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    Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world)
    Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world)
    Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world)
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world)

    By Christian Alan

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    About this ebook

    Written as a series of eight letters to the author's own daughter, Dear Rachel examines the rise in violent crime against women through the national news headlines. It's only goal is to help girls and young women stack the odds on their side by recognizing potential risks to their personal safety.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristian Alan
    Release dateNov 16, 2012
    ISBN9781301009367
    Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world)

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      Book preview

      Dear Rachel (One father tries to teach his teenage daughter about the realities of living in a violent world) - Christian Alan

      Dear Rachel

      One father tries to teach his teenage daughter

      about the realities of living in a violent world.

      Written By: Christian Alan

      Copyright Christian Alan 2012

      All rights reserved.

      Published By Christian Alan at Smashwords

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored,

      or transmitted in any form without the prior written

      permission from the author.

      Table of Contents (The Letters)

      Introduction

      The Letters

      1. Don’t ever say it can’t happen to me

      2. What’s in your diet?

      3. The double edged sword of the internet

      4. Bad to worse

      5. Stacking the deck in your favor

      6. Strategies

      7. Street Smarts

      8. Red Flags

      INTRODUCTION

      This is not one of those feel good books. I don’t want you to feel good after you read it. In fact, I felt dirty and depressed writing it. Doing the research into what happened during many of the crimes I speak about was mentally draining and exhaustive. Too many times today will young people be thrust out into the world when they are truly not ready to face it. I believe it is my job as a parent to try as best I can to let you know about many of the things you will face when you get out into the real world. I didn’t want to fill this book with abstract lessons about what to do if the man in the black Cadillac suddenly pulls up and tries to offer you candy, but rather to offer you real life examples of real people, real situations, and real danger. These are stories that have graced the headlines in the newspapers and television news channels and have become all too common in the world today.

      The message that I want to convey to you through this book is that the world has become a very violent and unsafe place to live. Reading this book will not in and of itself, keep you safe. My hope is that it will create an awareness in you that the world can be a dangerous place if you’re not paying attention. The world you’ve experienced growing up is not the same one you will experience as you begin to explore the world on your own. Up until now, you’ve for the most part, had a parent, relative or some kind of adult guardian with you as you have gone about your life. As you move into adulthood that will no longer be the case and you need to be aware of your own personal safety.

      I said earlier that this isn’t a feel good book. It is, however, a book I want you to feel. I want you to walk away from this book concerned. Concerned, that there are people out there who would cause harm to another human being. Concerned that you need to adopt personal safety strategies in order to stack the deck on your side and not put yourself in harm’s way. Most of all, I want you to feel concerned enough to know that the kinds of crimes you will read about within these pages don’t always happen to other people. They can happen to you, to me, to any of us, at any moment. Some of the predators you will read about here had very elaborate and well thought out plans and the public at large never had a chance. There is no way to defend against a truck bomb parked outside your work place or an aircraft being flown into your office building, but there are ways to protect yourself in many other situations. It is my hope that you will learn from the many examples cited here to help you live a normal, productive and safe life.

      Love Always,

      Dad

      "But know this, that in the last days, critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up (with pride), lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away."

      2Timothy 3:1-5

      Don’t ever say...It Can’t Happen to Me

      Dear Rachel,

      I think the biggest thing I learned from my father growing up was to never say, ‘It can’t happen to me’. It gave me a sense of awareness that has stayed with me all my life and probably saved my life more than once. It certainly helped me to save your young life from drowning in a backyard pool accident. You were only about eighteen months old and were standing between your mother and I as we watched your older brother and sister along with your cousins throwing some tennis balls around your grandparents’ backyard. No one ever thinks they are going to watch their children drown. After all, we were caring parents and accidents like that always happen to other people. I think that would be especially true in late April when the cover on your grandparents’ in-ground pool was still on. I mean, who drowns when it isn’t even summer yet?

      That could never happen to us.

      Out of the seven people in the back yard on the warm sunny Sunday afternoon, you were the only one who noticed a stray tennis ball roll onto the pool cover. By the time I looked up, you had one foot over the pool cover and were taking what could have been your final step...ever! You had a thirty-foot head start on me and as I covered the landscape that separated us, I watched you disappear under the six inches of water and oak leaves that always litter pool covers that time of year. You barely left a ripple.

      No matter how many times I replayed that incident over and over in my mind, the one thought that kept coming to the forefront was that it wasn’t me that saved you, but the awareness that had somehow been instilled in me during my youth. Is awareness something that can be taught? I believe

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