Parenting Fears

A friend wrote a blog about the fear of parenthood and I wanted to reply to her, but everything I wanted to say would be my own post so here it goes.

I understand!  There is nothing more terrifying then finding out you are pregnant and are going to be responsible for a little person for the rest of your life.  How is that possible when I just started figuring out how to be responsible for myself?  Granted for me, we were not “planning” to have a baby, but we weren’t not planning either.  We knew it was a possibility.  When it actually happened the years of being programed as a Catholic girl to NOT get pregnant were hard to shake. Telling my parents and in-laws was terrifying.  Never mind that I was married and it was actually a part of our vows.  

I think that God knew what He was doing when He gives you nine months to get used to the idea that a baby is coming.  It is just the right amount of time. 

Then you give birth.  And your world changes.  From the experience, the emotions, the hormones and the overwhelming exhaustion.  T couldn’t wait to get me and B home from the hospital.  He had the car packed hours before we were discharged.  He was bouncing off the walls.  He wanted his family around him and safe at our house.  I loved him for it.  

I did not share these feelings.  I wanted to stay at the hospital.  There were doctors, nurses, there were others.  When we went home it was us.  Just us.  Us and this little person who was a part of me only days before.  That first night home we were sitting in our living room.  B was sleeping in his bassinet.  We didn’t have the TV on, no music.  Just sitting.  T looked at me and asked what was wrong and I just burst into tears because I didn’t know how I could do this for the next 18 years.  Which only made me cry harder because I really had only left my parents house when I was married at 28.  That was 10 more years.   

Luckily T is a very rational person and he said something that night that made all the difference in the world to me as a mother.  It is not about the rest of our lives.  It is about this moment.  Right now.  Right now he is sleeping.  He is peaceful, he is resting.  We will worry about what to do when he cries then.  Not now.  There is nothing we can do now to fix a future problem.  And that is so true.  Everything about being a parent is in the now.  You handle things that occur at that moment.  There is no way to foresee the future.

 Like today. B wanted to paint.  So we got him some paper and new paintbrushes.  I put the paper on his easel on the porch, gave him his paints and told him to stay on the paper.  About 15 minutes later he was finished.  I got some of the bills paid.  J was still napping.  It was a good afternoon.  I went to see what he painted on the paper.  There were a few lines and scribbles.  Normal 3 1/2 year old art.  Then he showed me the “grass” he painted.  That is when I turned and saw the picnic table bench T had made pre-children covered with green paint.  How do you plan for that?  How do you react to that?  He was so proud of his grass until he saw my face looking at the “art” and he hid his face in the door leading into the house.  He knew he was wrong.  I didn’t yell but told him he would have to clean it all up.  So he spent the next 15 minutes cleaning the green grass off of our bench with warm soapy water.  He did a good job. (Side note:  This is also the same table that he “jack hammered” with a fireplace poker and nearly stabbed his toe off on.  It has lovely little punch holes on the top of the table now.)

So anyway, being afraid of being a parent is normal.  There should be a fear.  And I think that all “good” parents have that fear.  And really it is not fear but respect for human life and how precious it is and how we don’t want to screw it up.  

As for babies being boring.  You are correct.  They are.  But the boring is wonderful sometimes.  And like T told me.  It is about the moment you are in. Not the one that just happened and not the moments that haven’t.  

Being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Ever.  But it is the most wonderful thing I have done too.  When you are  ready, or as in my case, God thinks you are, you will face your fears and experience something truly magical.

Advertisement