More than twenty years ago, Nancy and I went to a church campout. We had a two-year-old and a tiny baby. Nancy said to me, “You’ve got to help me watch these girls. I know that because this is a church event you will be tempted to be preoccupied with other matters, but I need your help.”

On the second day, Nancy was in town with the baby and a few other moms. She got back to the campground in the early afternoon. It was over a hundred degrees outdoors.

I had to meet a couple at a coffee shop off the campground about ten miles away to discuss a very sensitive counselling matter. I saw that our car was back in the parking area, so I hopped in and drove off. You’d think it might have occurred to me to check with Nancy before I left, to tell her where I was going, but I did not.

I didn’t know that the baby had fallen asleep in the car seat or that Nancy had asked someone to watch the car for a second while she got our two-year-old settled.

When I was almost to the coffee shop, I heard a tiny little sigh coming from the back seat. I looked back, and there was the baby in her car seat.

If I hadn’t heard that sigh, I would have left her in the car for the afternoon in hundred-degree heat with the windows rolled up. It was unthinkable.

I started to shake at what a close call it had been. I picked that little baby up and hugged her as tight as I could and told her, “I’m so grateful you’re alive. I’m so grateful you made that sigh. I’m so grateful you’re so tiny and won’t remember this. I’m so grateful you can’t talk yet and won’t tell mommy. I’ll tell her some day. In twenty years, in a safe vehicle, like a book”

There is not a parent I know who does not tremble at a story like that. Every parent has something close to an obsessive-compulsive disorder (or perhaps “order”) about the safety of their children. And yet… Our perceptions of our obligations to children are shaped much more by our world and our culture than most of us know.