Etan Patz and the lasting effect on parents of today, including me.

     








  First there was news about the outcome of the Etan Patz murderer case against a Mr. Hernandez.

Now, if you don't know who Etan Patz is, you are lucky.  Because as the article stated, there is a difference in the US bringing up children pre and post Etan Patz' disappearance.  Here.

Pre disappearance, kids were much freer and were left at the playground without any parental supervision.  They could walk home or to school  after 6 years of age by themselves.  Parents let them be more independent.

Post disappearance, all those free range kids days, latchkey kids stopped.

I was at a high school reunion some years ago and for some reason the topic got on kids (now how did that happen?) and one friend, a woman, said, "its different these days.  We cant let our kids play in the parks by themselves."

The difference is that on May 25, 1979 Etan Patz was abducted on his way to school, BY A STRANGER.  His parents had let him walk the two blocks, TWO BLOCKS (its not very far) by himself to the bus stop and in that interval he was abducted and presumably murdered.  That was a game changer.  The perception that there are strangers out there who could take your children, and not for ransom money; it infected parents brains from that point on.  Regardless if the statistics show that most abductors will be a relative or someone we know.  It is perception that matters and the perception is that an abductor is more than likely to be a stranger.


What I wanted to get to talk about is that abduction not only affected the parents of that time, but it affected the children of that time who would become parents now.  Myself being one of those children turned parent today.  As a result there is a question in my head that I ask myself, "when will I let my older girl walk to school by herself?"  I recall, I was already walking to school by myself at least by the time I was 9 and maybe even 7 and my school was about the same distance from the house I grew up in as our flat is from my daughters school.  But I think for sure I will be walking her next year when she is 7 and after that we will see.  I worry about the busy streets just as much as an abduction.  I still don't think she pays attention when she crosses the street.  And some of the neighborhood she will walk through could be similar to that neighborhood which Etan Patz walked when he was abducted.

The result is that I will become more of a helicopter parent.  Will that be bad?  See my article on helicopter parents here.   Well, again, it depends how much and how long I will be a helicopter parent and does the risk outweigh the reward? In other words by being more helicopterish will I be harming my daughter more than the reward of my daughter being safe?  Maybe I am over reacting and it is a safe neighborhood.  Maybe I am over utopiaizing (no its not a word, I just made it up) that I can keep my children 100 per cent safe.  I can not.   Bad things can happen no matter what.  I can turn my head and something can happen.  But perception says that I can do a damn good job of keeping my children safe if I do more watching and hovering.    

It can`t be helped.  Unfortunately the abduction of Etan Patz in 1979 left a mark on myself and will affect the way I bring up my children. 

I don't like the word victim in this case, some people would say I am a silent victim of this case. However I was  "tattooed" by this event and I will act according to what I feel will be greater security and safety for my own children.  Some of that may be so called "helicoptering"

Perception is the reality.  More people are killed in car crashes than in plane crashes or by terrorist attacks.  But are people afraid to get into a car?  No.  There are more people scared to fly in a plane.  And you want to know how much the US government spends on preventing terrorist attacks, the budget of the Homeland Security?  No I didn't think you did.  It is one of those numbers that boggles.  But they still can not stop terrorist activity 100 per cent.  If they turn their heads even for a minute, a terrorist could attack.  Bad things happen in life.  You get the idea?  You get the parallel I am trying to draw?  If the national U.S. government is guided by perception and tries to stop terrorist attacks one hundred per cent (which it can`t), well, so I will try to keep my daughters 100 per cent safe and be guided by perception. 

Etan Patz was abducted by a stranger and the media coverage afterward and the government activity after that was immense including the beginning of pictures of missing kids on milk cartons.  I am not saying that was bad, but it did happen.  Therefore it is like this, for me too.   Rather safe than sorry, for that matter, killed.  Perception is the reality.

But permit me to end on a happy note:  I really enjoy walking my daughters to school.  I hope they wont mind if I walk them to school for many years.  It will leave me with such fond memories throughout my life.  Thus a silver lining to the very sad tale of Etan Patz.  I hope that makes him smile where ever he is.        

Stay at Home Dad?

 David Heitler-Klevans with his wife, Jenny, formed their band "Two of a Kind" in 1990.  It is a "kids" band with music written and performed for young audiences in mind.  This is the short story of what happened when the couple`s twins were born.  At the time both David and his wife had full time jobs to support them as well as playing shows and touring. 




By David Heitler-Klevans

I had been working as a music teacher in elementary schools for 5 years, and although I had enjoyed it for most of that time, I was starting to get burned out.  Not from the actual work with the kids, but from the work-place politics and dealing with rules I didn’t always understand or accept. 

Our identical twin sons, Ari and Jason, were born 8 weeks early at the end of January 1995.  Being premature, they had to spend their first 5 weeks of life in the hospital NICU (the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit), hooked up to all sorts of wires and tubes.  Although this was a tough way for both parents and babies to start things off, I never really worried that they would be OK – I could tell when I looked in their eyes that “the lights were on and someone was home.”

My wife Jenny took one month of vacation time from her job while our sons were in the NICU.  When our boys finally did come home from the hospital, she had 3 months maternity leave, and she got help from both of our mothers.  I was an active co-parent, doing my share of diaper changes and on duty all night long, but since my wife was breastfeeding, there was a limit to how much I could do.

After my wife’s maternity leave ended, she went back to work part-time.  Again our mothers came through with help until my summer vacation.  I became a stay-at-home dad for the summer.  Little did I know… 

Even though I had been an involved father up to this point, Jenny had usually been there with me.  I was especially worried about what to do if both of my sons needed me urgently at the same time, to be comforted or changed or whatever.  They were so little and helpless, and there were 2 of them and only one of me.

However, I soon got into a rhythm.  There were all the obvious daily tasks of getting them dressed (often matching, but never identical outfits – Jenny found it amusing that I enjoyed coordinating their outfits!), giving them their bottles of pumped breast milk (“mom-sicles”!), changing their progressively messier diapers and giving them their nebulizer treatments (for their prematurity-based breathing needs).  My two favorite activities were reading them stories, one cuddling on each side of my lap in rapt attention, and walking them around the neighborhood in their twin stroller.  I got a lot of exercise strolling around our Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, singing them every song I could remember until they inevitably fell asleep.  I always panicked a bit when I had to leave one sleeping out on the sidewalk while I brought his brother up to their 2nd floor bedroom to lay him carefully in his crib, but nothing bad ever happened.  Luckily, our boys were always fairly easy to transfer from the car or stroller into the house without waking.

Morning and afternoon nap times were the only times of the day that I had to myself. Doing household chores and working on booking contacts for “Two of a Kind”, the children’s music duo that my wife and I had started five years earlier.  It was some sort of poetic justice that after naming ourselves Two of a Kind, we had produced identical twin sons!

As that summer progressed, we started looking for someone to hire to take care of our boys when I went back to my teaching job in the fall.  To say that I had mixed feelings about handing over our sons to a stranger is a huge understatement.  Every time I thought about it, I could feel the anxiety in my gut.  We finally found someone that we felt pretty good about, and I resigned myself to the idea, telling myself that this was just something I had to accept.  However, right near the end of the summer, the woman we had hired called to tell us that she couldn’t take the job after all.  All of my feelings of panic returned, and I just couldn’t face starting the search process all over again.  With my not-entirely-positive feelings about my teaching job, I realized that I was infinitely happier and more fulfilled taking care of my boys.  And what started out as just a summer turned into a full year with me as a stay-at-home dad.

Quitting my job and staying home with my twin sons for their first year was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.  Not that either the decision or the work of caring for infant twin boys was easy, but I am still so glad that I took that plunge.  I think it changed my life – and hopefully theirs as well – for the better.

Here is the family playing all together just recently for Two of a Kind's 25th anniversary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqkAu9rVZjo


(All pictures and you tube video used by permission of the author and owner)

I Neanderathal part 1

OK
I have to start this post now.  I keep saying I will, but don't.  Keep saying I have to do research, but don't.  So, go.  Lets start it.  Just jump right in and say it.

Men can not be good Fathers because they have such big egos!!  That is what I have to say.    

Destroy your ego.  Stomp on it.  Shut it down.  At least ignore it. 

In so doing, you will become a stronger Father and a happier one and one who will enjoy his kids more.  Because let me tell you what you have to do to earn Father of the year award, or even come close.

It is not good enough to just push your little one on the swing in the park.  You have to climb up with them and go down the slide.  You have to fit in those tube slides that scare the bejubbas out of me that I may not fit in them and get caught inside like Homer Simpson did on the tube water slide.  Not to mention that I am claustrophobic and it reminds me of being in a coffin.  I have to do it.  I did it.

 This slide is way bigger than the coffin tube slide
I was in.  This one I did, was great fun.  If  I hadn`t been the only adult going down it with 20 other kids waiting for me to go down. 





You have to ride on the other side of the see saw and bounce your kid going up and down.  In the process they will laugh so hard and tell you to keep going and keep doing it.  And you have to.   I did that one too, many times. 

You have to ride on those little bikes that go in a circle and look funny because you are way over sized for the thing, and pedal.  Your feet will hit the ground and your knees are uncomfortable, and inside your mind you are saying, "Oh jeez I must look like a maniac.  I feel like a fool," but you have to.    I did that one.... mm, once or twice, maybe three times when another adult was on with me.   

You have to get down in the sand box and dig big holes and put the sand in different forms of fish, frogs and trains and pack down the sand and say, "chary Mary hup" and dump the form out and say "Yeah" that it came out correct.  And you have to take a spoon and pretend to eat the sand when your child hands you the "cake" they just made and say, "MM, deeelicious cake".  And you have to sit on the edge of the sandbox or even in the sandbox and get along side your youngster and be there getting your hands and pants dirty.

But if you have a big ego, you just wont do that.  And.... you just wont qualify for Father of the year award.  And... you just wont even enjoy being a Father.

And it is all because you have a big ego and or an inferiority complex.   You are afraid of what people will think that you are doing these "weird" things, like... like playing around with your kids, digging around in the dirt and being a caring Father.

After my second girl was born, things were tough.  Its one thing to take one child to the park, but two? And one can`t barely walk and is still in the pram?  Then you are really looking like "A Mommy" in the put down pejorative sense.  You might as well admit that you don't have a money making job and your wife is the breadwinner of the family and swallow every bit of your big hard to chew down pride.  

Then, I had to leave the park and take them home.  Home was pretty close by, 10 minutes normal walk.  We didn't have a car, we didn't need one, living in the city.   But that meant that I had to walk the family home.  When I had to walk under this viaduct (pictured below) along this busy street with cars and buses streaming by while I pushed a big carriage with one baby in it and my other little girl rode on her little red motorcycle and everybody took a glimpse of me when they drove by and I felt like, yes, inferior product, then I knew that I had a problem.  I either had to hide out during the work hours and look like I was on my job break when I was being a "public" Father, or I had to at least ignore this ego I had, or better yet stomp on it and rip it up.

This is the viaduct we had to go through. Usually more cars.  

Guess which one I did?  
(to be continued)