Fire, Earth and Water

Do you freely give trust or does it have to be earned?
When it comes to entrusting (to give over to another for care, protection) my children, trust absolutely has to be earned. My children are the most important people in the world to me (including my Vince :). Trusting another person with my children takes consistent, quality time to get to a place where that deep trust is formed. I will be the first to admit that I am overprotective alot of the time, but I would rather ehrr on the side of caution. I personally know too many people, cousins, friends and relatives who have been either physically or sexually abused as children and most by close friends or family. It might not even be that I am concerned about abuse, it may simply be I just don't know someone enough to give them that level of trust. It might be that my gut instincts keep my from ever trusting someone- and I have learned to ALWAYS trust those instincts (not to be confused with fear). I have been described as mother bear or a tenacious bulldog and I agree that they are pretty bang on! I will say this; I come with different history, different experiences, different perception of life, different family etc. that have brought me to this place where I am so highly protective and I won't be manipulated or forced into trusting someone where that trust isn't present. Some people are able to freely give trust and I say good for them :-)
Part of my calling as a parent is to protect these little blessings as I see fit and the level of protection will depend on age, temperment, maturity, environment, etc. K is 9 years old and I have only just started to allow her to walk to school with a friend a couple times per week. I have neighbours who allow their girls 7 and 6 years old to walk to school regularily and I find that waayyyy to young- the walk to school here takes about 20 minutes. I have 4 year old and 6 year old active and curious boys and I believe they still require constant supervision when they are outdoors. Kayla is at an age and maturity level where I trust her to go over to a friends house for a playdate, I don't have to worry so much about her and that is freeing but I don't let her go into a friends home where I haven't gotten to know the parents. The bigger issue for Vince and I are sleepovers and those will be a rare occurence in the lives of our children outside of trusted family members and close friends. Around water is another story, I go into this mode of almost panic,... a totally ridiculous fear, I know but it is defintely there and I am trying to learn how to relax more.... the funny thing is, is that I am an incredibly strong swimmer and if my boys fell in, I'd be in the pool faster then they'd hit the water! Definetely falls in the realm of irrational fears lol... however it is very real and came upon me sometime after I became a mother.

In a perfect world trust would be freely given but just look at the local and world news and you see that it is far from perfect. So I do believe that I need to be tenacious with protecting my children and it is something I won't apologize for.