CAROLYN HAX

ADVICE WITH ATTITUDE & A GROUNDED SET OF VALUES

Dear Carolyn: OK, so my child lost his job more than a year ago; as a newlywed with his wife’s student loans it has been hard, but they are getting through. We have helped financially when asked, which hasn’t been often. He has picked up some gig work and has had some interviews, but no offers, and where they are, covid is still rampant and he has several risk factors. All of this to say, they are doing stuff right, and have limited choices.

She has been offered a pay-raise, professional-track job in her field. Sounds great? Ready for the shoe? The location is in the center of a crime-ridden, notorious section of their large city. She does not drive; he would probably drive her rather than risk mass transit.

So can a mother do anything other than lie awake imagining awful things? Can we counsel waiting for a safer option? No, we can’t, can we? She is pleased by the offer, as she should be, but yikes they are young and clueless. Sigh.

— J.

Dear J.: Wait a minute. I understand concern about high-crime areas, but they are also filled with people, like you and me, not scaly, fanged things spitting venomous foam. People with homes and jobs there because that’s where they want to be or have to be.

So why shouldn’t your daughter-in-law work there, too? With mindfulness and adaptation to local conditions, of course — just as we all do with, say, weather, customs, limited medical access, military hostilities, risk of natural disaster, insectborne illness, or whatever different areas throw at us.

And with awareness that avoiding necessary risk often means passively assigning it to someone else.

Which brings up two more things: First is that risks come in so many forms — we’re often just bad at assessing them accurately, especially the ones we don’t know or understand. Avoiding risk altogether, or wanting the people we love to do so, is a disservice to them and to ourselves because it’s so limiting. Adults make risk and reward calculations constantly as part of a well-lived life. Second, viewing your people as too precious for risk touches on an equity issue.

Maybe if we all saw ourselves as having equal responsibility and equal investment and equal roles in all parts of human industry — and the socioeconomic byproducts of these thereof — we’d lose less sleep over boogeymen and work better as a society.

It’s the classic question swap: Instead of “Why my son?” it’s “Why not my son?” So those are the things a mother can do: to add those thoughts to the mix when the nervous ones bubble up. That this is a grown woman doing her part, and he’s a grown man supporting her efforts. Nothing clueless about that.

Readers’ thoughts:

“I lived in a “crime-ridden, notorious section” of a large city and when (White) acquaintances asked me if I felt safe living there, I tended to suspect they had never lived where Whites were a minority.”

“In six years I was never the victim of a crime, nor did I witness any. You don’t state racial identity, but I think you have some bias investigation to do.”

“Agree with your response, Carolyn, but let’s not skip over the “She’s got all these school debts and now my poor son is strapped with them” hand-wringing.”