Fears Parents Face

A  couple leaving hospital with their newborn  suddenly considered what was the safest route home. They’d never  thought of such a thing before.

Well that’s parenthood.  Worry ahead.  Welcome to the ride.

Parental fears are not all irrational.  Respectful fear of jumping off moving trains or swinging from electric wires has saved lives.  There is, after all, a scale of fears.  Sure you can be afraid of spiders or snakes, AIDS or cancer, where the next rent is coming from or spilling coffee in the job interview.  Sylvanus and Evelyn Duvall said men fear getting sick or going to the dentist while women fear getting fat or growing old.

But something bigger than even those exists, bigger than fear of speaking in public, the fear of being laughed at, walking naked down the street or even dying - and that is fear for the wellbeing of your child.

Somehow we parents get an amazing tunnel vision about our kids. The helpless infant won’t survive unless some adult rushes to help– so nature arranged that you would go bonkers. Dr. James Swain of Yale did MRI scans of new parents and found patterns similar to those of people with obsessive compulsive disorder. And that’s a good thing. It proves you care.

Over time, of course, the child will readjust your  priorities cleverly, so that your purse will get spat on without discrimination, whether it was Prada or not.

Dave Barry, American humorist wrote one serious column. The police had knocked on his door to inform him his son was injured and he said that knock at the door was a parent’s worst nightmare.

Agreed.  Or hearing your child’s medical diagnosis for which you feel amazingly helpless.  Mother bears kill when their child is threatened and, let’s face it, deep within we all have that potential.  With illness you just don’t know what to kill.

With worry you get your tiny sword out to fend off a constant variety of terror, whereas with reality you only have to take on a single foe.. Reality is easier and parents learn that over time.

Take teaching your child to cross the road, swim or drive a car.  The child knows when you are afraid. Psychologist E. R. Hagmen found that children and their parents have the same number of fears so to really control fears of a child you  have to start with the parent. And so that’s the great thing about facing fear with a child – you fake courage and you become stronger.  It’s like that song ‘Whistle a happy tune and nobody knows you’re afraid.”  Basically it’s the only reason I had four kids- to make me braver.  Anyway, seriously, it worked. I had to act brave, calling on my inner non-wimp. And often I found it.

It took time, though.  It was a hands-on course with a steep learning curve and I was dragged kicking and screaming inside, to greater heights of daring. Until ultimately I too said goodbye at the door of the school,  the driving academy, the prom, the university.

I grew up.  The child did that for me

And I think it is part of the journey.

It saddens me to see a commercialization of fear, to have whole industries built up to make parents feel incompetent,  criticizing instead of encouraging, replacing instead of enabling. It saddens me to see governments subsidize time spent away from the kids but not time with the kids.  It saddens me to see industry that values only  time at the office. We parents need time to become parents.

Parents and kids need to grow together.

Mercifully kids don’t read corporate policy handbooks. They just cry and let us know what they want.  Fathers are refusing to be just the backup parent and want to be part of the child’s life, according to Dr. Kerry Daly of the U of Guelph. And Dr. Andrea Doucet of Carleton University finds that men are as nurturing as women are, just differently.  They network on the soccer field with other dads.

Employees are insisting that any job they commit their skills to also give them the time to have a life.  Whether there are options for job-sharing, work from home, telecommuting, and part-time work with full-time benefits becomes key to whether the employer finds someone to hire at all.

Businesses are noticing that as bad as absenteeism is, an employee who is there but worried about the kids at home, is unproductive.  ‘Presenteeism ‘ is a problem according to Alain Thauveette of Desjardins Financial Security. There is, after all, a correlation between stress and emotional health. Dr. Sarah Berga of Emory University found that some women have stress at the job so intense that they stop menstruating.

Dads embrace the role more. Dr. Toby Miller of the U of California found that dads choose as role model not Dr. Phil McGraw, TV parenting advice giver, but Homer Simpson, a cartoon character who though imperfect is clearly a devoted dad.

The thing is, though, parents need time with the kids to worry less about them.  The less time they’re together, the more they worry and the more it costs both parties in anxiety and depression.  We are medicating children who are upset to be away from those they love and we are medicating parents who don’t want to be away.  In my experience as a school teacher there is over prescribing going on. Kids need love, not pills. 

If we don’t  value time spent with kids, we add to the tension.  Dr. Phyllis Zeikowitze of the Montreal Jewish General Hospital found that pregnancy itself can lead to stress as women face an uncertain future.  And that fear is actually logical.  Women know they are entering the catch 22 world where if they are with the child they’ll be poor and if they aren’t there, they will be worried.

We can erase some of those stresses.

Some propose daycare. Yes, OK, in occasional doses. But let’s never believe that the substitute beats the real thing. 

Lucille Ball in her senior years was asked if she had any regrets. She said she wished she had had more children.  We can’t buy back time with the kids.  We’ll only reduce our fear of blowing it with them if we get the time to do it right, the first time.

And oddly enough, as a fighter for parental rights and children’s rights, I got courage to ask government for this because I raised four kids.

Beverley Smith lives in Calgary, AB, from where she publishes her monthly parenting newsletter "Anchors and Sails."  To subscribe, write to her at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it