Terrifying children

Easter approaches and parents all over the county are taking their children to see the Easter Bunny.

Okay, that may be better than introducing them to pagan fertility rites or plowing people into the field, but it is still a pretty unnatural thing to do to a young impressionable mind! The only time I plopped my children down into the lap of a furry, six foot, creature with huge, unblinking eyes and a vinyl nose, my youngest became hysterical.  He was less than two and he was surrounded by his older siblings. When I got him home I asked him why he didn't like the Easter bunny, His response? "Dat wabbit's mouf didn't move when it talked."

Valid response by a normal, aware emerging human being.

I made me think of other times my children were terrorized by a well meaning world.

I was driving through a small suburb of Normal, Illinois when my older son began shrieking, "Chickie, chickee, chickee." If only he hadn't been in tears at the same time it might have been cuter, but what he was seeing was a huge, bigger than a truck, chicken on the back of a pick up! An advertisement for a local restaurant.

We were visiting Grandma for a celebratory picnic when a loud rhythmic sound vibrated through out the building and my 18 month old son suddenly pointed out the window screaming, "Bug! Bug! Bug!" That was one BIG bug, or helicopter landing right outside in the yard.

Or there was the time we drove down the Interstate and the baby in back started screaming, "Wabbit, wabbit, wabbit!" It took us a while to identify the large power towers we were passing that had two spires, looking quite a bit like Godzilla rabbits to an aware baby.

Less terrifying was when he started yelling boat in the desert. That time it turned out only to truly be a large yacht someone was towing down the highway.

Sometimes I wonder how children survive childhood without night terrors forever more. In our world they see things that appear hideously unnatural, loud and huge.