Copyright 1999 by Gavin de Becker. Published by The Dial Press. Why you worry All the energy a new mother might once have put into protecting herself she now puts into protecting her baby because it is her self , literally a physical part of her. Elizabeth Stone has said that the decision to have a child is momentous because it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. Introduce yourself to other parents and share how you handle worry.
Parents enter into a contract with nature to keep that heart beating, to keep their children alive.
That means parents recognize that children could die, yet whenever the thought comes into their heads, they quickly banish it. The problem with bracing for the worst is, you have to imagine it first. The specter of that highly unlikely possibility influences our thoughts about adventure and caution, recreation and rest, freedom and autonomy. In short, that ghost puts in his two cents worth every time we make a decision about our children. But that ghost loses much of his power when we look him in the eye.