Never would have described myself as an anxious person. In
fact, I grew up feeling downright courageous compared with my mother, who was
quite confident that there was always a pedophile on the playground and
strapped us into the car with special 5-point harnesses that she must have
purchased from NASA, as this was the 70’s and carseats and booster seats as we
know them now just didn’t exist. Kids just sat in the long front row of the
station wagon, or four to five across the back seat with maybe a lap belt. Not
in our car, they didn’t. But I digress.
When I had my first child, I was so clear that I was going
to be a different kind of mother.
Serenely confident in my children’s ability to manage the world,
perfectly reasonable about safety and letting my kids take age-appropriate
risks. I didn’t actually think about it with that kind of language. I just saw
myself not thinking every ache and pain was the first sign of leukemia or Lyme
disease. Letting them ride bikes in the neighborhood. (With helmets, of course.
I’m not a monster.) Walk themselves to school once they felt ready. Going
rollerblading and skiing without having to watch their mother hyperventilate.
Little things, really.
Turns out, not so easy. Our son had his first fever at 4
months old, when I had just returned to work.
My husband called me at work to let me know. My stomach dropped and throat tightened.
“Should I come home?,” I demanded. “Why?” my actually unflappable husband
responded. “I don’t know. Should you call the doctor?” (It’s helpful to point
out here that my husband is a doctor, a pediatrician, an emergency room
pediatrician at that. He knows fevers and sick kids and when to be worried. And
I know it. But suddenly that didn’t matter.)
“Look, he’s fine. He has a runny nose and a fever. If he
looks lethargic after some Tylenol, then we’ll talk. But he’s fine. I just
wanted to tell you. It’s his first fever.”
“Okay,” I exhaled.
That was orientation in my PhD program in Anxiety Studies.
Turns out having a child is like having one of your vital organs walking around
outside your body. And as they grow, avoiding potential catastrophes, there are
just new risks on the horizon. I suppose I should have noticed this during
pregnancy, when we got through the 1st trimester risks (miscarriage!)
to greet the amnio (chromosomes!) then ultrasounds to rule out other
developmental problems. It never ends. And definitely not with delivery.
But who you are as a parent does matter. While my husband
was not worried by fevers or accidents (really, you’d have to have arterial
bleeding to get my husband worried), there were things which worried him. Our
son, our first child, was (and is) incredibly sweet and even-tempered, an easy
baby, toddler and preschooler. He slept through the night without a fuss (he
actually sang himself to sleep; I think he soothed us). He moved into his
big-boy bed the day we set it up, when we thought he would need weeks to
transition. (“What’s that?” he grinned. “That’s going to be your new bed; you
can start taking naps in it tomorrow,” was our carefully planned response. “Can
I just sleep in it tonight?” He did. And mom and dad were the ones who went to
bed with tears. Our baby!) He used his words. He cooperated. He even rolled
with it when his baby sister came home right in the middle of what was supposed
to be his terrible two’s. You get the picture.
So when this supernatural child was three, he and I were in
the kitchen one evening. He asked me for a cookie and I said he would have to
wait until after dinner. This reasonable response was followed by a loud WHUMP.
I spun to see him laying on the flower motionless, eyes closed. I screamed for
my husband and dove for him in what was surely cinematic clumsiness. His dad
trotted in, “what’s up?”
“He’s breathing, but not responsive! Could he be having a
seizure? Maybe he’s hypoglycemic, he wanted a cookie!”
“Hmmm. I think he’s having a tantrum.”
“Whaaaa?” I exhaled. Of course! A tantrum! I popped up,
smiling even. “Wow. That has got to be the funniest tantrum I have ever seen.”
And remember, I’m a child psychiatrist.
My husband did not look so delighted. “Do you think this is
normal? I mean, not screaming or anything? Could he be depressed or have
anxiety or something?”
Hello! My miraculously zen spouse does have anxiety. It’s about anxiety! Or more precisely, it’s
about the possibility of psychiatric problems and even mild behavioral issues
in our kids. Not me. I feel like I would know what to do about most of that
stuff. Not that it’s pleasant or easy, mind you. But it’s familiar territory
for me. Maybe this is a big part of anxiety and parenting. That you fear
certain dreaded events, but when you know what to do or at least that this
event is normal and will work itself out, you just don’t feel so worried.
Meanwhile, our little prince is still laying on the kitchen
floor, motionless, eyes closed. Now more wonderfully funny than terrifying or
heartbreaking.
“Let’s just ignore him for a few minutes,” I suggest. And we
do. And our boy eventually gets bored and moves on to building a suspension
bridge with Lego’s or reading the encyclopedia or some other age-inappropriate
activity. We should just be reassured that he finally had a tantrum. And so,
the PhDprogram continues. My husband is enrolled also. For subsequent children,
you can skip some of the course requirements. But they are still addiitonal
degrees. Ones that will probably- hopefully- never be finished.
And by the way, next day I got a phone call from his
preschool. They were worried that he might have had a seizure when he went to
ground after a disagreement with another child…