Safe at Home

Dr. Val’s question slammed me.

My talk at Books & Books in Coral Gables last Friday had been progressing smoothly. I was humbled that over a hundred people had taken time out of their full days to come and hear me speak about my new book, Raising Healthy Kids in an Unhealthy World.

My dad had “opened” for me by flawlessly reciting a couple of the dozen poems he knows from memory. My dear friend, Bruce Turkel had eloquently and graciously introduced me. The SRO crowd was laughing in the right places and the live streaming was seamless. In the Q and A, I felt good about my ability to respond to the thoughtful questions from the audience. My main message–“love the kids you get and you’ll get the kids you’ll love–seemed to be going over well judging by the smiles and nods. “Take your kids camping” I intoned. “Spend both quality time and quantity time with your beloved children.”

What could go wrong?

But then Dr. Val (my colleague from Informed Families ) politely asked, “what about families who cannot afford to go on a wilderness trek to Utah. How do these families just be with their children?” (Click Here then fast forward to 41:30 to hear Dr. Val’s question.) The implication was clear: what about a single mom working two jobs? With limited income, she doesn’t have the budget for camping gear let alone cross country air tickets. What can she do in the restricted time that she has?

In response, I mumbled something about how my dad and I used to toss a ball back-and-forth in the street in front of our house, that a couple of ball gloves and a baseball are inexpensive. The implication was that even if vacations are outside the budget, modeling appropriate interactions with your kids can happen on the cheap. “Find an hour,” I said. “Find an hour each and every day.”

With the benefit of perfect hindsight, I find my response inadequate and imperfect. Now that I’ve had a week to think about it-and now that the cameras are turned off-I want to try to give a better answer. Because the insights for how to raise healthy kids should be similar across neighborhoods, incomes, and social classes.

Just as the best way to increase your odds of surviving the plague in Europe in the Middle Ages was the same regardless of how many chickens a family had.

Half a millennium ago, before an infectious model of disease, before blood borne illnesses were understood, people were dying in droves. Some estimates suggest that one in four people in Europe succumbed. Fleas carried on rats brought by trading ships bit people who got sick and died within days. Indeed, one of our oldest nursery rhymes, “Ring around the Rosie,” may refer to the progression of the disease.

“A rosy rash… was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and ‘all fall down’ was exactly what happened.” (Wikipedia.)

Families who survived were those who could sequester themselves and avoid infection. Today, keeping our families safe from the dangers of harmful media and process addictions requires similar quarantines. Every family, regardless of income, can “just say no” to screens. Any home can be a safe haven where families read books and talk about ideas rather than focusing on which celebrity married or murdered another.

I will continue to think about Dr. Val’s question and how to keep our families safe. In the meantime, here is my improved answer:

Utah need only be as far away as a walk to the public library.