Parenting and Fear

 

Since being in Panama for a few months, I went through a kind of 'culture shock' as a parent to a baby that is becoming a wild and daring toddler. My daughter, Celest, is developing very quickly and is starting to interact more and more with the world... and that world currently happens to be the third world here in Panama. 

In Canada, I had access to 6 parks within walking distance, vast swaths of green grass to run wildly in, surrounded only by sleepy streets with slow moving cars, or safely fenced in with all the comforts like benches, sandbox, splash pads, jungle gym, sun, shade, waterfountain, baby pools, public security making the rounds, and many other parents and children present at all times, and Celest was just a baby, barely starting to walk. In Panama I have only an unpaved intersection, an indoor parking lot, a litter-lined public access path to the beach and the beach itself, as my options for outdoor activities within walking distance - and Celest is now running, climbing and throwing her body into everything she does, including the ocean. She wants to be everywhere, doing everything all at once! 

There are sometimes venomous snakes along the roadside, or coconuts that fall on windy days, stray dogs that run in packs from abandoned areas with dilapitated houses and overgorwn yards that are everywhere. There's the broken glass and rusty metal hidden in uncut grass and under roadside leaves. 

It's not only the physical environment itself that presents new challenges, but the way the culture functions within that environment as well. The outdoors are treated like the wastebasket for everyone that passes by. Nothing is maintained by any public entity but rather 'left to entropy' and the 'tragedy of the commons', where nobody has the incentive or resources to maintain it privately.

Within this environment are lax laws and rampant bribery. There is a lot of drunk driving and public drinking. I've met a large group of drunk men cat-calling me in the street at night while walking Celest, and  cornered by a dog growling at me with beared teeth while holding her up. There is extortion and corruption from the big to the small, accompanied by a sense of having 'given up' in most of the people we meet. And I never see children casually playing, anywhere.

These are just a few examples of some environmental and cultural factors I have had to become aware of and handle, but there are more. Needless to say, I can become quite rigid from all the potential dangers that surround us in the environment we are currently in (which is also *one of* the reasons we are moving to Canada 🇨🇦). I begin to experience it as if my little baby were under constant threat from 360 degrees each time I venture outdoors.

I can get worked up into a stress, where I automatically play out worse-case scenarios in my mind in an instant, like a movie playing images of horrible outcomes with Celest dying or being permanently maimed. Each sound of tires on gravel could be a drunk driver that runs her over, each rustling of leaves a snake that bites her leg, or if Celest ventures more than a few feet away, some animal or someone could snatch her up. I get a jolt of energy in my body and move closer to her or pick her up from that starting point of fear. 

Please don't get me wrong - there is a practical point here, where we are in an environment that is not suitable for a baby. I can't just allow Celest to roam free as I could in the parks in Canada. The point is that I had done this kind of switch into 'fear mode'. It is exaggerated in my current environment which has many moments of truly being 'unsafe', but this is the state and condition of 'helicopter parents' on a an unconscious level. They are in a state of constant fear (not necessarily felt consciously). Because the thing is, it doesn't really matter which environment you are in. Switching over into 'fear mode', where we tend to believe we require stress and fear in order to 'step up' our vigilance (and then get stuck in that hyper-vigilant state) can happen in any environment. 

Over the period of a few weeks, I found I was really struggling with Celest (my red flag point). I would walk down the street and see coconuts hanging above, open gates where dogs live, piles of leaves where snakes could be. I was so busy 'keeping her safe' that I had started hovering over her and restricting her freedom of movement almost completely.  She started fighting me more, becoming displeased more and more easily,  not listening to me, and spending time with her outdoors had become something less enjoyable. It was stressful and I stopped looking forward to it, all under the guise that I am 'keeping her safe'. 

All the warnings, close calls and 'threats' were used in my mind to confirm and validate my worst fears - as if each one were not just a distant potential, but an inevitability that I must prevent. I would essentially wrap myself in those fears like a safety blanket, believing that holding on to them is what was keeping us safe. This means, instead of calmly walking over to Celest if she were walking towards a ledge for example, I would rush over to her with images in my head of her already falling off the ledge, or her little, lifeless body on the ground below.

What happens when you go into a 'fear-mode' like this, is that you are actually attracting events to you, both physically/practically and existentially. Look at dogs: they will more likely attack if they sense fear and nervousness. Snakes are highly sensitive, your fear is a threat to them, so they will more likely defend themselves with a bite. When you are in fear, you are not present and aware in your body, which is when accidents tend to happen. And then there is attracting events on a whole other level, where if you live in fear, Life will manifest events for you to face in order to overcome or let go of that fear. 

The second point is that when you exist with, surround and hover over your child in a state of fear, you are constantly impulsing to them that you do not trust them, there is no trust - no self-trust, no trust in life - only fear. This will also make THEM more prone to accidents and injuries, as they will pick up only on nervousness, insecurity, stress and panic, and will embody these words as they grow and develop.

How is a child supposed to confidently walk into the world and reality when all they have been programmed with and impulsed is the many faces and flavours of FEAR? This is how we as parents inadvertently destroy our children from the getgo, where like most things, it all starts with good intentions. We destroy their self-trust and their godhood, we snatch away their innocence and eternal life and replace it all with fear. Fear as insecurity, fear as anxiety, fear as stress, fear as apprehension, fear as self-doubt - all of it just the different faces of fear.

The question is: how do you balance being practically safe and at the same time allowing for the development of trust, confidence and assuredness? How do you "allow your child to do dangerous things carefully" (jp)?

When it comes to most fears, you just have to STOP. Take a breath, release the fear, and delete the images. We are not victims to our minds - we can BE the directive principle of what takes place in our own minds, to use it as a tool. I look at the commonsense of: if I can so easily get locked into a 'fear mode', then I know I have the power to decide where my mind goes, and that that decision can be quite firm. So instead of locking myself into and trusting only 'fear mode', I lock myself into and trust my presence and awareness. With this, actions and movements are purely practical. I can calmly pick up my child when I see a car coming, or guide her away from areas conducive to snakes. I can be aware of my environment for dogs and assess the behaviour of the dog, which 99% of the time is calm and chill. 

I remind myself that, for example, dangerous things happen IN MOMENTS, and are not present all the time or even most of the time I spend outside. That I can be vigilant and preventative without fear. That I can bring forth my self-confidence, self-trust, self-assuredness, my constancy and consistency in the application of my awareness of myself, my surroundings and my child, and so impulse THESE words as myself, instead of impulsing fear.

Conversely, in the purely practical realm, it is very beneficial to have access to child-friendly spaces. In these spaces I allow Celest much independence and to take her own risks: to climb up high and get down on her own. To fall often and get bumps and scrapes, to go down the slide or climb up the rocks, to run along the edge of the bed and climb up on the stool - to do dangerous things carefully - as this is how she is learning and growing. 

Once I made the switch out of 'fear-mode' where I stopped hovering and moving my body in rigid, tense energy, and once I began stopping the doomsday thoughts and walked myself into presence, awareness and trust - there was a significant substantiation of my bond, communication and cooperation with Celest. I could see her blossoming more, not just physically, but in her cognitive abilities as well - all of this I use as feedback that I am moving in the right direction. 

The sad reality is that this world was not created within a consideration for children. And most or many of the systems that are designed for them, are done so in a way that limits and diminishes their greatness, all under the guise of 'keeping them safe' and 'preparing them for life in this world'. Our greatest power as a parent is to honour our children's Greatness, their Godliness, their Utmost Potential IN OUR OWN HOMES, and in those pieces of reality that we participate in.