I know worrying comes with parenthood.
I get it. I do.
I've been worried since I've been pregnant, actually. My mom said she was the same way, so in my extended family we call it "nurturing the worry gene."
When I first thought I was pregnant for the first time, I was hung over. I mean, big time. Fantastic, right? Mother of the Year, here I come. I stared at the pregnancy stick, with one hand covering my eye...trying to focus and confirm if I was seeing one or two lines. I thought it was just one, so I tossed it into the trash.
Two hours later I dug it out and very faintly saw a second line.
Wait. What?
I drove to a drug store and purchased not one, not two, not even three but FOUR more pregnancy tests. Excess Vaness strikes again. I drove back home and tried to will myself to pee on a stick.
Not easy to do when you're dehydrated and craving food from Perkins.
Eventually it was confirmed that I was indeed going to be a mama.
And life has never been the same since.
I started worrying about a possible miscarriage. Then, when I was beyond the first trimester and still pregnant, I started worrying that I hadn't felt the baby move. I had an ultrasound and was overjoyed to see that I had a healthy and very active baby growing inside of me. I told the ultrasound tech that I absolutely did NOT want to know the baby's sex. After she printed out photos and gave them to me, I scrutinized them carefully. Based on the images, I couldn't tell if the baby had indoor or outdoor plumbing.
I asked the tech, "So...were you able to tell the sex of the baby and you're just not telling me?"
She laughed. "No, I couldn't tell."
I went home and promptly began to worry. When she said she couldn't tell, did that mean she really didn't look close enough or did she mean she couldn't tell because my baby didn't have any visible sex organs and therefor might possibly be a hermaphrodite?
The mere thought of that kept me awake many, many sleepless nights.
Several months later I gave birth to a baby girl; there was no mistaking it.
Followed by another baby girl less than two years later.
And yet another little girl just three years after that.
Obviously my crazy hadn't hit full throttle, because two years after our last little girl came a little boy.
NOW we were done.
But with each baby came another set of worries...
What if I don't love this new baby as much as the others?
What if they succumbed to SIDS?
What sort of developmental delays could it mean if my baby isn't crawling yet?
What if they have allergies to all sorts of things?
Blah, blah, blah...the worrying never seemed to end.
Then they got older and the worries changed.
What if they don't make friends in school?
What if they end up with a bad crowd and end up in juvie?
What if one of them ends up pregnant and I'm a grandma in my mid 40s?
I used to think that once they could walk, talk, feed themselves and wipe their own butts, I would be able to breathe a sigh of relief. I remember back in the 70s when I was a kid, my cousins and I would disappear for HOURS. We'd play on rusty farm machinery, chase bulls in their pens, try to climb on top of cows and go for a ride, ride our Big Wheels (or in my brother's case, his Green Machine)... we'd come home late in the day, covered in dirt and sometimes fresh scabs. Honestly, I'm not even sure our mothers noticed we were gone half the time. They certainly didn't sit around and worry like I do now.
My son is not quite 8, and is still in the Big Wheels/Green Machine stage. My concerns with him usually center around possible broken bones and busted teeth. My girls, however, are getting older and I have less control over their environments when they're not with me.
Sure, I don't need to wonder if they can wipe their own butts anymore, but I do sometimes worry about other external forces that I have no control over.
What if they drink too much at a party some night, develop alcohol poisoning and choke on their own vomit?
What if some boy gives them the "just the tip" speech in the backseat of a car? And she believes him??
This list could go on and on. Some times I manage to keep the worry monster in check. I tell myself that I can't live with all the angst that parenting gives us. I can sometimes keep the thoughts away.
Then, we have to deal with an event that happened at the end of last week.
One of my daughters' classmates was killed in a car accident, right after school let out. She was riding with a couple friends and the unthinkable happened. I, along with every other parent in our school system, keep thinking the same thing: What if that had been my child?
We can't keep our children wrapped in bubble wrap until they retire.
We can't prevent them from what life throws at them.
We can try to give them good advice so they make (somewhat) intelligent decisions.
We can make sure they know how much we love them.
We can let them take off on their Big Wheels and not worry about skinned knees so much, because in the grand scheme of things...that's going to be one of the least of our worries.
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