Ammi Midstokke: Empty nesters make hazardous environment

At the cusp of becoming a part-time empty-nester, it occurs to me that my home is the nightmare of those with small children. There are vases on low shelves, concrete floors, and sharp objects in low-drawers. Also, we have one of those cats that cannot be trusted and is fully capable of disemboweling large hares or infant humans and leaving their entrails as a gift for us.

I still wonder why I’m never asked to babysit.

We grew up free-range children, my siblings and I. My parents were so dedicated to raising free-thinking, autonomous adults, they let us practice from a young age, leaving us at home in the woods all day to our own devices. They left us schoolwork and chore lists long enough to keep us busy, but even those offered ample opportunity for carnage.

Lucky for us, we were two miles from the nearest neighbors and had no telephone. First aid, orienteering, and cleaning-it-up-before-mom-gets-home became electives in our homeschool education. We built tree forts that collapsed, went on expeditions to distant places, and brought curious cougars home with us on more than one occasion. We ran through wasp nests, fought off vicious roosters while collecting eggs, and nipped fingertips chopping kindling.

If we were cut, our midwife mother would happily stitch us up (it’s good practice, she said), so few things would warrant a trip to a real doctor. Even when Uncle Willis gashed his leg open with a chainsaw, Mom drove to town to get her suture kit and we poured him Yukon Jack until she returned to sew his leg back together. Liquor was also my dad’s numbing agent the time he slammed his hand in the mill and she made a seam in the webbing of his thumb.

I don’t know if I was more afraid of having a needle pass through me or of drinking whiskey, but I managed to keep my cuts and abrasions minor enough: The odd misfiring of a hatchet, a scraped shin, and a fall that left the length of my body bruised and me off chore-duty until my internal bleeding had presumably stopped.

Sometimes I think the reasoning was, “If we take them to the doctor and they die anyway, then we have medical bills and a funeral to pay for.” Arguably, if I died at home, I could be buried for free somewhere on our sprawling wooded property.

My brother had a knack for the things that would cause a trip to a real doctor, like falling two floors from a tree onto the deck, his arm a distorted shape we wondered at until Mom got home. He got to go to the Emergency Room and came home with a cool cast everyone wanted to sign. I was insanely jealous. Just imagine all those nice, clean doctors asking you questions and the nurses fretting over you! When he went back later with suspected appendicitis, the same gushing attention and sense of urgency, it turned out to be a bad case of gas. My only consolation was assuming he had to get a rectal exam for nothing.

Raising my own kid, we had a kind of hybrid model of injury-mitigation. It helped that we didn’t use a draw knife to peel logs or hike without winter boots while foraging for moss to chink said logs. For a while, we had the best health insurance (Medicaid) and little fear that a trip to the ER would bankrupt us. If we got hurt, it was because we were playing hard, not just trying to survive, and so we had pride instead of shame.

The worst damage my child ever did when left alone was eat a pint of ice cream for breakfast. Perhaps because I knew from my own experience that leaving a child unattended for an entire day can only be more hazardous if you leave them home with their big brother, a handsaw, and a three-wheeler.

When my young-parent friends come to my house with their children, I’m delighted to show them all the places they can wreak havoc, and we’re just a seven-minute drive from the hospital!

This fact does not seem to impress them. Invariably, they ask why there is no netting around the trampoline and no padding around the springs, like those features are necessary to the function of a trampoline (they are not).

I read once that true learning can only happen with an unknown outcome and a measure of risk. This is a learning property.

I invite their small humans into my garage where my gym looks like a playground to anyone naive to the horror of Crossfit. There is a rowing machine, a heavyweight bag that would knock anything under eighty pounds across the floor, a box to jump on or off, and the pull-up bar with giant rubber bands attached. If managed correctly, a child can slingshot themself through the air and directly into the gardening tools on the opposite wall.

There are sharp blades and power tools and hard floors. There are rolly things and bouncy things and a swing that is only accessible by a very tall, very tippy ladder. Somewhere, a slack line is hung between trees, also no netting. Oh, and we have a scooter inside that we race around the edges of our kitchen island and down the hall and back while the dogs chase us.

Times have changed. While the children light up with the possibilities of play, their parents begin hyperventilating. But we don’t have any Yukon Jack around for the physical or emotional wounds that may be acquired here, and I can’t decide if I should put away the toys or just have visitors sign waivers.

The latter sure seems like more fun. And anyway, doesn’t everyone have affordable health insurance these days?

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com