The Chief Fretter
Parenting is learning that no one is responsible for my emotions but me.
Yesterday, we drove by a family bike ride in the neighborhood. In the car, my son noted, “The youngest kid is in the back. You never would’ve done that.” No, I wouldn’t have, I thought, puffing up with pride. Thank you for noticing, son. On our family bike rides, I would bring up the rear, eyes on my three helmeted children at all times. My dad did the same. I can remember him yelling one thing – “Car!” – from the back of the line. When we heard “Car!” we knew to form a single file line on the right curb.
I took it a step farther, though. Because I am so very careful, I had several things I would yell from the back. “Hidden driveway!” meant there was a driveway just beyond that bush out of which a car could be backing up. “White lights!” taught the kids that a car was about to reverse. Sometimes I would yell, “Stop!” When I yelled this, it meant they were to stop so fast they could make skid marks. I was preparing them for the bike rides of life.
As the years progressed, you’d better believe this was my parenting style. I taught them about everything bad that can happen as they grow up. I taught them what to do with potential kidnappers, predators, and unsafe grown-ups. I taught them about drugs and alcohol and rainbow fentanyl. I even taught them about brain-eating amoeba from swimming in lakes or ponds. I had them participate in swim team so they wouldn’t drown. And at every family party where there was a pool, I stayed in a chair by the pool to make sure adult eyes were on the water at all times. I was preparing them for life. Or so I thought.
I now see my apocalyptic planning as some high-functioning anxiety that has always been deep within me and got nudged a bit with motherhood. My good friend (a real psychologist) told me that I worry more because of my experiences as a pediatrician, which did make me feel better. I will never forget the patients who were victims of drowning, or gunshot wounds, or bike accidents. Some of them looked like my own children, and they remain in my mind’s eye like it was yesterday.
I turn 50 later this year. Am I falling in line to take my shift as the Chief Fretter? Am I predestined to fret for the rest of my life, irritating my family along the way?
When I get in my hamster wheel and spin about all the things that can go wrong, my husband usually brings me back to Earth. He tells me that some things are so random that you simply cannot predict them or protect yourself from them. “If they happen, they happen.” But fretting about them won’t mean they won’t happen. And then I just suffer twice – when I’m pre-fretting, and again if the bad thing happens.
All three of my kids are now teenagers, which means I am losing control. One lives away at college. Two of them drive all over. All three of them don’t have me physically around for the majority of their lives. In some ways, I’m getting better with my fretting. I am relaxing a little bit for my daughter, who is now a responsible adult. But I still have six more years of having teenagers.
This morning, my son told me that he had signed up to work at a warehouse. He’s done this before, but today – today was the first freeze of the season. If you are not in the South, you will think the first freeze of the season is no big deal. My nephew, for example, is going to school where it is negative 15 degrees today. But here in Houston, the news this morning was of frozen highways and overturned eighteen wheelers. We do not know how to behave in cold weather.
“No! You’re not going!” This is usually how it starts. Me stomping my foot like a toddler and then fretting. “You could get in an accident and if you do you’re riding the bus all year! If you even survive!” You don’t even know how to drive if there’s ice. Oh yeah? How? How do you drive if you hit ice? Turn into the skid, or against it? What if your car dies and you freeze on the side of the road? Do you even have a winter blanket in your car? No, you don’t!
Well, he did go to work today. My husband showed him how to get the ice off his windshield. He picked up his friend and avoided the freeways and overpasses. Once he was there safely, I was able to flash back to myself as a young medical student, driving my white Oldsmobile through a Dallas ice storm on I-20 to get to my shift at the hospital, 10 mph the whole way. I didn’t know what I didn’t know – but that’s how life is, right? We learn as we go.
Twice in the last month, my sister has had to talk me off the ledge. “Your job is to prepare them, not protect them,” she wisely said during my New Year’s Eve fretting. And today, she didn’t even have to say anything because I heard her voice as I was typing something like, “Who does he think he is – signing up to work on a freeze day?”
I accused my son of making me freak out, spinning in the hamster wheel like I do with everything that can go wrong. But then I was able to counsel myself. No one is responsible for my emotions except for myself. My son isn’t making me fret any more than my daughter does or my other son does. No one is responsible for my emotions but me. I am choosing to fret, and I can and should choose to un-fret.
Over the winter break, my daughter and I watched Footloose together. I am a third-generation preacher’s daughter who intermittently colored outside the lines. I always loved this movie and identified with Ariel, the preacher’s daughter. But watching it at 49 years old, what I noted the most was the last sermon, the words of which I’ll leave here.
“I’m standing up here before you today with a very troubled heart. You see, my friends, I’ve always insisted on taking responsibility for your lives. But I’m really like a first-time parent who makes mistakes and tries to learn from them. And like that parent, I find myself at that moment when I have to decide: Do I hold on? Or do I trust you to yourselves, let go, and hope that you’ve understood at least some of my lessons? If we don’t start trusting our children, how will they ever become trustworthy?”
“I’m standing up here before you today with a very troubled heart. You see, my friends, I’ve always insisted on taking responsibility for your lives. But I’m really like a first-time parent who makes mistakes and tries to learn from them. And like that parent, I find myself at that moment when I have to decide: Do I hold on? Or do I trust you to yourselves, let go, and hope that you’ve understood at least some of my lessons? If we don’t start trusting our children, how will they ever become trustworthy?”
The advice and opinions herein are by no means meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact your personal physician, mental health provider or health care professional for medical advice. Opinions are my own.