Taking a Dive into the “Fear” Sometimes Drives Our Parenting
Taking a Dive into the “Fear” Sometimes Drives Our Parenting
Fear is real! It's not only hidden, but we (The Strong and Brave parents) usually deny that we are experiencing it, or we suppress the fact that many of our decisions and actions~ particularly those related to our children are just DRIVEN BY FEAR. By what? The list goes on and on…
~Fear of them being taken,
~Fear of them being bullied
~Fear of them being prematurely exposed to illicit information
~Fear that they are not accepted
~Fear that they want too much
~Fear that they want too little
I am a victim of this very such fear. It was hidden, because, I deluded myself in thinking that I’m THAT strong black woman, who sets her mind to something, who protects her babies at all cost and who doesn’t experience ...FEAR!
But then my daughters, my little, bitty 7-year old set of twins, who I carried for 8.5 long months, who I was determined would be strong and...FEARLESS?-
My twin girls joined a swim team. Like a professional swim team, with starting blocks, competitions and everything.
I was comfortable in my delusion of being ‘that strong FEARLESS black woman,’ until… my babies we expected to… DIVE OFF OF THE STARTING BLOCK! I never swam, professionally, and knew very little about the sport besides the Olympics and Michal Phelps.
“Say what? Wait, Coach you really think they are ready? They only started practicing a few months ago?”
“Yes, Ameerah, they are ready. They’ll get it. Don’t worry”
“But the blocks are pretty high, and scary and belly-flops or broken necks could really be dangerous,” I said to myself, but to the coach I said, “I haven’t seen them execute any really good dives in practice yet.”
“They’ll be okay.” He assured
I should have picked up that something was going on internally. Because, as my husband likes to say: “my internal feelings were not consistent with the words I expressed aloud.” I should have taken time to just ‘be still’ and ‘think’ about what I was ‘thinking,’ or experiencing. If I had done that I would have been able to say: “I’m SCARED! I’m afraid that my little sweet babies will hurt themselves, diving off of the block, which are high and scary and could possibly cause belly-flop or broken neck injuries.” But I didn’t. I hid behind being what too much of society demanded of me, to be ‘that FEARLESS strong black woman, who protected her children at all costs.’
At no point did I realize that it was okay to be a scaredy-cat or just a human who feeling chicken. Who, as a young child herself was always scared to dive into a pool with no starting block.
If it were not for the excuse of my permanent facade, I would have stopped the coach. I would have allowed myself to tell him that “we didn’t sign up to be hurt by dive-related belly-flops or broken necks! Nope! I had to pretend NOT to be scared and let my little cute, dumpling babies risk EVERYTHING and dive off of that darn BLOCK!
So, the day of the swim meet came upon us, and my daughters dove in. Not just once, but a total of 17 times! And with each dive I didn’t feel the excitement of a race about to ensue, I felt a strong fear-ridden sense of relief. A relief that this time, or that dive didn’t produce belly-flop injury or worse.
So, I say all this to say: FEAR IS REAL!
How much of our fear disables our full potential to be encouraging parents?
How much of FEAR works its way in, or in-between us being as courageous with our kids as we need to be?
How much or our fear stops us from allowing a knowledgeable coach from letting our kids dive, or playing a certain position in a particular sport, or from allowing that teacher to push our child in more rigorous courses in school? And more importantly- how much of our internalized, but hidden and suppressed fear that we disguise with whatever societal expectations that we subconsciously are trying to live up to~ how much of our fear is preventing us from pushing our kids academically at home?
“If I push too hard, they won’t have a social life”
“If I push too hard, I won't have a social life.”
“If I push too hard, they won’t like me”
“If I push too hard, they won’t want to be with me”
“I don’t want my child too far ahead of their peers”
“I can’t do too much at home, we’ll just bump heads~ it’s better if someone else teacher her.”
“I don’t want my child to hate learning.”
How much excellence are we allowing to slip through our fingers, because of our FEARS?
At that particular swim meet, my daughters’ dives were ugly. No- they were REALLY UGLY. But my girls walked away from their first swim meet with more self-confidence then I could ever have instilled in them- even with all my ‘strong-black-woman-ness.’
Who would have thought that the good old fashioned cliches of letting go, being still and reflecting would have such a stake in allowing my girls and their coach to just be and blossom?
I am always pleasantly surprised when I realize, over and over again, that my children came to me to help guide ME, and not just for me to help guide them through this conundrum of life that we share.
Cheers to being still.
Cheers to living outside of who society expects us to be~ ALL THE TIME!
Cheers to self-reflection and identifying what we do out of fear!
Cheers to setting high standards for educating our own children receive at home~ with checks and balances on our fears ;-) of course.
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