Being half-way through my first pregnancy, I find myself learning more frequently about crimes and violence happening in and near Tinley Park. Today’s reports really freaked me out because they happened in two places that my husband and I know all to well.

One, an attempted robbery at the Walgreens I’ve been going to for my annual flu shots since I moved to Tinley Park in 2014. A 43 year-old woman fought the assailant who pulled a knife on her, that part of the report particularly struck me.

The second story I learned about in a Facebook Group. Three parked cars had their tires slashed and windows smashed in at the Tinley Park 80th avenue Metra train station. My husband and I used to park our car there all the time when we used to commute to Chicago.

Putting Crime In Perspective

Feeling safe is an intrinsic need and when you’re a mom, you become more painfully attuned to the negative that’s happening around us.

When I question raising our family in Tinley Park, I try to remind myself that

• Bad things happen everywhere 
• News tends to overreport the negative
• Living in fear is no way to live

It’s human nature to focus on the negative because feeling safe is an intrinsic need. But, just because our suburb has a string of incidents doesn’t mean it’s becoming a bad place to raise a family.

A bad place to raise your family happens over time like a snowball rolling down a hill. I intend to stay informed, but keep in perspective the details of the crimes, the likelihood of them happening to me or my loved ones and being proactive in how to avoid and react to such crimes if they should come to me.

I’m going to try to continue to take these pieces of news with a grain of salt and remember the positive things about living in Tinley Park. I feel terrible for that woman who was injured and those people whose cars were damaged last night, but I have to let go of the fear that those same things could happen to me and the people I care about.