美国国家公共电台 NPR Raising Kids In An 'Age Of Fear' Results In Impossible Choices For Parents

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

This next story is about one of those split-second, seat-of-the-pants decisions you make that turns out to have profound consequences for your life. Our co-host Mary Louise Kelly picks it up from here.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE¹: This is the story of Kim Brooks². She was in a rush trying to get her two young kids packed and to the airport to catch a flight. They'd been visiting her parents in Virginia. Brooks needed to run a last-minute errand - buy some headphones for her 4-year-old son so he'd be entertained on the flight. So she strapped³ him in the car and headed to Target. What happened next is the subject of her new book "Small Animals: Parenthood In The Age Of Fear."

KIM BROOKS: He asked if he could wait in the car. He was playing with my mom's iPad. And I said OK.

KELLY: She'd never left her son unattended in a car. But it was a cool day. She had child locks on the car doors. And it was a nice neighborhood.

BROOKS: You know, I had all these memories from my own childhood of waiting in the car for a couple minutes while my parents ran errands.

KELLY: A few minutes later, she was back in the car, and everything was fine. Except everything wasn't fine. When I spoke⁴ with Kim Brooks, I asked her to pick up the story of what happened when she got off the plane back home.

BROOKS: It was only when I returned to Chicago did I realize apparently⁵ someone had seen me go into the store, leave my son when I went in, had recorded me doing this on their phone, had contacted the police, who had shown up then after I had already left.

KELLY: So more than a year after the incident in the parking lot, your phone rings. And it's a police officer calling to say, are you aware, Mrs. Brooks, that there's a warrant outstanding for your arrest in the state of Virginia? Walk me through that moment.

BROOKS: I just was so terrified and shocked. I actually sat down on the sidewalk where I was walking. I just couldn't believe that it was happening.

KELLY: And you ended up having to go fly back to Virginia, show up in court, meet a judge and try to persuade them - what? What was your defense⁶?

BROOKS: The defense that we went with was that this was a temporary lapse⁷ in judgment⁸, that, you know, I was not a neglectful mother, that there was no history of neglect. You know, and at one point I said to my lawyer as I started to think more about what was happening and to read about other stories and to talk to parenting rights advocates - I said to him, I don't really know that I've done something wrong here. You know, I don't understand why I'm being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor⁹. I don't really see how I've committed a crime.

KELLY: I was going to ask. Is it against the law in Virginia to leave a kid in the car for five minutes?

BROOKS: There's no specific law in Virginia or in a lot of states. It's left up to the discretion¹⁰ of the officer or for anyone who sees what's happened. So there have been people in similar - who've done similar things who are charged with felonies, who are charged with child endangerment or child neglect.

KELLY: It must have been like a slow-motion nightmare trying to go about your daily life and being a mom to your kids as all of this is constantly in your - in the back of your mind.

BROOKS: Yeah. It was very frightening and anxiety-producing largely because while it was happening, I was trying to make sense of it. You know, I was trying to understand how it was possible that something I had grown up doing so often - waiting in a car in a safe parking lot - how this had become a crime.

KELLY: I found myself thinking along similar lines. I mean, I also remember being a kid in the '70s, in the '80s and, yeah, being left in a car alone by myself as my parents ran an errand, riding around without a seatbelt, for that matter, riding my bike without a helmet in sight. I mean, all of us did all kinds of things that must be far more risky¹¹ than leaving a child sitting in a car for five minutes. What - as you went about investigating this for the book, what did you put your finger on in terms of how things have changed so quickly in a generation?

BROOKS: Yeah. I mean, well, I think there are a few different things that I learned about in the course of writing the book. You know, one is that I think a lot of this began in the '80s with a lot of very publicized cases of child abduction. There was the Adam Walsh case and the Etan Patz case. And I learned about something called the availability heuristic, which is a psychological term. And what it means is that when we are trying to assess how risky something is, you know, we don't think about statistics. We often don't think about risks rationally. We think about how quickly we can recall an example of something.

So what happened is, you know, suddenly it was much easier to recall these examples of child abduction or much later on hot car deaths. So suddenly things that had never been thought of as risks or dangers seemed much more dangerous than they were. That's one thing that I discovered.

KELLY: And are they actually dangerous?

BROOKS: Well, you know, the most dangerous thing that I did that day I later learned was actually put my son in the car and drive anyplace with him.

KELLY: The risk of an automobile¹² accident, you're saying, is higher than the risk that something would have happened to him in that parking lot.

BROOKS: Yeah, exactly, which is not something that, you know, we're conscious of in our day-to-day lives. But what I realized is that a lot of the things that seem dangerous to people, that feel dangerous are not actually statistically¹³ significant risks.

KELLY: What are the consequences for children of this era we live in where it is unacceptable, possibly even seen as criminal to leave a kid alone for a few minutes?

BROOKS: Well, I think that the easiest way to answer that is to think, what would the consequences be for adults? You know, what would the consequences be for you or for me if suddenly we had no freedom, we couldn't be in public spaces on our own, no unsupervised time? What you'd see is what we're seeing in children, which is high rates of depression, anxiety, obesity¹⁴. You know, I think that we're really doing children a disservice when we underestimate what they're capable of.

KELLY: Your story has a happy ending. Your son is fine, was always fine. You served community service. And this incident is now behind you. But do you have empathy for people who come at this from a really different direction? Or let me ask it more personally.

BROOKS: Sure.

KELLY: Do you have empathy for the person who shot that cellphone video of you that day in the parking lot?

BROOKS: Yeah. You know, I do. I mean, I get asked that a lot. People say, like, are you angry at that person or, you know, what would you say to them? I mean, I want to stress that I understand being afraid both as a bystander and as a parent. I don't think that fear is the problem. I think the problem is that we often don't know what to do with our fear. We don't know how to acknowledge it for what it is, which is a feeling which might be giving us some information about the world, but it's also giving us information about ourselves.

But I think that the place I've gotten to is that I think it's OK. I allow myself to feel fear without always capitulating to it. You know, I kind of see it for what it is, you know, that you can have that feeling. You can be afraid of something. You can have a negative fantasy. And you can say, there's fear. You know, there it is. But that doesn't - you don't have to capitulate to it. You don't have to live your life by fear.

KELLY: That's Kim Brooks. Her book is titled "Small Animals: Parenthood In The Age Of Fear." Kim Brooks, thank you.

BROOKS: Thank you.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

6 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

7 lapse   

n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效

参考例句：

• The incident was being seen as a serious security lapse.这一事故被看作是一次严重的安全疏忽。
• I had a lapse of memory.我记错了。

8 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

9 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

10 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

11 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

12 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

13 statistically   

ad.根据统计数据来看，从统计学的观点来看

参考例句：

• The sample of building permits is larger and therefore, statistically satisfying. 建筑许可数的样本比较大，所以统计数据更令人满意。
• The results of each test would have to be statistically independent. 每次试验的结果在统计上必须是独立的。

14 obesity   

n.肥胖，肥大

参考例句：

• One effect of overeating may be obesity.吃得过多能导致肥胖。
• Sugar and fat can more easily lead to obesity than some other foods.糖和脂肪比其他食物更容易导致肥胖。