Yesterday, my daughter and her friends attended a concert at a massive multi-thousand-person venue downtown. While I’m happy she’s happy and social (and that we share a love of music!), as she made her way to the train station, my heart began to beat just a little bit faster. Even though she’s responsible and mature, my mind churned, wondering:
Is her cell phone fully charged?
Does she have enough cash and credit on her?
Will there be any problems at the venue?
Will she and her friends catch the train home okay?
Will they be bothered by drunk/annoying/high/scammy patrons?
What will happen if she gets separated from her friends before, during or after the concert?
Etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum
While I am far from a helicopter parent and also fully comprehend the need for children and teens to build independence from an early age, I couldn’t help but stack up these worries like so many blocks. While I did a pretty good job of using reason and logic to tick off the reasons why my daughter would be okay, I still wondered if “worry” is ingrained into parents’ physiology.
So, Are We Hard-Wired to Worry?
I researched the topic and, as you might have expected, worry is indeed a facet of parents’ physiology.
Image source: Father's brain is sensitive to childcare experiences
This article in the New York Times explains that there is particularly pronounced change in brain activity when a mother was shown images of her child in distress. Because the study they reference only looked at mothers, it was not known at the time whether fathers have similar brain responses to a child’s smile or tears.
Fathers Aren’t Excempt
But, have no fear, fathers and father-figures are also hard-wired to worry. According to this article in Science, becoming a parent also “rewires the male brain.”
And it’s not just heterosexual males who fret either. Results of this scientific study revealed that parenting implemented a global “parental caregiving” neural network. So, the instinct for care and concern shows up for males regardless of sexual orientation but these results appear in a different part of the brain: “The research implies that the neural underpinnings of the so-called maternal instinct aren't unique to women, or activated solely by hormones, but can be developed by anyone who chooses to be a parent.”
Cousins of Worry - Anxiety and Shame
While science proves that parents are indeed physiologically wired to worry, I feel that mothers (especially but not exclusively) get the short end of the stick and are sometimes shamed for fretting about their flock and are told to “let it go” or “relax”. Like guilt, there is talk about “worry” being an unnecessary emotion. I don’t agree: guilt, shame, fear, and worry are ingrained in all of us for a reason.
Conversely, we need to be careful not to let anxiety get the best of us - and our children - because science also proves that anxious parents are more likely to have anxious offspring. So, we need to manage our feelings of worry, anxiety, guilt and shame in a way that is productive and not damaging.
There’s a lot of food for thought here. Now, I wonder if the Highly Sensitive Parent worries more than the average parent… However, that will have to be an article for another time.
Yours in peaceful parenting,
Lisa