I used to be a pretty chill person. A go-with-the-flow, leave it to the Universe, manifest-some-good-treasures-from-T.J. Maxx-on-a-Tuesday-evening-after-work kind of girl. Oh sure, I worried about things like losing my Weight Watchers Lifetime Member status after that Golden Grahams and beer cheese bender or having nothing to watch while I “jogged” on my mini trampoline because stupid TiVo failed to record All My Children again. You know, real heavy adult shit.
And then I became someone’s mom and turned into this human coil of nerves and nausea. My veins pump doom and gloom cells into my brain making me only able to process questions that began with WHAT IF??? I wake up every day and think, “Good morning, World! What terrible fate will bestow my child today?”
I’m very pleasant when I wake up.
Running through the litany of horrible, irrational things happening to the person you love the most is not for the weak. There’s hidden hair syndrome and secondary drowning and concussions. Cellulitis, appendicitis, diverticulitis. Is it safe to have Tide pods in the house? Should we have pushed for a palate extender? Are the trees in our backyard healthy? Can I trust my son not to run with a lollypop in his mouth? Just today on our walk to school he said, “I have frostbite.” School is half a block away and it was 44 degrees and he was wearing a winter coat, but just hearing those words gave me figurative frostbite and made me want to wrap him in a mylar thermal blanket and shove him back in my womb.
When I was a kid, I fell off the monkey bars in my backyard and landed square on my head. It was November in upstate NY so the ground was probably frozen. I for sure saw stars. I ran inside with my mittened hands squeezing the sides of my head together lest my brain fell out and stained the carpet and tried to get my mom’s attention but she was in the middle of making dinner and one of my aunts was on the phone so I filled a cereal bowl with M&Ms and laid on the couch to watch Tom & Jerry.
I love how happy my son is when he’s playing basketball, but I can’t help imagining him landing wrong from a step-back and snapping his ankle off. He cannot— CANNOT— ride a bike or a scooter to the park because each driveway he passes presents an opportunity to be RUN OVER by a Subaru en route to the locally-owned hardware store to purchase organic fertilizer. Every time I see him eating popcorn I’m back to white-knuckling through that Infant CPR class we took pre-baby where the instructors told us about a toddler who choked to DEATH on a popcorn kernel. His DAD was an EMT and couldn’t save him! What chance did we have?
Spiked eggnog- yes, sir!
Spiked anxiety- booo! No thanks!
I’m no data scientist, but I do know a lot of moms and they correlate this line of thinking. I know a lot of dads too and they are very sympathetic as they nod and slowly back away, telling me how normal all these dark, destructive thoughts are.
“OMG LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING!” I shout because they are walking backwards and getting too close to a curb.
Unfortunately it is very normal. I could point to any mom right now, ask her what she’s worried about, and she’d rattle of thirty-five things. I talked to three moms today and they were all in various stages of spiraling. But moms are excellent multitaskers so they were also creating spreadsheets to manage summer camp registration and making doctors appointments and calling remediation specialists because that minor leak in the kitchen may actually have been black water. DO YOU KNOW WHAT BLACK WATER IS? It’s water contaminated by hazardous materials such as human poop! We can’t even trust water!
I once asked a mom friend what she was most worried about when it came to her babies. You know, small talk pleasantries.
“Sinkholes,” she said.
Wow. Not pediatric cancer or drunk drivers or vaping or school shootings like all the other normal mom fears? Sinkholes. The secret anxiety trigger no one talks about.
“Like, you think your kid will run off to find a bag of Baked Cheese Crunchies at Trader Joe’s and a giant sinkhole will appear in the snack aisle and swallow them up?”
“Sort of,” she said. “Except I usually envision the sinkhole is in the parking lot.”
And that’s exactly how my anxiety list multiples.
Now, do I spend all my time thinking about terrible things happening to my kid? NO1! Jeez! That would be unhinged! I also spend a lot of time thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to me. What if I got sick or buried in an avalanche or kidnapped or tried saving a dog tied to railroad tracks and a train was coming and my poor baby man was left without his anxiety-sodden, hyper-hovering, scaredy-cat mother? How would he know how to safely cross a street without me yelling BE CAREFUL over his shoulder every time?
I can’t stop myself. It’s hereditary. I want to tuck the words back in as soon as I feel them rolling off my tongue, but there’s no use. I shout Be Careful whenever my son is doing…well, anything. Eating a Jolly Rancher? BE CAREFUL! Picking up a piece of toast fresh from the toaster? BE CAREFUL! Walking sixteen inches in front of me in a parking lot? Do you have a death wish, child? BE CAREFUL AND HOLD MY HAND! There could be a sinkhole!
I ask you, has any human ever changed their erratic and careless behavior because someone told them to be careful? They have not. In fact, the opposite is true. According to doctors and researchers who study the effects anxious parents have on their children, saying “be careful” can instill fear, prevent kids from taking healthy risks, and make them afraid of making mistakes.
Running across slippery, wet rocks = unhealthy risk
Running for student body president in 7th grade = healthy risk
OMG 7th grade! Middle school! I can hear the sound of a whole new crop of fears unlocking! Lockers! Homeroom! Changing classrooms! Drinking before school dances!
Like the skin around my eyes, it doesn’t get better with age. The older kids get, the more havoc they wreak on a mother’s nervous system. When I returned home for visits in and post-college, I still had to wake my mom up after a night out with friends. You could literally see the tension leave her body like air from an unbound balloon when she heard me whisper, “I’m home.” If only kids could be mothers before they were kids they’d be a whole lot nicer to their mothers.
I wish I could tell you it’s going to be okay or give you “Six Surefire Ways to Quell Your Mom-Anxiety” but I can’t. (Don’t worry, I know other people who can!) In fact, when I started writing this I thought for sure I would come to some neat and tidy “feel good” conclusion and all I can think about are 382 more things to be anxious about. They just pop up like bubbles in a glass of ginger ale.
As the prolific 80’s glam rock band Poison once sang:
“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
—Bret Michaels
I was going to credit that phrase to some English poet but nope. Poison said it first. Pretty sure the love they were singing about is the wholehearted, all-consuming, unconditional mother’s love and the loss is referring to thousands of hours of sleep, clumps of hair in the shower drain, and the people we used to be. Like a skin tag or age spot, it’s a part of you now.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Poison was right.
It is better.
And worth it.
Most of the time anyway.
Like a skin tag or age spot, I can’t imagine myself without this kid.
Someday people will forget about English poets and 80’s rock bands and instead quote the great prolific, panicky Middle-Aged Lady Mom:
Be careful.
But Shelly, you’re not supposed to tell us that!!!
Well as you just read, I can’t help it. Also it’s rough out there for moms2 and someone needs to look out for you.
XO,
Shelly
But for Realsies
If you want some actual advice by people more qualified to give it, here are some recommendations:
I highly recommend the Substack, Parenting Translator by
. Especially this article and this article.Check out This Postpartum Life by
, especially this article: publishes nothing but winners and has a trove of great advice for parents in her book and Substack, Is My Kid the Asshole? Here’s a great read on how to help an anxious child. (Because they’re probably picking up what we’re putting down!)
How about a little anger with your Mom-anxiety? I loved this post from
’s Mom Life Comics.I LOVE LOVE LOVE the book, The World Deserves My Children, by actress, comedian, and mom, Natasha Leggero. It’s so funny, so relatable, so full of new triggers and fears. But seriously, you’ll laugh the whole way through.
Maybe
Yes, Dads, I know it’s rough out there for you too and you also are filled with anxiety and dread. But I’m a Middle-Aged Lady Mom so I writing what I know!