The Fears of a New Parent

To say I was never fond of child molesters before I had a kid would be an understatement. Really, there isn’t a much lower form of criminal, unless you count the lawyers who defend them and most of congress.

Now that I have a daughter, well, it would be an understatement to say that my distaste for these types of people has grown.

I mention all of this because in the past few days, we’ve received a number of notices in the mail about the registered sex offenders living in our area. The city of Dallas is kind enough to provide this information, and it certainly is nice to know that someone is keeping track of them, seeing as how they have failed to do what they should have done and shipped them to Iraq to use as IED detectors. And by detectors I mean they should be forced to drive ahead of the convoys of troops who are currently forced to put themselves at risk finding those things.

At this point I’m more disgusted with these people than afraid of them. Baby Girl is under constant supervision by either Mommy or myself, and anyone who gets within 20 feet of Baby Girl is under the watchful, protective, and if needed violently disposed eye of one of the two of us.

But that won’t always be the case. As she grows older and starts doing things on her own – going to school, playing outside, etc. – the dangers presented by these types of degenerates will increase.

This scares me for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that I would be devastated if anything ever happened to my little girl. The less obvious one is that I would likely do something that would land me prison if something ever happened to my little girl. I know that in a civilized society we are supposed to let the cops and courts handle this type of thing, but the odds of my letting that happen are slim to none. The person responsible would end up paying dearly not only for what they did to my Baby Girl, but also what they did to me. I cannot imagine the sense of failure and horror that overcomes parents when something like that happens to their child.

Now, I hadn’t ever considered what I would do to keep my kid safe, other than make sure she gets a solid education in self-defense techniques, but actually having a kid has sent me deep into thought on the matter and I’ve come to the following conclusions:

1. Wherever we send Baby Girl for preschool, daycare or anything else, I’m going to have my own background checks run on the employees and their family members. These places ostensibly do it themselves, but it seems every so often that you hear a story about someone slipping through the cracks and into some kid’s pants. We won’t be taking that chance with Baby Girl.

2. The parents of any friend of my daughter will get the same treatment. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I’ll be damned if my Baby Girl is going to be out of my sight under the supervision of someone I haven’t checked out thoroughly.

3. GPS tracking for children has come into its own – you can check out some of the stuff here – and I would imagine that at some point we’ll outfit baby girl with some kind of device to keep an eye on her. Given what they have available now, I’m guessing that somewhere down the line, I’ll be able to chip Baby Girl like they chip pets (not that I’m comparing my precious snowflake to a family pet, but you get the point).

4. As mentioned before, I am going to make sure Baby Girl is gets solid self defense training as soon as is reasonable. Will she be able to win a fight with a bigger stronger guy? No, most likely not, but most predators aren’t in the mood to win fights, they want victims who are going to put up as little fuss as possible to avoid drawing attention. We may even give her a can of mace or a stun gun. If the school she’s going to has rules against that sort of thing, well, maybe we’ll find one that doesn’t.

5. I will make certain that anyone who might have the opportunity to hurt Baby Girl – daycare workers, teachers, parents of playmates, etc. – understands full well that I will hunt them through the gates of Hell should anything happen to her. I don’t know that I will word it quite that way, but I’ll make sure the point is made.

Is all of this a little extreme? Probably. But as a new parent these are the kinds of things that go through your head when you’re thinking about someone trying to hurt your child. It is not rational, it is not reasonable, it is blind fury and extreme desperation.

Truth be told, most of this probably won’t happen to the degree I’m discussing now. It might be awkward for Baby Girl if I tell her playmate’s parents that I have run background checks on them and that I’ll bury them in the desert if anything happens to her. It will also be awkward trying to explain to Baby Girl why I had a microchip implanted in her like an alien abductee.

But then again, I may just do all of it, for her protection as well as mine. I don’t know if I could handle anything happening to her, and that may sound selfish, but I really don’t know if I could.