Recently my husband and I went whitewater rafting. No lazy river for us, we love those rapids that dump you into icy water or spin you into rocks.
After a particularly perilous stretch, our guide mentioned that a woman had drowned after becoming trapped underwater between a rock and the raft. “Drowned, as in died?” I asked incredulously.
We always sign disclaimers but – rather stupidly, in hindsight – I’d forgotten these occasional adventures could actually kill us.
We talk about cotton-wooling kids, but does parenting also mean cotton-wooling ourselves?
Over the past decade, I’ve learnt to live with the sealing of my adrenalin synapses, because risk and child-rearing seem mutually exclusive. You can’t teach your kids to tie their shoelaces if you’ve lost your fingers to hypothermia.
Now I live safely. My husband, less so. After 12 years as a war photographer, he’s packed away his flak jacket, but I still see the light in his eyes when he’s dispatched to tsunamis, bombings and bushfires.
Meanwhile, I’ve given up the extreme skiing that required avalanche training. And while I once travelled through Africa’s machete country to find the oldest woman in the world, now I’d think twice.
Do I miss it? Oh, so much. But no rush, whether physically or chemically induced, is worth leaving my children without a mother.
So what of other parents who risk and sometimes lose their lives in their pursuit of danger and adventure? And what of those who do it for a career? The soldiers, police officers, firefighters who set off each day with the possibility they might not come home? Who’s a hero and who’s just plain foolhardy?
In 1995 I reported on the death of mountaineer Alison Hargreaves as she descended K2. Living her life according to the Tibetan proverb, “It is better to have lived one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep”, seemed achingly selfish against the image of her young son and daughter.
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After waking up in hospital from a motorcycle crash, not having a clue on how I got there, I started to think of my new born son. Although I was back on the bike 3 days later it didn't take long to weigh up my level of risk taking and the bike was sold. I could not stand to think the impact it would have had on my son for the greater part of his life if I were to have died on the track that day. And since hearing about the crash from other riders around me, It's amazing I had nothing more than pretty severe concussion. To put it into perspective another bike ran over me and over my head leaving a skid mark on my helmet. Yeah. It was enough to put the helmet on the shelf and get on with enjoying being a parent. Looking forward to him getting a little older so we can go snowboarding together... I know, I know....
I don't think it's a matter of "giving up" pursuits that you enjoy, but of taking extra care in them. Life is, ultimately, fatal.
For example, I have two daughters (6 and 11) and a few years ago I finally talked my wife into letting me buy a very LARGE motorcycle, both as an added form of transport and because I love bikes. Yes, they are dangerous, but I'm a careful rider (as careful as I can be) - if anything happens it's not through lack of care - I ride like all you tin can owners are idiots .
And the girls have clocked up more time on the back than their mother, which she is most displeased about.
My point is you can't wrap your kids in cotton wool all their lives, nor can you do the same to your partner, just because something *MAY* happen. Life would be completely boring if you did.
Ever seen having my 2 children (2 and a half year old and 1 year old) I have become the most boring person. I refuse to do anything that "adventerous". The thought of leaving my children motherless petrifies me. I don't smoke or drink either just in case it makes me sick. I lost my mother wen I was 21 after she passed away all of a sudden from an anuerism. She had never smoked, done drugs or drank alcohol either but didn't live past the age of 48. Therefore I know what it feels like 2 be motherless, and I would never want my children to feel that pain. And it's a pain no medication can fix. So no white water rafting, bungy jumping or anything of the sort. Not for the next 30 years at least.