In the past week, there were three high profile murder cases involving a little girl on her way to school, a woman on her way to meet friends and a local guy from Boston found in the river weighed down with a cement brick.
All dominated the news because they were nearly missing for a week and it got me to think. How do we manage in a world where we constantly have be on the lookout? And who can we trust? As kids we're taught that it's wrong to talk to strangers but when we meet someone new, we're supposed to smile politely and make brief conversations. It's very confusing ideology.
A million different scenarios could occur and each one more horrifying than the next -- there's no happy medium when things like this happen, you're supposed to be on your guard at all times but then when you act like that, you're automatically deemed a total bitch. I admit, I have a hard time trusting people because you never know what people's motives are and what's their breaking point.
I couldn't understand as a little kid why my aunts use to have meltdowns anytime we left the yard without saying a word and why we would be screamed at but as an adult, I understand because it only takes one moment for someone to disappear and tragedy to strike. My aunts even now won't let me go off by myself to make a phone call because they are paranoid something's going to happen, which I admit to rolling my eyes at but am happy at their protectiveness.
A friend over at Babble.com wrote that she was afraid she over shared everything about her son, that he was a target even more because she was constantly posting his picture, but she wasn't sure how to draw a happy medium where she could still talk about him and he would remain a carefree five year old. But then again the thinking was, how do you protect him without causing heavy psychological damage?
Because with kids, if you overprotect them then they turn into sociopaths and if you act like you don't care you're a crappy parent. My mother was a total Mommie Dearest in terms of overprotective and there were moments when I wished she had backed off completely, but I knew she'd move hell on earth to find me if I disappeared.
It's what any parent would. And to bury a child? I couldn't imagine going through that, I don't think I'd want to survive and to know someone could hurt them would just send me over the edge. It makes me even more nervous to someday have a baby because the world can be downright cruel and no kid should have to ever experience that much of it's dark side.
The bottom line is no tragedy can be avoided, things happen that are unavoidable and no matter how we try to prevent them, something is going to happen and we all wonder how we could have helped in someway. No matter how many times life throws us a curve ball, we're never completely ready when tragedy does strike
Do you think this could have been prevented, or do you think bad things happen all the time, and we're just unprepared?