"Mama, I'm Coming Home."

This story -- on 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson, the youngest person to sail around the world alone, nonstop and unassisted --

Watson's parents were harshly criticized for letting their daughter go off on such a potentially perilous journey.
...
But her parents did not waver and supporters were as vociferous as critics. In an interview Don McIntyre, a renowned sailor and adventurer, said he was a "passionate believer in the positive values of adventure and responsible risk taking."

McIntyre labeled this an era of sedentary lifestyles and childhood obesity, and added: "Our children are being wrapped in cotton wool to the point that we are now developing a whole generation of marshmallow kids, who are not allowed to go out and scratch their knee or get a bruise."

-- reminded me of this passage from Canadian author Farley Mowat's autobiography Born Naked:

Considering the limitations imposed on 10- or 12-year-olds today, our parents accorded us an enormous degree of freedom. Nobody seemed overly concerned about where we might go or what we might be doing. Years later I asked my father whether he and Helen had worried about our tendencies to wander far afield.

"Certainly we worried. The way a mother cat does about a kitten that wanders off after a chipmunk. But we felt that keeping you in a nice safe cage would leave you with only the vaguest and perhaps the wrongest ideas of what life was really about. Chances have to be took even by the young."

Especially by the young, imho. The Safety Dance has its place, but the risk-takers who understand from an early age the game of Consequence ... those are the people for me.

Make it a great weekend out there y'all, whatever you choose to do, however you decide to float your boats this glorious Spring weekend!





(Cut me some slack if you think the cheeriness is artificial or put-on: the Sun is out today, after not having made an appearance since Mother's day afternoon last Sunday. Even for an Irish-rooted woman no stranger to misty days, that's cause for celebration. Rejoice! or, Sláinte!)