Nothing To Fear

"He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was chatting recently with a friend about fear. He was saying that as parents, our job is to teach our children to conquer fears. Most parents want their children to be active, to learn and grow. Safety first, always, but we eventually have to let go of the seat of their first two-wheel bike and send them down the road, wobbly but free.

Well, some parents let go. Then there are the other parents, the “helicopter” parents that we hear so much about. I don’t think these parents are really afraid for their children. Part of it is all the scary things we think could happen, certainly. But a bigger part of it is the fear of not measuring up as a parent.

I have had my helicopter moments, no doubt. I was the mom that wouldn’t let her child walk home from school alone. To be fair, it was first grade, and I was certain that he was just too young. Never mind that I live close enough to the school that I can see the door from my window, nope, I still picked him up every day. I wasn’t really worried about him getting hurt in the thousand-yard walk home. I was more concerned with doing it right. I had no idea what “right” meant, and I still don’t, but I was there.

I was convinced this kind of involvement was required. The whole “when you know better you do better” thing. My parents didn’t volunteer in the classroom, or bring snacks to sports games. I wasn’t picked up and driven everywhere.

My friends and I wandered the streets by ourselves, on foot and without orange slices at our games. I was going to do it better. However, the joke was on me. My parents knew something I didn’t in those early days. They knew the value of letting go.

When my oldest started Kindergarten the teacher asked for two parent volunteers, one to handle snack every day and one to be the room parent. And the moms were just about killing each other to do it. I think it could be a new survival reality series “Volunteer Mom: Outsnack, outwork, outlast”.

Then there were the times allotted for parents to come into the classroom and help. No lie, there was a waiting list for a spot. Not for nothing, it took us less time to be accepted to the club we belong to than it did for a slot to open up for reading circle.

I’m not sure this is knowing better and doing better. I think it’s fear. The fear that every parent has; we fear falling short on the most important thing we will ever do. The stakes are huge.

Or are they? What happens if we don’t bring the snack? Will the kids in class starve? I can see it now, 22 gaunt little faces, sitting around circle and it’s your kid that says “please mum, I want some more”.

And forget about school, what about the activities? You simply must be heavily involved in whatever team, play or concert your child is in. A friend recently volunteered to help with her daughter’s school play. She wound up coordinating dinner, bottled water, and snacks for two straight weeks of rehearsals and she did it amidst a host of special dietary requests. How could these kids be expected to know what to eat all on their own, they were only sophomores.

Seriously? That is a parental failure in my mind, having high school kids that cannot feed themselves without a committee to deal with it for them. I can hear the mayday message now when they go off to college “Blackhawk down, blackhawk down…”

I know a thing or two about fear. I have waited up in a snowstorm for a new driver. I have put a child in an ambulance after a bad fall. Any parent who has had the phone ring late at night when their kid is not home has known real fear. I don’t have the time to worry about snack and reading circle anymore. I will always volunteer, because I want to help and I have the time.

But I no longer feel it’s life or death. It never really was. I am much happier hanging out with my kids than I was hovering over them like the eye in the sky news copter. I have landed and I'm staying on the ground.