I had to return 10 Habits of Happy Mothers to the library the other day, even though I hadn't read every chapter. Oh well. I read the chapters that seemed relevant to me, and skipped the rest.
One of the chapters that I did manage to find time to read was about Fear.
Ahh, fear. My constant companion now that I have a child. Fear creeps into my house more often than I would like to admit, and I don't always know how to make him go away. He usually creeps in slowly, as a brief passing thought, and then suddenly I can't sleep, my heart is pounding and my brain is full of "what-if's."
What this chapter said was that often times our fears for our children, such as something terrible happening to them often stem from the fact that there is so much that is simply out of our control, and we don't like this.
Um, hi. Yeah. That right there? That's me. There are two things that I really am not comfortable with. Not knowing, and feeling like I'm not in control. Looks like fear is here to stay.
Except that she talks about how when we understand that this is where the fear is coming from, and then let go of it, it doesn't bother us as much anymore. (maybe.)
The author gave the example of a parent's worry that their child will contract some life threatening illness, like Leukemia. If we really sit back and think about it, this is a pretty rare illness. The odds are in my favor that my child will NOT get leukemia. (phew. of course, half the parenting books out there would lead you to believe that while you're pregnant anything and everything is going to go wrong, and that even more will go wrong once that little bundle of joy is out in the world, but whatevs.)
It's our job as mothers to worry. If there was a job description, I'm sure that would be #4, after feed, clothe and love your child.
One of the chapters that I did manage to find time to read was about Fear.
Ahh, fear. My constant companion now that I have a child. Fear creeps into my house more often than I would like to admit, and I don't always know how to make him go away. He usually creeps in slowly, as a brief passing thought, and then suddenly I can't sleep, my heart is pounding and my brain is full of "what-if's."
What this chapter said was that often times our fears for our children, such as something terrible happening to them often stem from the fact that there is so much that is simply out of our control, and we don't like this.
Um, hi. Yeah. That right there? That's me. There are two things that I really am not comfortable with. Not knowing, and feeling like I'm not in control. Looks like fear is here to stay.
Except that she talks about how when we understand that this is where the fear is coming from, and then let go of it, it doesn't bother us as much anymore. (maybe.)
The author gave the example of a parent's worry that their child will contract some life threatening illness, like Leukemia. If we really sit back and think about it, this is a pretty rare illness. The odds are in my favor that my child will NOT get leukemia. (phew. of course, half the parenting books out there would lead you to believe that while you're pregnant anything and everything is going to go wrong, and that even more will go wrong once that little bundle of joy is out in the world, but whatevs.)
It's our job as mothers to worry. If there was a job description, I'm sure that would be #4, after feed, clothe and love your child.
Actually, I'd love to see that job description.
So, I'm trying a new thing. I'm trying to let go of some of the control. Well, I'm trying to be comfortable with the fact that I can't control everything. I can sure as heck control SOMEthings though. I can keep him as safe as I can, baby-proof, teach him things that are safe and things that are not, and I guess, the rest is...
out of my control.
(shudder)
It's true there is so much out of our control. Really everything if we're honest. It's so amazing that anything good ever even happens at all. But it does, as we can see when we look into our children's little eyes. You're doing a great job being a mamma and teaching your little one to face his fears too.
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