What's your greatest fear?

When Genoa was a newborn, I read this awful newspaper story about the number of children who died every summer when their parents left them in the car. One mom actually drove to work after forgetting to drop her kids off at daycare and BOTH her kids roasted alive while she worked at her day job.

That used to be my biggest fear - forgetting that I had two kids. And I spent an obscene amount of time counting my children. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. I still do it at the park. I count heads. If a friend asks me to watch her children while she runs to the bathroom, I count her kids' heads too.

Of course now both kids know how to get out of their car seats.  Shit, they're almost old enough for me to leave them in the car ON PURPOSE.

So naturally my fears have evolved. Now I get to worry that someday my children will look back and question my choices. Life choices. Parenting choices. I fear that it will take them too long to realize I'm only human. It's a long way off, I know, but no one ever said fears were rational.

But honestly, my greatest fear is that I'll never figure out how to be present again. That I'll always be distracted by worry and stress. That I'll never get my mojo all the way back. I'm terrified of sailing through the rest of my life at half-mast.

Comments

[taylor]

my biggest fear as a new mommy again is also forgetting i have two kids and leaving one or both of them in my truck. it gets over 110 at times here on the gulf coast and it would only take minutes. i am also counting heads wherever we go, too. i USED to be terrified by SIDS too, but that fear has been replaced by drowning... Being a mom, as you know, is the most stressful job there is.

[Chasingthefirefly.wordpress.com]

I did lose one of my kids at a school function. She was about a year and a half and wandered away from both my husband and I. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life and I can remember it like it happened yesterday.

I know what you mean about being clouded by the worry and stress of parenting. I think I can almost see the other side of the mountain. We're starting to plan more adventurous outings with the kids. I still worry about losing sight of them, but I can see where that will begin to fade as they age and mature. I'm sure once this phase passes, my fears for them will be a lot more intricate than losing them in a crowd, but hopefully my diligence now will keep them on the straight and narrow.

[jesse k]

Our fears always elvolve, don't they? The newborn fears move into the toddler fears and then fears of kidnapping and accidents and it can overwhelm me and I have to step back and breathe and not lose sight of where they are right now.

[Amy]

I'd have to agree with Jesse K. As an Ultrasound Tech who has seen late term fetal demise, I was worried about losing my baby before she was born. Then I was worried about pooping during the delivery. For the first two years of her life I was worried about any disorders..autism, learning disabilities...and now it's definitely the abduction worries and worrying something freaky out-of-my-control thingy will happen to her. You do the best you can to be present. It's hard. I bet you're doin' it better than you think!

[JMH]

Currently, my "mom" fear is my children being critically injured or dying. My future "mom" fear is when they are old enough to drive....gah!

[Shannon]

OMG, I totally know. When I was pregnant with my first, I saw an Oprah about a dad who did that--totally forgot he had a baby, drove to work instead of daycare, and left his sleeping newborn baby in the car. Of course the baby died. It was not his usual routine to do the daycare drop-off and parenthood was new anyway and he just totally forgot. This episode traumatized me to such a degree I can still vividly recall it. A few years later, I met a new mom friend in playgroup and she mentioned seeing the same episode when she was also pregnant with her oldest (her son and my daughter are 1-1/2 months apart). What a TV show to see when pregnant with your first and already a total ball of stress and ignorance and uncertainty! Terrifying.

[Liana (Suburban Mom)]

I actually feel better reading all of these comments because I thought my fears were crazy. I constantly think - what if that pain she mentioned in her knee is some sort of CANCER? what if my baby never talks because she's AUTISTIC? What if I'm upstairs and my five year old is downstairs and she gets ABDUCTED? Ok, some are irrational, but I think it goes with the territory of being a mom. I made the mistake of watching the movie TAKEN and now my children will never travel ANYWHERE alone until they're 60.

[Sally]

My greatest mom fear is more of a historical one. I'm not really afraid of much with my kids right now. I temporarily feel like I've got a handle on things. I know that probably means I'm asking for some whopper fears in the coming years.

Anyway, the most obsessive fear I've ever had was the fear that I'd lost infant Tommy. This was when I was in the middle of the worst of my PPD and was rarely sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time. Doing that for months and months really amplifies fears.

Even when I could sleep, I'd wake up in a panic, convinced that I'd lost Tommy. I let him sleep in our bed ONCE when we first brought him home from the hospital, and for NINE months after that I woke up every. single. night believing that he'd 1) been in my bed when I went to sleep and 2) was now missing. Of course, he was always in his crib, sound asleep.

It was a totally irrational fear, but even thinking about it makes my heart pound. Whew. It's hard to believe how crazy I was.

[Amanda P. Westmont]

Sally,

I think it's interested the way PPD manifests. I was never sad or anything like (I love newborns!) but I was SERIOUSLY CONSTANTLY anxious about my kids dying. THAT was my version of PPD. Sounds like yours was similar!