By Chris Parker

cparker@tnonline.comIt's a hot August morning, and I'm up to my ankles in silt in the ice cold stream that runs alongside of my house. My little daughters lean slightly as they pull their boot-clad feet from the muck to wade into the water.The sun shines brightly, a raucous blue jay screeches from the top of a towering spruce tree, and insects buzz. A raccoon chitters nearby, well hidden by the brush.We're digging up handfuls of clay from the stream bed to make "fossils."We'll carry the dun-colored clay back to the house, where we'll rinse it and let it dry a bit. After lunch, we'll pinch off bits and flatten them, then the girls will press objects into them to make fossils bits of plants and twigs, stones, seashells, even small toys. (I can't vouch for the authenticity of the alleged Jurassic-era Barbie leg fossil).My daughters, ages four and eight, take great pride in their ability to leap more-or-less gracefully from rock to rock, and to balance on the partially-submerged steel beams that span the stream.They're both blissfully unaware of all that they are learning: the properties of clay, the value of streams, the names and functions of various plants and insects, how fossils happened. They are learning to appreciate nature, and they are to have confidence in themselves.They feel strong and competent as they balance on rocks, or leap across a narrow point of the stream.They're not wearing helmets. Sometimes, they slip and tumble into the water. They skin their knees, get scratched, and scrub at mosquito bites.The President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and the U.S. Postal Service would be appalled.Recently, the Postal Service announced it may order thousands of dollars worth of postage stamps destroyed (yes, this is the same U.S. Postal Service that lost $16 billion last year) because the stamps depict children engaged in such frightfully dangerous acts as attempting handstands without wearing helmets, or balancing on rocks, according to a blog in PostalMag.com.Designed by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her "Just Move!" health and fitness initiative, the stamps show kids jumping rope, running, skateboarding (wearing a helmet), turning cartwheels, juggling and doing a cannonball into the water. There's also a batter without a helmet, a soccer player without shin guards and horrors! a girl balancing on a rock.According to news reports, the President's Council is concerned that children might mimic the images they see on the stamps, and get hurt.The destruction of the "dangerous" stamps followed concerns relayed to the Postal Service by the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition about "unsafe" acts depicted on the stamps: The cannonball, the kid skateboarding without shin pads, and the headstand without a helmet.Of course parents want to keep their children safe. But it worries me that we are raising a generation of children who are terrified of their own shadows, who won't be able to take risks or venture into unknown realms.Are we raising a fragile, fearful, docile generation that will sit passively, waiting for instruction? Imagine the future ...