I hope most of you are in the group who laughed uproariously and said "What a funny name!" when you read the title My Tinfoil Hat, as opposed to the few who gave me a puzzled look and said "Um, what is that about?"
The has been touted by concerned people as being a layer of defense against unseen threats such as mind reading, electromagnetic fields, alien transmissions and radiation. This hip fashion accessory has also become a symbol for protection among the paranoid.
I am not what many would call paranoid in all of my parenting choices. I let my kids run around barefoot outdoors. My older son S voluntarily told me he's not so sure it's such a great idea, since he has had more than one painful splinter digging expedition into his tender feet. He rides his bike, plays with his friends with intermittent supervision, and sometimes even walks to the bus stop with me waving from the front door, hoping to crawl back into bed with my toddler Z instead of walking the whole crew up the street.
Z is a daredevil child, climbing up onto windowsills and scaling the backs of furniture. He stands on the back of his rocking horse. I smile, and take it in stride. When one of them coughs or sneezes, I am not immediately booking the next appointment at the pediatrician's. No anxiety attacks, no wild parental fear.
However, when it comes to the lurking synthetic dangers, that's where you get me thinking THEY are out to get me. You can find me in grocery stores, scanning ingredient labels for the latest threatening additive the mad scientists of the food industry have invented. I prefer the genes of my organisms unmodified, thank you very much. I worry about a cell phone tower being built in my neighborhood. What exactly do they beam out of those things? Is THAT why Z isn't sleeping through the night yet?
So, My Tinfoil Hat is a place for me to document my paranoid research into what won't kill my kids, but may make them stronger. Or, give us all cancer. Who knows? Stay tuned and find out.
