“Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows. It empties today of its strength.” -Corrie Ten Boom.
When parenting is so hard, when the next day, the next phase, of your child’s life is still so unknown, worrying becomes second nature for all of us. Worrying about our child’s safety, their health, their happiness and teaching them to be wise and empathetic, consume our minds. We lie awake at night second-guessing how we handled every situation that day, even worrying about how we might handle hypothetical future problems.
We worry about finances and how we will provide not just a college education, but preschool fees next year.
We worry about their social interactions and how to teach important skills such as taking turns, being honest, and standing up to peer pressure.
We remember how hard high school was for us and then worry our kids won’t make the choices necessary to stay safe. To stay sexually safe, mentally safe, and emotionally safe.
We recognize troubles in the world that might compound, leaving us to wonder what kind of an earth we are leaving for our children.
We even worry about what our kids think of us as parents. The mom guilt is consuming at times.
We worry, we get diagnosed with anxiety, we live in fear.
It’s time to stop this way of thinking. It’s time to remind ourselves, and then remind ourselves again, that no one is perfect but we are trying our very best. It’s a scary world so it’s time we start taking things one day at a time, actively choosing to address problems only as they come, instead of worrying while they’re still future hypotheticals.
Let’s place this quote where we will see it first thing in the morning and first thing before bed. Worrying won’t stop bad things from happening. There will be scrapes we can’t bandage and hurts we won’t always be able to heal with a kiss. But worrying empties our joy and strength of today, and we need all the strength we can get for our children.
Instead of focusing on future troubles, let’s address the troubles we have in this moment: the blocks falling down, let’s rebuild. The toy that’s stolen, let’s use our words, work on our feelings, and get a new one. We yell too much, so let’s stop ourselves the moment we realize it and take a breath.
Eventually, what we do today to enjoy our moments and work through the problems, will eventually be the cure to our future worries.