If you read any mom's job description, keeping her kids safe would fall at the top of the list. I (try to) teach my girls not to play with fire, to look both ways before crossing the street and to not mix plaid with stripes. While these safety precautions are obvious, many are not.

Are non-organic vegetable toxic? Will a plastic cup made with bisphenol A (BPA) make my children sick? Are the nitrates in hot dogs a carcinogen?

Usually, I fall relatively low on the mommy worry spectrum. I tend to trust the checks and balances in our country to keep dangerous materials out of the food, the air and the water. When I read the headlines, I sometimes begin to doubt.

What is safe? What is not? The real problem comes when I try to find the answers. Between the scientific jargon and the conflicting reports, the answer is usually unclear.

Recently, I purchased a few BPA-free plastic cups. While the jury is still out on BPA’s danger level, I figured that avoiding it wouldn’t hurt. The next day, I filled the cups with non-organic apple juice and fed my kids hot dogs at lunch. I may have gotten rid of the BPA, but is the food even more dangerous? Who knows, I sure don’t.

I don’t expect a definitive answer to my questions anytime soon. That leaves me to decide. I can avoid everything suspect, but I would have to keep my kids in a bubble, or I can trust the powers that be, and risk doing them harm. Neither is a good choice.

Instead, I will continue to flounder along. I will try to avoid some of the suspect items. When I can’t, I will try not worry. As Winston Churchill said, “when I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

Gigi appears Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Gigi at her blog Stroller Lane.