Fear and Fatherhood

Hello Everyone,

When I first found out I was to become a dad, I counted the days until the 26th week of pregnancy. My understanding was that it was the earliest that the Munchkin could be born and still have a shot.

Once we passed that marker, I counted the days until she was actually born. At least then, if there was a health issue, we could potentially do something about it. Not much you can do if there is a problem before birth.

Then she went over her due date, and I started counting up instead of down. It was not comforting.

When we knew she was on the way, I counted the hours. When events veered away from our birth play and we ended up at the hospital, I counted the minutes while I watched the fetal heartrate monitor. I was, fortunately, not hooked up to a similar device, lest I melt the thing down.

After she was born, I counted her weight to reassure myself that she was gaining.

The numbers gave me a guide to know if the danger was getting better or worse. It was something I could stand on, something solid when I had very little ability to keep her safe. But not everything is countable.

In the first few weeks especially, but for many months afterwards, if she was too quiet for too long while asleep, I would wake up in the middle of the night and go check on her to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing or otherwise spontaneously died. There’s not really a number that goes with that.

When she started to walk, I worried about her falling down the stairs or pulling something down on herself. She was very active. My cortisol levels looked like a spectrograph in an earthquake zone.

She put everything in her mouth, so I worried about that as well.

At every developmental milestone, one fear replaces the next. I fear less (but still a bit) about her falling down the stairs, and more about her social development. Will she make friends? Will she be anxious? Will she be happy?

I fear smothering her too. I fear becoming a helicopter parent. Add that to the pile.

She needs to understand danger, and to do that you need to experience a bit of it yourself. So, I let her climb things, use a knife, etc. When I’m not around, she’ll have only her own judgement to keep her safe.

I don’t want fear to be the defining emotion of parenthood, but ironically, I fear letting go of it. Fear keeps me sharp. Even when she is not around, I look for dangers, moving furniture and putting stuff out of reach. If I no longer fear, she could get hurt by a danger I might otherwise have foreseen.

Feeling sharp is comforting because it gives me a sense of agency. But it’s also a crutch. That sense of agency is a way of hiding from the reality of a random and uncaring universe.

Fear may not be the defining emotion of parenthood, but it is a companion.

Wes