“At least now that your kids are well beyond grownup,” I said to my 88-year-old mom, “you don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“I still worry,” she retorted. “I worry about you, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.”
“You mean it never ends!?”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
For those of us with children, worry is like our brain’s screensaver. It’s always hovering in the background, ready to pop up and cycle through its psychedelic colors. Different fears explode in our mind’s eye depending on the kids’ gender and age: “No friends!” “Failing math!” “Anger issues!” “Out late-night!” “Driving! While drunk?!” “Alcoholic?!” “No spouse!” “No job!”
I’d hoped that when my daughter graduated college this year that this tyranny of terror would subside, replaced by a more placid mental screensaver. Puppy’s frolicking, perhaps, or Hello Kitty images. But no. My mom confirmed what a casual survey of those a few steps ahead of me suggested: child worry is forever.
Worry is the empty calories of emotions. You can snack, even binge, on chronic concerns, and get back nothing but sleepless nights, eye bags, and a new crop of wrinkles. Worry’s purpose is to get our attention, to prompt a response to an emerging problem. But we’re largely powerless in the face of whatever worries we have about our children.
It doesn’t start out that way. Babies are full of call and response cares. Wet diaper; change it. Hungry; feed. Sleepy; rock, sing, or cuddle. If it’s broken, we can generally fix it with a warm blanket, bandage, hug, or nutritious snack. During those early years a false narrative worms its way deep into the parental lobe: we’re omnipotent, capable of and responsible for protecting our kid from anything.
But we are not and cannot. There’s little we can do about a lack of friends, undiagnosable learning challenges, or existential dread brought about by pandemics, climate change, or regular encounters with incoherent street behavior. We can try to make the world a better place, join the parent-teacher association, advocate for environmental and social justice, vote. But change is slow, nowhere near as cause and effect as sticking a warm bottle into your baby’s lips.
The best we can do is to equip our children with the tools they’ll need to grapple with life, and, when they can, help others do the same. We depend on our fellow parents to do likewise, so that when our kids mix, they’re collectively kind, generous, and resilient. That bully my daughter encountered at school? That’s someone’s child. The cad that “dated” and then ghosted her? Same. The ability to make our kids do anything – share a toy; write a thank you note; think critically – dissipates over time. But early reinforced patterns hopefully remain.
Now that I know I’ll be worrying about my daughter until I’m dead I may as well settle in for the long haul. Worries, after all, often and organically resolve themselves. Which is why we celebrate milestones and occasions. My daughter braved the COVID pandemic, with its terrible disruptions and forced isolation, and graduated from college! My worries are over! Or at least those worries are over! To life!
