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"    Last night, Sandy was tapping at our windows here in Brooklyn, and we were in that awful not-knowing stage before something big and terrifying happens. I spent the day racing around the apartment frantically cooking up all the perishables (just in case) and forcing the kids into elaborate projects with a slightly wild smile on my face (&amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s put on this play already! Come on, cast members, focus here!&amp;quot;). I felt desperate to convince my family that everything was really totally okay, I promise, like I could control the weather with quiches and art projects. Deep down, however, I knew there was so much more fueling the storm-induced hysteria. Then, I put my 18-month-old down for a nap in his crib and sat down with my three-year-old in another room to read books. A few moments later we heard one of the more unsettling sounds I&amp;#039;ve ever heard: the doorknob to his room turning. I hurried to the hallway. There he was, grinning like the tot who ate the canary, free. He was amenable to being put back to bed, and just seemed pretty psyched to have shown off such dexterity and derring-do, but the episode left me feeling shaken and slightly unhinged. I pictured little Alton wandering the apartment at night in a hurricane, our home suddenly seeming about as safe as a big pile of broken glass. (Needless to say, I did not follow the &amp;quot;fill the bathtub with water&amp;quot; advice.) It took me a while to realize that while this is a concern, it was really acting as an ultimately solvable, troubling-but-not-really scapegoat for the free-floating anxiety that had been filtering out of the news. The brewing FRANKENSTORM whipping leaves at the windows, the roiling unease of pre-election showdowns, and the story that continues to sock me in the gut over and over, the one I dream about every night: The nanny who killed two of her charges in their Manhattan home. The details of the case are horrifying enough. The mother coming home to witness the most unspeakable scene, unleashing a scream that caused neighbors to call 911 immediately; its horror was so palpable. But what has emerged in its aftermath in the online parenting community is, well, let&amp;#039;s just say, unflattering. Jezebel rounded up the worst posts on the message forum Urban Baby, where commenters responded to the tragedy with victim-blaming sentiments like: &amp;quot;I thank God everyday that my wife demanded that she stay home until our kids were in school...We have great kids, and we never put them in danger by putting their lives in someone else&amp;#039;s hands,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Was she a SAHM with a nanny? This will teach you to never leave your kids with nannies unless you have to work to put food on the table.&amp;quot; Articles about the story are riddled with comments like &amp;quot;Why would you let a stranger raise your kids anyway?&amp;quot;  How can people blame the destroyed family, the shattered mother? How can anyone&amp;#039;s response be some version of, &amp;quot;If you ever leave your kids with someone else for an instant, then you deserve it, you heartless shrew?&amp;quot; Well, for one thing, it&amp;#039;s easy to fall back to the old working mom/stay-at-home mom debate \u2014 we know it so well that sliding into its grooves is almost relaxing, a respite from the horror of the Krim family&amp;#039;s story. There is something else at play here too, and it took me some serious crib-escape-obsessing to understand, but I think I now might: Every &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what you get&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I would never&amp;quot; is just a sad, desperate shield. Whether we work, stay at home, hire nannies, use daycare, or never have any daycare, what has happened to this family is every parent&amp;#039;s ultimate nightmare. It&amp;#039;s one you don&amp;#039;t even let yourself consider because the fear would engulf you, and you would never be able to let your children go anywhere out of your sight. Then, they would turn out all pale and codependent, and that wouldn&amp;#039;t be good, either. There is no more primal fear than the one of your children coming to harm. From the second my first baby was born, I knew there was truth to those stories about mothers lifting cars and leaping into burning buildings to save their babies. So when we hear a story like this, our hearts singe. We will do anything to beat back that endless black yawn of fear. It&amp;#039;s no wonder people turn to self-righteous litanies of &amp;quot;Reasons Why This Could Never Happen to Me.&amp;quot; Wouldn&amp;#039;t it be wonderful if we could actually hold back the tide of the world from our children, just because we really wanted to? Isn&amp;#039;t that what all the so-called Mommy Wars end up being about: Our shared wish that there were some secret formula guaranteed to result in safe, happy people? That is of course why, in the face of this news, about which nothing can be done, and the scary storm, also about which nothing can be done, I threw myself into my crib-tent/toddler bed/sleep training research with the gusto of scientist about to cure cancer. Here is a problem I can probably solve; a way I can work to keep my baby safe. It won&amp;#039;t address every danger that toddles his way, but it is a small, solid thing I can deal with. This is how we have to operate in this scary world, doing the best we can, trusting our guts, and being easy on each other (and ourselves). There is no use in saying &amp;quot;But I don&amp;#039;t have a nanny, so this would never happen.&amp;quot; Or even, &amp;quot;Well that&amp;#039;s why I don&amp;#039;t live on the coast!&amp;quot; The only thing to say here is, &amp;quot;Oh, that poor family. Those poor people. Oh, oh, oh.&amp;quot; Visit these sites to find out how you can help those affected by the storm:FEMA Red Cross Salvation Army Feeding America Americares Humane Society   Amy Shearn is the mother of two small children, and is the proprietress of Household Words, a blog about babies, books, and Brooklyn. She also writes for Oprah.com and MommyPoppins.com. Amy is the author of the novel How Far Is the Ocean From Here (Shaye Areheart/Crown 2008) and a forthcoming novel about, what else, a Brooklyn mother, called The Mermaid of Brooklyn that will be published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon &amp;amp;amp; Schuster, in 2013. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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