It Takes a Self-Defense Class to Raise a Child

A recent story on The Times’ Valley Focus pages made me reassess how to raise my child. Below a photo of a 9-year-old girl from Studio City delivering a crushing blow to a Styrofoam head was the headline: “Girl Scouts Attend Self-Defense Course.”

Has society become so bad that 9-year-olds need to learn self-defense?

My sister, Stephanie, was a Girl Scout. I asked her if she remembered defensive training being a badge requirement, and of course she said no. Stephanie said the only things she had to defend herself against were mosquitoes on camping trips.

The self-defense tactics the Valley Girl Scouts were learning consisted of how to scratch an attacker’s face, deliver a kick to the knee and remove oneself from an assailant’s grip.

Stephanie and I agreed, mosquitoes, although a nuisance, were a lot easier to defend against.

Before Oct. 21, 1994, the day my daughter was born, stories about kids, good or bad, rarely dented my senses. However, since becoming a parent I find myself tearing up for the happiest and saddest moments experienced by parents and kids I don’t even know.

There’s an old saying, “Children are our greatest asset.” Lately, it seems that they have become our greatest statistic. Percentages on how bad kids are doing continue to climb. Statistics that include being kidnapped and / or molested.

There’s another old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” That’s what it was like growing up in my old neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Every parent on the block had a hand in your upbringing, figuratively and literally speaking.

Parents in my neighborhood thought nothing of picking up the phone and calling your parents when you got out of line. There was nothing more frightening than hearing someone else’s parents threaten, “Don’t make me call your father.”

My dad used to always say, “Somebody is always watching.” He was right. There was Mrs. Milner making her presence known by walking the neighborhood. Mrs. Banks, who was always peeking out her window. And the lady who knew everything, whom we kids referred to as The All News Station, Miss Malone.

Miss Malone knew everybody and everything that went on in our neighborhood. Of course today we call that Neighborhood Watch. Back then we called it being nosy.

We weren’t a perfect village and I don’t hold us up as role models. But something needs to be said for the concept. Maybe it’s time we got back to the village.

Some people say society is headed in the wrong direction. I disagree. The good statistics still outweigh the bad statistics when it comes to children. Although when the 6-year-old kid in Richmond who was charged with attempted murder, it did make me pause. Thank God Miss Malone isn’t around to see that.

Maybe the Girl Scouts are right. Just think how may young girls’ lives this could have saved. The question is how young do we start?

Innocence doesn’t last very long when 9-year-olds are learning self-defense. In two years will it be 5-year-olds? And if it is self-defense training now, what next? Should I start looking for an elementary school with a shooting range?