I posted this on Twitter yesterday.  Another one of my rants about the cost of parenting and preparing my child for his elementary school career.  I figured that people are tired of shelling out money like I am, and they would agree with my bitching about back-to-school preparation. Nope, I got freaky responses and private messages about the “privacy” of my child.

Apparently, because I had my son’s name embroidered on his backpack, so that it won’t get taken by another kid, he is going to get kidnapped.  Yep, that creepy guy in the ice cream truck is out there looking for kids with their name embroidered on their backpacks.  My son is five, he is going into Kindergarten.  We will be walking him to and from school everyday.  He goes to school only three hours, and three days a week, he will go to the after care program at school.  I’m trying to figure out how there will be time in between all of that for Angry Kid to be kidnapped?

I didn’t realize that I was a “Free Range” parent until I read Lenore Skenazy’s book, “Free-Range Kids”.  My friend Carrie recommended the book last year. It was a fast read for me.  I did a lot of head nodding while reading it.  I may not always agree with everything said in the book, but it did make me realize that I need to chill out sometimes as a parent.  I think kids are way too micro-managed these days in the land of the helicopter parent.

I’ve heard this phrase way too much lately, “Perception Is Reality”.  What does that really mean to you? I would like to compare it to, “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”.  People hear things on the news, read them on the newspaper, and/or Internet and believe this all to be true.  I wish people would take more time to research things, than to jump to conclusions without really thinking about these things through.

I’m more freaked out about my son getting into a car accident than being kidnapped.  I think people need to really think about the statistics, and trust their better judgment and instincts, rather than the media.  I would assume that most people know that most kidnappings you hear about these days are parental or known family abductions, usually related to child custody.  Yes, there are stranger abductions, which are very rare, and of course you will see those all over the news.

So everyone who responded to me yesterday, “Thank you for thinking about this, but we are not worried that predators will seek out our child because his name is embroidered on his backpack and lunchbox.”  I don’t think that the school is too worried either as they told us to label everything, and they also posted his full name on the front doors of the school for class listings.

Oh, and I posted my presentation last week on Privacy and Your Blog-Ten Things To Think About.  This was an outline and guidelines for everyone to think about.  I didn’t write down my thoughts and rules on these subjects, but a general outline.  Everyone has their own opinions about privacy and I am not going to judge you for that at all.  I have my reasons for doing certain things, that I will not go into here, but most of the time, I’m an open book.  Seriously, there are many things that I leave wide open.  My e-mail is provided on my contact page if you have questions about privacy, etc. I promise to get back to you as soon as I can.

P.S. My son’s goggles got taken at swim lessons the other day.  He was in the pre-swim pool with about ten other kids.  It was like they disappeared out of thin air.  My husband had to drop $16 for a new pair before his lesson.  I wish I could have monogrammed those damn goggles.