Realizing with a start while teaching Robbie to tie his shoelaces that someday he would leave her, his Mom panicked and began his education. The world is full of peril, she intoned. She hammered the message home in odd moments and lulls in the day. When Robbie merged onto a highway for the first time white knuckled, Mom was busy relaying the horrors of drunk driving. Later, while helping him master the tricks of diapering his newborn son, her messages grew even more specific. It was a steady diet of fear. Avoid the edges, the dark sketchy streets and nighttime indulgences at all cost. Naturally, Robbie did what any sensible son would do — ignore Mom’s advice.