Parenting With Fear

Raising a baby is a scary, scary endeavor. There's the day-to-day business of not starving, maiming or depriving your child of sleep. Not to mention all that nurturing crap you're supposed to do. What, with all the reading you and your infant should be doing, the developmental toys to explore, and the socialization to keep up on, it's not surprising that many of us find parenting downright terrifying.

But there's a fine line between protecting your helpless charge from harm and bringing up a terrified hypochondriac who is afraid to venture 3 feet away from home for fear of tragic accident, plague, or an unexpected new ice cream flavor. And too many of us fall into the trap of parenting from a place of fear.

I recently heard a story of a mother who was so terrified that her child would have food allergies that she forbade her to eat anything even marginally allergenic until she was nearly five years old. Moreover, she would tell her girl along the way that she couldn't eat a given food because "she was allergic" to it. At age 5, she did a FULL allergy workup on her child, only to discover that her kid was completely fine.

Now granted, allergies (especially food ones) can be very, very serious. And I'm not suggesting you load up your infant on peanuts just to see what happens. But is it right not only to deprive your child of a whole variety of foods, but to simultaneously instill an unfounded fear and false understanding of what constitutes an allergy? Should your toddler be afraid to try strawberries, dairy, nuts, citrus, shellfish and wheat, believing she will potentially die if the offending food meets her lips?

On another occasion, while walking my very large dog (yes, the dangerous pit bull who is cleverly pretending to grow fat and lazy while secretly plotting to eat us in our sleep) I watched a mother pull her toddler to her at the mere sight of us 50 feet away. In that moment, she taught her child, who's jury was still clearly out regarding large dogs, that she SHOULD fear. It broke my heart.

I realize many would accuse me of being too cavalier regrading Otter. But here's the way I see it:

Food - Sure, some people have allergies, and if you're one of them, it bu-lows. So with that in mind, I am holding off on some things as our Pediatricians suggest. But I could not deny Otter the joy of her first cupcake crumbs because I didn't know every ingredient in the batter.

Dirt - exists to build up our immunity. If you have doubts of that, I urge you to look into the parents who manically sanitize every surface in their home only to send their kids to school and encounter and have them come back with crazy, mutant, super-strong strains of EVERY childhood disease because 1) the rug rats never built up their own immune system, and 2) the bacteria have had years to grow resistant to the myriad antibiotics mom was needlessly pumping into her child via anti-bacterial sprays, soaps and wipes.

Pets - should be respected. I don't let Otter stick her hands into Foz's face, play with his toys, or yank his fur. I don't leave them unattended or in situations where he can accidentally hurt her. But she's growing up with this fantastic, furry, giant creature that makes every other dog look like a guinea pig and she can't get enough of him. Nor he of her.

She's going to fall, get cut, sick, hurt, have stomach flues and colds. Perhaps she'll break something one day. But if I have anything to do with it, she'll learn that you can swing W-A-Y higher if you just stand up on the swing...