<p>“I have one son who just graduated from college and one about to start. First son went to college 1000 miles from home. I did speak with him daily all 4 years. While he did complain, my feeling was in this day and age of crime etc I needed to know he was OK. On a college campus you can disapear for several days without being noticed.”</p>
<p>I am curious. At what point in his life will you feel that it’s not necessary to talk to your son each day? People disappear daily from all sorts of places. The odds, however, of anyone disappearing are minimal. When I was in college, I let my roommates know where I was. That, to me, seems a more effective way of having a safety plan than calling Mom every day. </p>
<p>I doubt if most parents called their parents daily when the parents were in college away from home. I know that I didn’t even call mine weekly. My mom wanted me to write her weekly like she had done with her mom for years, but I tried to do that, but didn’t get around to it. </p>
<p>After college, as a single woman, I moved 3,000 miles away to grad school, and then moved to 3 other cities where I had jobs. Then, I got married, and moved several more times. Several times, I have lived (including living alone) in cities that were the murder capitals of the U.S. Fortunately, nothing horrible has happened to me, but I don’t think that contacting Mom each day would have prevented much. I do think, however, that having friends in the cities where I lived, and having reasonably good sense about safety issues, was important.</p>
<p>Remembering how recalcitrant my mom was in old age about insisting on living alone and not getting one of those “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” services, I am wondering how the parents on this board who are so worried about offspring will address their own issues as we age. My mom insisted on living alone in an isolated house in which she also insisted on shoveling heavy snow despite a heart condition. She moved 800 miles to be near me only after her doctor called me and told me that my mom’s health was frail and she was unlikely to live long unless she moved near me.</p>
<p>I eventually moved Mom into a nice apartment for the elderly that was about a mile from my house. Despite having medical problems that included frequent dizziness, Mom refused to enable the call button in her apartment. She ended up dying apparently after falling and not being able to get up.</p>
<p>As I write, I have several friends who have had double mastectomies due to cancer. I have another friend who is in a rehabilitation hospital after having lung cancer that spread to her brain and caused her not to be able to have much movement on her right side. All of these people are younger than 60 and most are parents. Seems to me that if anyone should be worrying, it should be our kids – to make sure that we are healthy and safe.</p>
<p>H will be 58 tomorrow, and rides his bike to work daily in our city, which has crazy drivers who have no clue how to drive near bike riders. Until I asked him to stop, H used to each day tell me about times he was almost hit. Some summers, H works in Manhattan, and also rides his bike to work there. I worry far more about H’s safety than I do about S, 19, who right now is 7,000 miles away home alone and working while I’m visiting H who is working on the other side of the world. </p>
<p>As for safety concerns about being crime victims – most of us are increasingly looking older and like easy prey. Perhaps we should be worried more about us or perhaps our kids should call every day to make sure we’re OK.</p>