifying to be completely responsible for other human beings. So why do we have to make it worse?

I didn't use the site that Tracie uses, but this picture was inspired by her tips nonetheless. 

It's one thing when the local news does it. I mean, fear mongering is what they do best. But when bloggers do it, especially otherwise normal parenting and lifestyle bloggers do it, I get a little ranty. I get that parent blogging has gone beyond sharing funny and heartbreaking stories about our children into personal branding and sharing tips on how to do everything better, but do we really need to emulate the tabloids?

I read this great post on BlogHer about how this woman talks to her African-American sons, about the fear she has for them, especially in light of the death of Trayvon Martin. It's a thoughtful piece that deals with fear.

It's not the kind of post I'm ranting about. To begin with, it wasn't entitled, "Why I'm Afraid Whenever My Sons Drive At Night," or something else hysterical. And it didn't equate her son's brush with the cops with what happened to Trayvon. And it didn't tell me why I should never let my sons drive at night. Like I said, it was thoughtful.

Unlike these other posts; "Why You Should Never Bring Your Baby to the Beach!" "Dangers At the Local Pool!" "The Wii Made My Child Sick!" "My Child Was Stabbed By a Renegade Slide at Our Local Playground!"

Okay, fine. I made up the last one. But only the last one. Of course we'd all like more readers, more clicks and more income from our blogs, but does that mean we have to torment each other? It's one thing to talk about how your parenting choice is the best, it's another to terrify all the sleepy new mothers just discovering parenting blogs.