Our most important job, we know, is to keep them safe. And the world? It seems so dangerous. All the things that could happen. All the things we want to protect them from. All the terrifying things they seem to want to do—the way that so many of their dreams, as we said, are our worst fears.
“Don’t you worry about them?” Marc Maron asked the comedian Greg Fitzsimmons on a recent podcast, after learning that his son had spent part of a gap year in Mexico. “At a certain point,” Fitzsimmons said, “the only way to parent is to let them go in the sense that you have to say, ‘My child might die.’” This is dark, he admitted, but it’s true. “My child might die. Accept that and let them live their life the way they’re going to.”
Having kids, we’ve said, makes you a hostage to fortune.
Unfortunately, you cannot turn your kid into a hostage to protect them. You will have to accept risk. You will have to accept that your heart is outside of your body—alarmingly, it’s in the body of a fearless toddler or a reckless teenager. You will have to accept that something could happen to them. You can also be heartened by the fact that your worst fears almost certainly won’t happen to them. And understand that not only is your worry mostly impotent, but it often comes at the expense of this moment you have with them right now and your ability to teach them the skills that will help them survive and thrive in the world.
So stop worrying and start focusing on what you control. Raise resilient kids. Raise kids who ask for help. Raise kids who know their limits. Raise kids who make good decisions. Raise kids who can live their own life.
P.S. We understand it might feel impossible to quell the worry we feel about our kids, but we are the creators of our anxiety and we decide how much power it will have over us. To help you take back control, we created our Anxiety Medallion for you to carry in your pocket and use as a tool when anxiety strikes.
Unlike our other medallions, the Anxiety Coin has a hole in its center so we remember the way stress and worry eats at us until we’re left empty inside. It also makes a great fidget spinner to twist and turn in your fingers to dispel nervous energy. Gain a powerful tool in your fight against anxiety and get our Anxiety Medallion today!
