A mother's worst nightmare.

If you live here in Kansas City, you probably heard that late Friday evening, a local 17 year old boy was killed in a single car accident.  He was alone in the car, at 51st & Ward Parkway, going way too fast, went off the road and hit a tree. After being on life support initially, he died on Saturday. He was driving a Volvo. Do you know what kind of an accident it takes to kill someone in a Volvo, one of the safest car brands on the planet? You have to be not wearing a seat belt, is what it takes. So much, and yet so little. *

What you also may have heard from the local news reports, is that this child was the son of a local news anchor, Ann Peterson.  When I was in high school, Ann Peterson came and spoke to us about an accident she was in as a child, that she barely survived.  She still has the scars to prove it. She came and spoke to us about wearing seat belts.

I am not criticizing her skills as a parent, by any stretch of the imagination.  But what haunts me as a mother is this:  It is one thing to know in the back of your head that your kids aren't listening to you.  It is another to have it proven.  These are the incidents that make it harder to be a Free Range Mom.

* I'm surmising this, I could totally be wrong, that info hasn't been released.

Comments

[cagey]

Wow - I had not seen this. How sad. I used to run 10Ks when I was younger and Ann Peterson was always one of the local celebrities in those runs. I remember her running while pregnant, and I was so impressed with that at the time.

[KRS]

I heard about it but didn't realize who's son it was.

Reminds me of the tragic loss of Marie Antonio's son a couple years back... he was shot... playing with a gun...

[clickmom]

Can't imagine the pain that family is going through.