My daughter is never going anywhere. EVER.

For once in my life, I feel like I understand parental fear. That is, one of the parental fears. The “kidnapping/murder/death/vegetative state of offspring” fear. I may not have children of my own, but I now understand why my mother asked me to call her every time I arrived at some far away destination. I understand why parents call their children just to say hey. They want to know their kids are ALIVE.

I’m not an idiot. I mean, sure I’ve been aware that my parents would check in because they wanted to make sure I was doing okay. That’s just good parenting (there are more factors that add up to good parenting, but frankly, were talking about parental fear here). I guess I’m saying that for the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve caught a glimpse of how I will feel when I have two or three kids running around all over the place. A child is born and CLICK- the fear switch is turned on. It never turns off. That is parenting in a nutshell.

Allow me to explain where this is all stemming from.

I watched Taken this evening. Yes, Taken. With Liam Neeson. The one where his daughter is kidnapped and Liam tells her kidnapper (over the phone) that he will find him and kill him for such an atrocity. If you haven’t seen it yet, I won’t spoil it for you, but let me just point out that the daughter is traveling with a friend in Paris when her Albanian abductors come a-knockin’. The daughter, played by Maggie Grace (from LOST), is only seventeen years old. A minor by our country’s standards. A minor in Paris. No adult supervision. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Liam Neeson then goes about finding and killing the aforementioned Albanians. Enough said.

It took a simple movie like this to flip my parental fear switch to on. And while I may not (yet) be worrying whether or not my kids are eating enough, sleeping enough, doing their homework, not doing drugs, wearing proper clothing, practicing safe sex*, etc., I’m already 100% worried about my kids being sold into prostitution in a foreign country. My kids are NEVER going anywhere without me, my wife, our security guard, or the expressed written consent of the NFL.

Perhaps I’m going a little over the top. Of course I want my kids to go out and see the world! I want them to experience different cultures and to learn to appreciate art, music, and literature. I want them to go abroad in college and drink Spanish wine and take pictures under the Eiffel Tower. Hell, I’ll even go with them if they’ll let me.

It’s just that I think all dads have a sixth sense. Not a dead people, spider-manish sixth sense, but rather a protective sixth sense. This sense certainly encompasses sons, but is usually more prevalent with daughters. Particularly with daughters and their boyfriends. You see, I already know that when my daughter tells me she is going to go on a date, I will be thinking, “who is this sexually charged adolescent taking my little girl to the movies? If he touches her in any way that displeases me, I shall crush his nuts into a paste and feed it to him.” I’ll certainly do my best not to threaten the young lad, but so help me, I won’t think twice about taking him down if he tries to put the moves on my daughter.

Sorry, I got carried away again. But do you see what I mean? It’s a movie like Taken that brings out this fear in me. I don’t even want to think about one of my children being alone in Europe without proper guidance, nor do I want to impose that on any of you. I’m sorry if I just did.

I suppose when my daughter asks why she can’t go to London with her friend, I’ll tell her to go watch Taken and to put herself in my shoes. Maybe she’ll understand, maybe she’ll hate me for it, but I’ll sleep better knowing Albanians aren’t selling her to sex maniacs.

For the record: Taken was an okay movie. I’m glad I didn’t see it in theaters.

*Do we still use the term “practicing safe sex”? Has anyone ever been sitting on a couch with friends and been like, “sorry, I can’t stay for the movie. I’m late for practice.”

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