Dad Attitude: Our Inner Worlds
The other day my boys and I went for a bike ride around the neighborhood. They were full of gusto that afternoon, and on one of the sloped sidewalks, they came racing down with all their might. They careened so fast that their little bodies shook on their shimmying bikes. They howled with delight, and I, already at the bottom of the slope waiting for them, shouted at them to “Slow down!”
My 4-year-old is still on training wheels and my 3-year old is on a balance bike, his brakes his own two shoes. Every moment with them is precarious let alone flying down a sidewalk on wheels. Images of them flying off their bikes and into the bushes, going end over the handlebars, or crashing with one wrong turn rushed through my head. Did any of it happen? No. They obeyed and slowed down and had a great laugh.
You probably do this, too: Imagine every possible thing that could go wrong at any given moment. We do it for our kids, and our parents did it for us. Behind every happy scene, disaster lurks, and though I’m motivated to keep the fun going, that cold streak of fear is what motivates me to always keep my guard up. This is a father’s constant situational awareness; it’s our instinctual survival mechanism switched on in order to be prepared for anything.
I sometimes think, however, that I let fear take hold of me a little too often, what with our world the way it is. I play out worse-case scenarios in my head. I dwell on the what-if’s. I jump to conclusions. Is this normal?
Yes. I’m a parent. We do this when there are little human beings in our care, smaller versions of ourselves that actually don’t know what fear is. Our children live blissfully in the moment, as we, their guardian angels, standby at the ready.
I know bad things will happen. That’s life. All we can do is enjoy the time that we have. While terrible thoughts may disrupt even the most joyous moments, it’s okay to acknowledge them, then let them go. It’s merely our mind’s checks and balances system at work.
I’m getting better at understanding this. I know I cannot control everything. I can, however, decide what I want to let stew in my thoughts. Letting go of worries and fears is a lifelong process. It means making sense of what’s real and what’s merely running wild in my imagination. As Mark Twain once wrote, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
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