<p>soze, if you’re not trolling, I have to say this, even if you think it’s mean: you need to man up, seriously. Your son wants to go on a trip that has some mild risks, and you’re freaking out. And now you’re wounded that people think you’re unreasonably freaking out. You need to set a better example of strength for your son. Seriously.</p>
<p>now that you have a couple days of feedback on your original question (Should I cut my son off…), what is your inclination at this point?</p>
<p>I’m not trolling… I’m besides myself with concern and worry for my child to a degree that I’ve never had in my life. </p>
<p>Have you ever had a “gut” feeling that something was just <em>wrong</em>? Imagine that 100-fold.</p>
<p>I keep thinking of Alisa Flatow over and over again. I also keep thinking that if something happened to my son, I would spend the rest of my life going over and over again if I did enough to stop him from going.</p>
<p>Again, this level of fear isn’t rational. You send your kid to college–why aren’t you torturing yourself over campus shootings and suicides? You’ve focused on this one risk–which isn’t even the same risk Alisa Flatow was exposed to–and you’ve magnified it unreasonably. I repeat, it’s wrong of you to punish your son for not sharing your unreasonable fear.</p>
<p>Boy, if this is a ■■■■■ thread it has certainly done the job and prompted a ton of responses. There never has have been an “if you do that I will cut you off” scenario in our family but I can’t say that I wouldn’t have thought about it if my daughter came at me with serious attitude. My husband’s even temper permeates his parenting style and kept me from jumping off of the “you must do this a certain way” cliff a couple of times during my daughter’s adolescence. </p>
<p>There have been a number of times when DD wanted to participate in something or travel somewhere that I considered dicey. She is old enough now that her life is her own but when she was younger DH and I expected some discussion of any proposed activity outside of the norm. There was one hoped-for trip to Africa that ended up with H and I pushing for a postponement. We encouraged her to wait until she was older and had the skill set to be of real use. She did.</p>
<p>I will never be completely comfortable when she travels alone, especially when she is the only Westerner in an area. I try to make every effort to suck it up and deal.</p>
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<p>Good question.
I’ve come to the realization that cutting him off from going will be counter-productive. The real issue at hand is how I stop him from going on the trip.
I’ve called the Birthright people and they were downright rude and disrespectful: “you don’t want him to go, you must not be Jewish” and were completely dismissive about my concerns regarding security, mingling with foreign troops, etc. My conversations with them did not give me a good feeling at all that my son would be in good hands – the part that really freaked me out was when I call the trip operator, a company called “Israel Experts” although the phone number is in the US, when you call you get an office in Israel and there wasn’t a single American I could talk to about my concerns. Basically I’m expected to hand my kid over to a foreign tour company and expect that they are going to take care of him.</p>
<p>My sister had to give her blessing to my nephew to go into ROTC. This is a family which doesn´t need FA, and my sister would have gladly paid for all 4 years of his UG tuition without ROTC. My nephew felt it was his calling. He is a straight A student at a top 15 (or 10) school. I am sure he could have a job waiting for him when he graduates in 2 years, but he wants to give back and he doesn´t feel it is kids from lower income family´s responsibility to defend his country.</p>
<p>My sister hoped he would “come to his senses,” but she said at some point it is his decision and she doesn´t want him to hate her someday for stopping him from doing something he wanted to do.</p>
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They’ve taken good care of thousands of kids. This is like saying you’d be afraid to have him fly on Lufthansa. Can’t you see that this level of fear is irrational? This trip is much less dangerous than an unchaperoned spring break trip to Myrtle Beach.</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE: I have had to delete a few posts. The OP and responders have restated their cases multiple times by this point. I’m closing the thread.</p>