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Irrational Parental Fears

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    Irrational Parental Fears

    I don't know how many of you watched the TV show M*A*S*H... and furthermore, I don't know how many people saw the final episode...

    If you haven't seen it, you probably SHOULD see it. It does a fantastic job of showing the horrors of war and PTSD, without ever showing any violence.

    Also, if you HAVE seen it, you are probably scarred.

    I saw it years ago... but I didn't have children.

    Ever since I became a father, I frequently have nightmares of Hawkeye insisting that someone "silence the chicken."

    My wife has never watched M*A*S*H, and I don't want to give her nightmares, so I haven't explained to her what my nightmares have been.
    Last edited by ThorsSon; 07 Sep 2019, 21:30.
    "Don't ever miss a good opportunity to shut up." - Harvey Davis "Gramps"

    #2
    Re: Irrational Parental Fears

    That episode was interesting I'll give it that. But it never scared me to the extent that pulling up on an accident scene and finding children's toys scattered in the wreckage did. If we knew there were toys but knew no kids involved it was stressful. However, if the occupants were incapable of telling us and all we saw were the toys or indicators of children then each step was an eternity. Adults and teens were bad but kids that was hard. Factor in I was just a teenager myself when I first started and on a volunteer Fire and Rescue Department.

    I'm 60 years old and there are still images from my teens and early 20's that I think I block out mentally. Yet every now and then I recall things that come rushing through such as walking down the road looking for someone's head. That or a station wagon trying to push through traffic and a car shooting across the lane and hitting it broadside. Can still see that young boy bouncing around in the back of it as the back window shattered and blew apart. In that instance though all he got was some minor cuts, bumps and bruises and still see his Mom pulling him out of the back window after it finally came to a stop.

    But Irrational fears? I always put the irrational in the category of the parent who plied their child full of pills to prevent them from getting a cold just in case. That or like in the movie LITTLE GIANTS where the mother basically encased the child in layers of bubble wrap to keep the child from getting bruised. Had something sort of similar to that on one of my T-Ball teams with a parent at first hen I coached.

    But to be honest never had it cross my mind for what your saying here. To me that crosses into the realm of a fear someone is going to tell you to kill your own child. Hawkeye's turmoil was from having to choose between his life or that of another. In the end he suffer's because he forced the death of a child so he could survive out of fear. Then it consumes him and he breaks, also admit I'm career military so have a different perspective probably. Yet it was a hellish ride before he broke.
    I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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      #3
      Re: Irrational Parental Fears

      I haven't watched M*A*S*H in years, I didn't make it to the final episode, but I know a little of it. I hope that makes me qualified to comment, along with that I know where you're coming from as a parent myself.

      I can't even read news headlines anymore without getting very distressed, let alone watch an emotionally involving movie that's trying to make a point.

      I really didn't get it before having children. It's like my sense of not just empathy but sympathy increased 100 fold or something ridiculous. Before I had kids, I had no idea about a love that would go to such lengths. I could understand a tragedy I witnessed was world-shattering for the victim, but I couldn't feel the devestation. I wish emotions like that made me reach out but they're so big I tend to shut down.

      In my work, I have felt that I'm being asked by 'the powers that be' to compromise my family for the sake of 'the team' or some bs. Of course it's nowhere near the same scenario, so I can make an empowered choice for myself and my children. Sometimes it feels like people don't really understand what they're asking me to do. They can only think of their own priority unless I'm successful at communicating my own. I am so grateful I'm in a position where I'm protected by laws and policies. In a situation where I had little to no rights, I shudder to think.

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        #4
        Re: Irrational Parental Fears

        I can't comment on MASH, but irrational fears seem fairly common among parents. It comes up in FB parenting groups regularly at least. Post partum anxiety is also a thing, and men have been shown to experience post partum disorders as well, though less commonly. I know that one path my anxiety commonly takes when I have a panic attack looming is uncontrollable visualizations of an accident that kills my children and spouses leaving me the only survivor. It sucks.
        We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

        I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
        It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
        Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
        -Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse

        Service to your fellows is the root of peace.

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          #5
          Re: Irrational Parental Fears

          Originally posted by monsno_leedra View Post
          But to be honest never had it cross my mind for what your saying here. To me that crosses into the realm of a fear someone is going to tell you to kill your own child. Hawkeye's turmoil was from having to choose between his life or that of another. In the end he suffer's because he forced the death of a child so he could survive out of fear. Then it consumes him and he breaks, also admit I'm career military so have a different perspective probably. Yet it was a hellish ride before he broke.
          it isn't so much a fear of being in the situation, as a fear that this is a world in which that situation exists.

          I can't really explain what it is, other than to say that I couldn't really get it out of my head until I finally just watched the scene last night. Strangely, that seemed to have gotten it out of my head.
          "Don't ever miss a good opportunity to shut up." - Harvey Davis "Gramps"

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            #6
            Re: Irrational Parental Fears

            Originally posted by ThorsSon View Post
            it isn't so much a fear of being in the situation, as a fear that this is a world in which that situation exists.

            I can't really explain what it is, other than to say that I couldn't really get it out of my head until I finally just watched the scene last night. Strangely, that seemed to have gotten it out of my head.
            I wonder if it could be due to the times we grow up in. It's like I was born in 59 so during my youth I recall the images of Vietnam on TV. But I also recall parts of the race riots in Maryland / Virginia / District of Columbia (D.C.) as well as parts of the racial tension's going on with integration in general. So the 60's and basically 70's were my youth and teen years. On one hand my older cousin's and relatives touched free love, drugs, counter-culture with redneck, back woods mountain influences with deep roots in family and fighting.

            In a lot of ways I don't think we had time to be scared of things. The stability of the 1950's was gone and the social turmoil of the 1960's was tearing everything apart and turning it upside down. The Freedom Riders were as early as 61 with incidents of violence making the news papers and TV. Segregation & Racism had it's own rules and violence that even as kids we saw, though we might not have understood the why of it.

            Heck, I still recall discussion's about girls getting tar'd and feathered because of them dating the wrong sort when I was in my early teens. That or being at gatherings and some people talking about how if certain people didn't change their ways they just might get a visitor in the night. Sometimes those visitors might be a Klan type person other times it might just be family members / relatives who were dissatisfied with their life styles. Some mountain families had extremely strong Matriarchal / Patriarchal heads that directed discipline / guidance.

            Not so much today but then again who knows what gets said in other areas.
            I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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              #7
              Re: Irrational Parental Fears

              Originally posted by ThorsSon View Post
              it isn't so much a fear of being in the situation, as a fear that this is a world in which that situation exists.
              I think that is where I fall on my fears about that one, also taken to the point of fear that in new baby exhaustion I might smother the baby in a sort of aggressive attempt to comfort and quiet it. I never did anything of the sort, of course. I think it is a common fear- I've seen it elsewhere in movies and television.

              Parenting opened up a whole new world of love that changed me forever. But the fear. Oh boy. That also grew exponentially. I am also prone to anxiety anyway, so horrible thoughts are a frequent companion. Worrying about loved ones, and especially my children is brutal. Fortunately, my kids are good at checking in to ease it. If they do, they actually tend to get more freedom than many of their friends, because we can set curfews etc based on the individual occasion.

              Seeing and experiencing things also relieves my fearful thoughts sometimes. It's like the memory is an anxiety earworm, and you have to hear the song to purge it. My most dramatic one is that I used to have dreams that I was driving and the brakes failed. It was terrifying. Then it actually happened to me, and I managed it fine and I don't think I have had that dream again. It was frightening, but it turns out I had the skills to manage the situation, as well as a bit of luck.

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                #8
                Re: Irrational Parental Fears

                I disconnect (not sure if it's severe enough to call it disassociate) when it comes to media depicting scenes and storylines like that. When I was pregnant with #3, I couldn't watch criminal minds anymore, couldn't watch most crime shows. It went away a bit after he was born, but now it's to the point where I can't listen or watch in depth or it starts to make me sick. Media is still better than hearing and seeing it in real life though--I can't get through new stories if I don't skim them, or if they are expose style or graphic.

                My friend, who has two kids, is much more sensitive than me, and a lot of our parent aquaintances struggle with it too.
                ~Rudyard Kipling, The Cat Who Walks By Himself

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