Life-long fear

The universal (and very frequently unconscious) human need for transcendence can be identified as one of the underlying reasons for the satisfaction we feed when contemplating the fruits of our work. The object of the admiration can be anything, from clipping a bush of roses to painting a wall, from cooking a delicious meal to clearing the gutters in the highway; any completed work can provide a sense of fulfillment. And it is not necessarily linked to the recognition we expect to receive from others, because invisible tasks which are necessary but still not urgent can also provide the same feeling, like tightening a screw that was slowly coming loose, but had not fallen off yet: by avoiding a future inconvenience we have (secretly) improved the world, and that is a very powerful reward.

However, this intrinsic rewards, that come from inside ourselves, can sometimes clash with the recognition of the others. When a very apparent task does not receive any praise or even derision it is only normal to feel offended: not only is your work unappreciated, but also your feeling of satisfaction is considered to be misaligned and unjustified. This situation is a perfect case for the ebullient arise of pride, a feeling that has caused countless wars and an inordinate amount of suffering, because this kind of attack frequently extinguishes any interest in a negotiated solution.

Photo: darkday

But there is a situation where an overwhelming satisfaction comes along with a host of other feelings like exhaustion, joy, sleeplessness, second thoughts and many more: having a child. My youngest brother David and his wife are expecting their first daughter any day now, and in yesterday's family conference we discussed precisely the turmoil of sensations around the pregnancy and the birth. It stars either with the anxiety of actively trying to get pregnant or the immense surprise of being so unexpectedly. It goes on with all the unknowns associated with the pregnancy (especially in the first one), all the discomfort, all the anticipation. As the pregnancy nears the end there is normally frantic activity to get the "nest" ready, while the mother is strongly encumbered with the additional weight she is carrying. But for the whole duration of the pregnancy, other than the usual checkups there is little more that the parents can actually do: eating more or less vegetables, listening to music, prenatal yoga or any other activity to improve the pregnancy can have a small impact in the outcome, but the fact is that the baby grows as in auto-pilot, without any need for encouragement, attention or soothing. Then all changes with the birth.

Medical science has progressed a lot in the last century, but it still occasionally fails to bring births to a happy ending. That is why, once the contractions start along comes the "great fear": because once you are about to become a parent the center of your universe relocates from your person to someone else. Before birth there is a clear division between the things that can affect you and the things that cannot. Besides, if something affects you are going to be there, to see it happen, you will judge your options and do something if it suitable or take whatever is coming if nothing can be done. But once you are a parent, the category of things that do not affect you becomes extremely blurry, because if they affect your child they also affect you. And what is worse, many of these things can affect you (through your child) without you having any knowledge about it, no possibility to react and no time accept the possible consequences. By the time you hear about it, it is all done an final. And this thought is very scary, and last all your life.

David confirmed that he is starting to feel some of that panic. He is also quite giddy, excited, curious. But he admits that the fear that something (anything) can go irreparably wrong is already permeating all his thoughts. In my experience, as the kids grow and become more and more autonomous the fear becomes less frequent but deeper: the number of life-threatening situations decrease rapidly, but they can still disappear in the blink of an eye, regardless of how much love you have given them, of how much effort you have put in their upbringing.

I have lived confronting my own mortality for more than forty years, seventeen of which I have also faced the fear for my child. One might argue that the different exposure justifies that the latter is scarier than the former, but I suspect that the reason is much deeper: we hope to make the world a better place by our actions, but also by the children we have. And, as with any of our other efforts, we hope that our  children are appreciate and endure beyond ourselves and keep contributing on their own. But to have a hope also means to have a fear: a life-long fear that something might happen to them. After all these years I have learn more or less to deal with that fear, and I hope that my brother and his wife will do the same in due time. Even my mother agreed for once. Have a nice evening.