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I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you live with in

• corpMaverick 9y ago
  It is really scary to think about it. But don't focus on what you might loose. Just be grateful for what you have. Try to enjoy every moment you have with them.
  • Pigo 9y ago
    I think I do. My boy is 6 now, so he's a little less vulnerable, and I've learned to see that anxiety for what it is. Honestly, I don't think it scares me as much anymore, but as soon as you read an article like this it can ruin my day. But then maybe it's good to have a dose of it once in awhile, to keep me from getting to comfortable with his safety.
  • WhitneyLand 9y ago
    The problem with that advice is that is makes too much sense. In otherwords, most people would agree with it, but then comes the hard part. Fundamentally transforming default thinking patterns that have been etched deeply through years of habit and experience. Why leave out step 2? Can advice on step 1 be helpful without a plan for step 2?
    • saturdaysaint 9y ago
      Fundamentally transforming default thinking patterns that have been etched deeply through years of habit and experience. ...and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. We are hard wired to spend an inordinate amount of time and attention on averting losses of all kinds, often to a degree that confounds any sort of cost/benefit analysis.
      • fjsolwmv 9y ago
        Not really. Young people are naturally adventurous, and old people are naturally cautious. It's a balance of life stages that works really well for society in aggregate.
        • saturdaysaint 9y ago
          Both are averting losses of different kinds. Young people are driven by social pressures (FOMO), old people are avoiding bigger risks (mortality, financial calamity). This is bog standard behavioral economics. I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
• CodeCube 9y ago
  same ... I can't watch movies and tv shows (cop dramas and such) in which a child is victimized. When such an episode comes on, I just get really uncomfortable, and nope out to do something else.
  • mikemac 9y ago
    Same here, wish there was a Netflix section for "movies where no children are harmed"
    • qaq 9y ago
      Same and this is a really good idea
      • Myrmornis 9y ago
        Non-parent here. I’m surprised to hear calls for a Netflix “safe space” from adults on HN rather than from whiny kids at a liberal arts college. It’s obvious that you’re sincere and that becoming a parent has affected you profoundly.
        • jamiegreen 9y ago
          They didnt say the movies should be banned from Netflix, but rather that they would like to have some filter in order to avoid such movies.
          • Myrmornis 9y ago
            Sorry, I meant trigger warning.
            • magic_beans 9y ago
              You'll be a great parent some day.
        • chickenfries 9y ago
• kohanz 9y ago
  I can totally relate to your feeling. I became a father about 4 years ago and all of a sudden stories like this one, or a sick child, took on extra meaning. I either couldn't read them or I did and it would touch me deeply and affect my mood for a long time. It's unimaginable. Since then, two close friends have lost their children under tragic circumstances. You can't really put it into words what you'll feel for them. The only thing I try to take out of it is to be kind to others (you never know what they are going through or have gone through) and to live in the present, because you never know what can happen in the future.
  • jf 9y ago
    > I became a father about 4 years ago and all of a sudden stories like this one, or a sick child, took on extra meaning. I often think of how Tycho from Penny Arcade describes this phenomena: "Children carve something out of you, a place for themselves; people can twist the knife in that spot, and it just bleeds and bleeds."
• dudul 9y ago
  Same boat. I used to not care more than that - I would tell myself it's awful and move on. but now that I have kids I can't read stories like that without feeling sick.
• thearn4 9y ago
  Agreed, I'm a father and found it to be a tough read.
• jwineinger 9y ago
  I'm the same. I see previews for tv/movies about kidnappings or other atrocities involving children and I just shake my head. NOPE. Why would I want to think about that more than I already do? The fear is too real for a father.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• SomeHacker44 9y ago
  Yes. After becoming a father, and especially as my son has grown to a teen, I have become more and more unable to voluntarily consume media which involves the death of children. Nonetheless, I read this one, because it involves confronting this deep seated fear from a perspective I felt I could relate to.
  • fjsolwmv 9y ago
    And yet everyone loves watching Alderaan blow up.
  • isoprophlex 9y ago
    I have a six months old. I really REALLY dreaded reading this article... but afterwards I've finally realized that for the last half year I've been quite afraid, scared of the fact that this beautiful thing that came into my life can be taken from me at any time by an uncaring cosmos. Powerful stuff. It feels vitally important to confront this fear. But I do feel deeply unsettled.
    • SomeHacker44 9y ago
      This is so true: "quite afraid, scared of the fact that this beautiful thing that came into my life can be taken from me at any time by an uncaring cosmos." That fear doesn't go away, and, as I indicated, it actually got worse over time for me. Not crippling/anxiety or anything like that, but comes out at random times, not to mention all the expected times (e.g., reading news, watching media, etc.).
• TomAnthony 9y ago
  Thanks for this comment - this is exactly how I feel with two daughters (6 & 3). Any stories like this just make me think about my kids being in that scenario. I try to use it to motivate me to be mindful of enjoying this time and grateful for my luck.
• vanadium 9y ago
  Same. It's bad enough that my son (then 2, now 6) almost ran into a very busy street while I was in the car waiting as my wife was getting him ready to go home from daycare. That feeling of utter panic and helplessness watching him run while my wife and I screamed for him to stop will never, ever go away. It still pains me when the memory comes up, of what could have been. He stopped 3 feet from an oncoming 18-wheeler and turned around in more fear than I've ever seen in a little kid since.
• jfoucher 9y ago
  Haven't read the story yet, don't know if I will. I just wanted to reply to your comment with a personal anecdote. My eldest son died in an accident when he was about 2 ½ years old. The dread wasn't there before. I didn't think anything like that would happen to me. You do learn to live with the pain, even I sometimes cry for what would have been futile reasons. But I still couldn't bring myself to enter the church at an acquaintance's funeral. The pain was too much to handle. It's the guilt that's harder to get rid of. Everything you could have done to prevent it. Eventually (therapy does help) it softens a bit. So I don't think it's ever possible to get over something like that. It's been almost ten years. Maybe in another ten it'll have passed. Edit: just wanted to add, spend the most quality time you can with your kids. I resigned from my job when my eldest was 1 year old to be able to spend more time with him. Best decision of my life in retrospect.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    Man that hurts. Strength to you.
  • caseysoftware 9y ago
    I have two toddlers and that's visceral. I'm sorry. That's awful. That's beyond awful. There are no words. I travel a ton for work and take the earliest flight out in the morning so I can tuck them in the night before. Then I get back late so I'm there when they wake up the next morning. Physically painful but worth it.
    • avh02 9y ago
      I'm not anywhere near "old", but you may want to consider the tradeoffs you're making on your health (I.e: longevity) by being brutal to your body in the short term. I don't have kids, but I like your values... Just make sure you're not screwing up being around later on as well. Just a concerned stranger. I wish you well.
      • caseysoftware 9y ago
        Point taken, considered, and hopefully already mitigated. :)
• christophilus 9y ago
  I had a similar experience yesterday when my wife related a near-kidnapping that happened in a grocery store. It seems that a pair of child-traffickers attempted to take a baby out of a shopping cart. It was a male/female duo. (Side note: NEVER leave your children unattended even for a moment. In this case, the parent was right beside the cart, moving groceries from the cart to the conveyor belt. It was a brazen act on the part of the kidnappers.) In the past, stories like that would make me angry, but that's about it. Now that I have a kid, my brain plays through the scene with him as the baby being taken. My response is violence. I'm not a violent person at all, but I think I'd probably kill those kidnappers in the heat of the moment if I realized what was happening. I mean I would find anything to use as a weapon, and I'd just beat the everliving crap out of them. It's probably the worst reaction I could have, as it would mean me spending my life in jail, my son growing up without a dad, etc. Just a terrible, terrible decision, really. But I think that's what I'd do in the moment unless I could manage to overcome emotions with reason. It's hard to express how having a kid changes your perspective on things like this.
  • somebodyfree 9y ago
    This did not actually happen: http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/23/ye-olde-ikea-sex-traffickers http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/23/ye-olde-ikea-sex-traff...
    • jacquesm 9y ago
      Apologizing for the source, but sometimes it does happen: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2123200/man-arrested-after-three-year-old-girl-snatched-in-front-of-her-mums-eyes-in-morrisons-store/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2123200/man-arrested-after-thr...
      • AznHisoka 9y ago
        Yep, this happens all the time in some parts of China as well.
      • christophilus 9y ago
• PerfectElement 9y ago
  Same here. I cringe when I see the common HN rhetoric that parents now a days are over-protective. Go say that to parents who lost a child and now live in regret. Kids are unpredictable. I remember being 7 years old and waiting with my mom to cross a busy street. For some reason that today is unknown to me, I decided to just run across the street as soon as the lights turned yellow. I almost got hit and my mom almost had a heart attack. I use this example to keep me alert when I'm with my daughter in a potentially dangerous but seemingly safe environment. You never know what's going on in their little heads.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    A little girl cycled of the pavement a while ago, just as I was passing, good brakes and no traffic from the other side. Very close call and I have not yet gotten over it yet, nightmares and daily thoughts about it. I am pretty sure her mom also remembers it vividly. Kids can be totally unpredictable like that and how it all ends is hugely dependent on circumstance.
    • drewm1980 9y ago
      You're a good person; listen to your subconscious! You can't change the unpredictability of kids, but you ~can stop driving, and model good non-driving behavior for your kids and the other people around you.
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        How come you think I can stop driving? If I stop driving I can kiss the business I built up over the last 10 years goodbye, there is absolutely no way that I can work without the level of mobility and reliability that a vehicle affords. I have on occasion experimented with public transport in the country where I live and it simply does not work at a reliability level that I can trust not to result in regular embarassment due to inability to be where I need to be when I agreed to be there. This is a pretty bad state of affairs but I did not create that state of affairs and the day that this is fixed I will be more than happy to stop driving. As it is, between email and driving I do not know which I hate more and as soon as I shut down my business and can retire I will be happy to get rid of both. Please do not make assumptions about other peoples lives.
• usuallymatt 9y ago
  Same for me. I read stuff like this and always picture it happening to my kids. It somehow makes it worse in this instance that it's a complete accident that no one could have done anything to prevent it. I'm much more sensitive and squeamish since having kids.
  • Mithaldu 9y ago
    There's plenty that could've been done to prevent this. Most basic and simple would be to institute a traffic law culture in which the driver does get blame by default for hurting a pedestrian so they have pedestrians on their mind every single minute they control their car.
    • sulam 9y ago
      What the hell? Did you read the story? This woman should be blamed for what was completely unpredictable? Do you realize she would be in prison for vehicular manslaughter? How about not having a 40 or 50 mph speed limit on a residential street?
      • nickspacek 9y ago
        And mandating fences and sidewalks to give more visibility? Building codes that ensure there is visibility in all driveways? There probably are a lot of policies you could put in place.
      • matt_s 9y ago
        I believe she stated it was a rural road or had just turned into a rural road. Commonly now these have a 55mph speed limit and people do live on them. Its not described that she was going 45 or 50 through what we think of as subdivisions now.
      • Mithaldu 9y ago
        I said "institute a traffic law culture", not "apply this ruling to this woman". If the entire culture is based on certain assumptions, many aspects of it change to accommodate it. For example all of the things nickspacek mentions here would be brought in in due course based on pressure from the drivers themselves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107645
• rdiddly 9y ago
  And all of you saying "same here" because your children are so precious, you all swore off driving cars, right? Because other people's children are precious?
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    What a nasty little comment. No, we did not all swear off cars, but we will do our damnest to drive slow in areas where children are known to be about, keep our vehicles in top shape so that when you need to swerve or do an emergency stop there are as few variables in the equation as possible, will not do drugs, will not drink and will keep our eyes on the fucking road. By your standard we should all jump off the nearest bridge for living our lives in a way that we can not guarantee that something bad will ever happen to children, our own or someone else´s. Attempting to guilt trip people for taking part in society is pretty low.
    • rdiddly 9y ago
      You're on the right track trying to be safe, but in the Kubler-Ross sense it's a lot like the "bargaining" phase of grief or loss. "I can still have my car if I check the tires and drive sober etc." What this article shows is that you still have a nonzero chance of killing someone anyway. (Which you knew already.) Where I'm going further is to say, no, it's not an "accident" in my book - you chose to travel by the deadliest method. It's the elephant in the room that nobody sees. So, I expect lots of downvotes from the very people who most need to hear this perspective. So yeah, there's one more variable you can adjust before taking that leap off the bridge, which is to choose a safer method of travel. I've been living without a car for 25 years, using a bike mostly, thereby substantially reducing the chance anything bad will happen to your children because of me. So "by my standard," you should simply do that. I know it can be done because I'm doing it. But it's also the reason I have little patience for all the posturing about safety. Your children are safe inside the metal box you use to murder everyone else's. Not only by running into them, but incrementally by air pollution, and spiritually by the creation of awful places built around car ownership (which includes most of Silicon Valley), and maybe even economically by assisting in a process of extracting your money out of your own community and into the coffers of faraway one-percenters. Jumping off a bridge would certainly work too though, and reduce the risk to the rest of us. However I don't recommend it, as suicide is usually the last resort for people going through problems a lot worse than reading a lovely novel as they ride a bus to work. In fact, suicide is an issue that deserves serious treatment, rather than to be used as a lot of forehead-wiping over-dramatics.
• triangleman 9y ago
  > This little helpless person has your life in it's hands. A Freudian slip that exemplifies even more how it feels to have a child.
• whistlerbrk 9y ago
  Same. I never truly understood fear and dread until my daughter arrived. I went from being a rather fearless person to seeing the true danger in the world everywhere.
  • Pigo 9y ago
    While in college I used to run electric in houses that were being built. The old guys liked me because I'd hang from rafters upside down to reach lights, even when there were no floors yet and you could see 2 or 3 stories into the basement. The thought of falling never once entered into my mind, and I remember thinking they were lame for being so afraid.
• balls187 9y ago
  I force myself to read stories like this, as it helps keep in perspective that everyday I have with my son is a gift, and never take it for granted.
• sandebert 9y ago
  I don't really have anything to add other than I completely agree. I won't read the story. There's also certain documentaries I won't watch for the same reason.
• cortesoft 9y ago
  My cousin's daughter was killed in a car accident while my wife was pregnant with our daughter. I think about her almost every day, and just have this absolute immense sense of dread when I think about what it would be like to lose her in such a sudden and freak way. I can't imagine.
• megy 9y ago
  You can't read the story, but I bet you still drive?