by Paula Spencer

"Four 11- and 12-year-old girls stood in front of my open pantry, mouths gaping wide.

"Look! Fruit rollups!"

"Omigod! Chocolate chip cookies!"

"You have regular potato chips? We only get the soy kind!"

It was only the latest strange scene I've found myself in lately.

After 14 years and four kids, I thought I'd feel comfortable as a mother. Instead, I'm increasingly aware of a prickly new sensation: That I'm some kind of renegade. Who knew that buying potato chips would become a radical act? Or that letting my daughters walk home from school alone would require administration approval? How did I, a middle-of-the-road mom, become a social deviant?

Fear is the new fuel of the American mom. If it's not fear of her child becoming obese, it's of falling behind, of missing out on a sports scholarship, or of winding up with a thin college rejection envelope.

Apparently I'm not nervous enough. Last summer while I was loafing in front of the TV with my kids, the most benign things had morphed into menaces. For example, the sun: long sleeved, UV-protective swimsuits were all the rage at my neighborhood pool, while I could barely remember the year-old sunscreen. The water wasn't safe, either: at the beach I saw tots dressed in floatation belts and water wings-for shelling along the shore. And goodbye cotton candy and hot dogs! At a major-league game I saw Moms and Dads nix the stuff as if they'd never eaten the occasional ballpark treat. As if their children would balloon into a Type 2 diabetic overnight if a single swing of sugary soda passed their lips.

Half my kids' friends-who already make As and Bs-had summer tutors in order to "keep it fresh." I thought vacation was to relax and recharge. What would our pioneer fore-moms think? (You want something to worry about, let me know you typhoid, bears, and Injuns!) Heck, what must our own mothers think? (Snap out of it! Go worry about something truly scary, like how you're going to pay for retirement!)

I thought once the kids were back in school...