Worrying Is No Accident--It Runs in the Family

Seven months ago, coinciding with the birth of my daughter, I underwent a startling personality change. My disposition disintegrated.

Once, I was the Empress of Easygoing.

Now I am the Queen of Queasy.

Such, I suppose, is the lot of the new parent--worrying as a way of life.

As a practicing overachiever, my challenge is to rise above the mundane, to seek new frontiers of fretting, to push the envelope of apprehension.

Oh sure, I fantasize about everyday disasters--choking, falling and drowning accidents. But I try to conserve my energy for contemplation of the truly catastrophic. (This, as any mentally unbalanced new parent can tell you, is a form of insurance: If you worry about something really bizarre, it can’t possibly happen.)

I spend hours mentally outmaneuvering planes that might plummet out of the sky onto the bassinet as the baby naps. In my head, I dodge stray bullets from gang shootouts. I am ever vigilant against babynappers who lurk in our bushes, even though our yard is the size of a postage stamp.

When it occurred to me to worry that the baby might fall into the oven, I began to suspect that I was going overboard. But you know, it’s remotely possible that someone could leave the oven door open, then trip over it while carrying her, and . . . Oh my. I really have to stop reading about Hansel and Gretel.

My worrying ways were on my mind when I took the baby to her regular checkup recently. Because I was already embarrassed that the pediatrician had just spotted her first tooth coming in (news to me), I was eager to prove I was on top of her health.

Before he could spot them, I showed him a few little bumps on her back. Probably just a little heat rash, eh? The doctor looked at the bumps, then looked at me. His expression was grim.

“Does leprosy run in your family?”

For an instant, a small, tight band of fear cinched my heart. I knew it!

Then he smiled.

Joke.

“Not that I know of,” I said with a weak smile, “although my mother’s nose did fall off when I was 5.”

*

According to a recent news story, some families have designated worriers.

In our clan, that honor is held by my grandmother, who takes a structured approach to anxiety.

She isn’t particularly interested in the fates of those who are not family. What happens to outsiders is news; what happens to us is tragedy.

My grandmother is also the person responsible for spreading anxiety in our family. Something bad happens in Venice and she is on the phone to Berkeley or San Diego or Tallahassee faster than you can say kudzu.

She has developed a set of worry-related rules, which probably do more to increase anxiety than to alleviate it. This serves a subconscious purpose: The more you worry, the more relieved you will be when everything turns out OK. In this regard, worrying is like banging your head against the wall: It feels so good when you stop.

My grandmother’s foremost rule is that no family member may leave her house without promising to phone as soon as he or she arrives home. This way, she’ll know you have arrived safely. If you forget to call, she gets to work herself into a tizzy until she breaks down and calls you .

Addiction to worry even led my law-abiding grandma into a life of petty crime. After we’d visit her in Fresno, we were instructed to call her collect as soon as we got home and ask for ourselves. Smugly, she’d refuse the call. This practice had a double benefit. She’d sleep easy knowing that we hadn’t perished in some freak Highway 99 tornado. And, more important, she’d save a dollar.

*

My husband and I have irreconcilable differences in our worrying styles. He thinks I’m concerned about all the wrong things.

For instance, I wake up wondering whether the baby-sitter will stroll into oncoming traffic stroller-first that day. He wakes up wondering who will fetch him coffee and the sports section.

When it comes to the baby, he worries about things he has control over: germy toddlers infecting the baby (swat at their hands), barking dogs startling the baby (throw checkbooks at their heads) and gang activity on the boardwalk when we walk after dusk (don’t walk on the boardwalk after dusk).

I’m sorry, but anyone can worry about that stuff.

It takes a truly special parent to gaze upon her child dozing in a mechanical swing and worry, not that the air may be a little too chilly, but that the balance mechanism in baby’s inner ear is being irretrievably damaged.

(The answer, by the way, is no. I checked.)