Can we really make it all safe?

I heard a rather silly commercial on the radio the other day. In the commercial they asked us to all think about all the different things that people said would never happen, manpowered flight, Women allowed to vote, going to the moon. Then they stated that they had a goal of making it so “no child will ever have to die from a preventable cause.” They tried to convince me (us?) that this was a goal that could be accomplished just like all the examples they cited before. Here is the issue with which I have a problem. Any time that we work to prevent a death or event like that from happening we create a situation where the same conclusion can occur simply from a different cause. Look at it like this. My 6 year old daughter is interested in cooking and we are helping her learn to cook. Now in the kitchen she could drop a knife and cut a major artery and she dies. Or she could spill hot grease on herself and burn herself to the point that she dies. Or she could scald herself again to the point where she does not survive. ALL of these are preventable deaths. BUT if she does not learn how to cook she could end up dying of starvation when something happens that is unavoidable (she grows up and moves out on her own. Her mother and I die and she cannot fend for herself. Whatever.) Those second chances are also preventable… by teaching her how to cook. For that matter if she gets a hold of water that is full of disease that could kill her that is a preventable death. But the way to prevent it is to keep her from drinking. That means that she will die of dehydration… A preventable death. But if we give her water, water that is safe to drink because we filtered it and boiled it and made sure there are NO microbes at all… then she drowns while trying to drink it… that is a preventable death. The only way to make sure she does not drown or choke to death while eating or drinking is to keep all food and drink away from her. By keeping food and drink out of her reach, I am preventing her from dying from choking, and the statistics on how many children die that way are still fairly grim. But by denying her access to food and drink she will starve to death or die of dehydration. Which is preventable by my giving her food and drink, it becomes a catch 22. In short there is really no way whatsoever to stop a child from dying from a preventable death without opening that child to another way to die from preventable causes. What I mean to say is, almost all deaths are, in some way, preventable You can prevent a child from ever dying in a vehicular accident. Never let the child go anywhere. If the child never boards a plane, never gets in a car, never goes on a bus, the child will never be in a position to die in a vehicle. But then you better not let the child out of the house they might run in the street in front of a car or bus and then… But if you keep the child in the house all the time that child never gets the health benefits of exercise outdoors and so he/she dies from poor health. A preventable death. I guess the real problem I had with that commercial starts with the fact that they never defined what is a preventable death. As far as I know, when it comes to children, There are no “natural causes” that really apply to children in death. But in endeavoring to prevent one, most of the time, you will risk another. Are there things that can cause death in a child, which we can prevent? Yes. Are these things that do not put the child’s health or life at further risk? Yes. But part of life is risk. I take a risk getting out of bed in the morning. I take a risk making my breakfast and I take a risk eating. When I go to work there is risk And I never know but that I may not return home at night after work. These are all calculated risks and I have survived my decisions for 41 years thus far… ( I know knock on wood… but that could cause me to get a splinter which could go septic which could make me have to go to a doctor which could mean I will be in an accident which could kill me. And if I survive the trip to the doctors then I might die on the way home. Or I might pick up a disease at the doctor’s which will kill me. Better not to go. But then if it does turn septic I could get an infection and die. Do you see my point? Whether for the sake of our children or for our own sake, If we always live in fear of what MIGHT happen then we simply stop living. And THAT is a fate worse than death.