Sure, it’s a trend these days that parents are overprotective. We’ve got helicopter parents and snowplow parents and risk averse, paranoid parents. This is true and it harms kids.

But you know what’s responsible for way more harm to kids? Parents who aren’t thinking about this stuff at all. Parents who don’t take basic safety precautions because they’re either not aware or not clued into very real, very common worst case scenarios.

There is zero mutual exclusivity between raising independent, resilient kids and making sure they wear a bike helmet. Or say, making sure to lock up any guns in your house. You’re not being overprotective by making sure they’re vaccinated–even for things that are rare or ‘not that deadly’–you’re being protective in a way that also protects other kids whose parents either aren’t or can’t protect them the same way. The same goes with talking to them about the dangers of fentanyl (and having a dose of Naloxone around the house as all parents of teenagers should). Making them wear their seatbelt, monitoring their social media use, ensuring they bring a jacket, not letting them stand up in the bath or get a mini-bike–you’re not being crazy, you’re being rational.

You are doing your job. Don’t let anyone shame you for that. Crazy is thinking, ‘it can never happen to me.’ Crazy is not taking basic precautions that hamper and cost nothing. Take care of these obvious and easy things so you can relax elsewhere, so you can sleep at night knowing you’ve done the best you can with what you can control.