I hate snakes. Like seriously– snakes are terrible. They are cold blooded, which I always associate with being a killer. They climb trees, but they have 0 arms or legs. And how the heck do they swim on top of the water??? Unnatural. They creep along and are mostly camouflaged so you never know when you will be attacked by one. I’ve actually never been attacked by one, but I did have one CRAWL over my bare foot when I was walking in my back yard once- so pretty much the same thing. I like it when people tell me “they are more afraid of you than you are of them”. I disagree. If that snake was afraid of me it wouldn’t have had the nerve to invade my personal space like it did.
I think this stems back to my childhood when my older brother would catch baby snakes and throw them at me. The fear escalated when I would go over to my aunt’s house and her two boys, my cousins, would randomly catch snakes and bring them in her house.
So when God blessed me with not 1 but 3 little boys I had serious post-traumatic flash backs to how the boys in my family couldn’t get enough of the evil creatures.
This real ugly fear of snakes was something I was determined to not pass down to my boys. At the zoo I finally acknowledged there was a reptile house and even ventured in there from time to time. When a picture of a snake came up in a book we were reading or Wild Kratts showed how Python mothers lay all these eggs and then like the terrible creatures they are abandon them, I hid my gags. My kids quickly caught on though that their mom wasn’t a huge fan of snakes.
Unfortunately, instead of me passing down this particular fear to them, I instead passed down my humor. Because now it was a game. One time the oldest was walking through the zoo and they had a snake you could pet. He slyly looked at me and said “Mom, I want to pet it.” so instead of panic I started grabbing the hand-sanitizer so that I could wash his hands of that filth as soon as he touched it. Then the little snake (the kid, not the actual snake) said “but it’s big. Can you touch it first?” Blah. So like the good mother I pretend to be on Facebook I touched it. Then my own flesh and blood started to walk away. My eyes got so big and I am sure CPS was about to be called when he turned around and said “I changed my mind I don’t want to touch it.” Still to this day he’s not in the will because of this little trick.
Ah, it gets better though. From time to time my middle child will be hiking, playing in a creek, or just having fun outside. Then all of a sudden he’ll make a bee-line for something. 9 out of 10 times he pops up with a little snake in his hands. Yes, I have a snake catcher living in my house.
Isn’t that how life is though? We have a plan, it includes avoiding anything that could cause us to stumble and also takes a hard turn when we encounter something we fear.
Fear is a big motivator for me. At one point in my life I was so fearful of becoming a mom that I told Kyle I didn’t want kids. I felt I wouldn’t be a very good mom (still debatable) and I wasn’t a natural at it like other people I’ve seen. Once I had kids, I became fearful of this world in a way that is hard to explain. I gave up watching the news because of how sad it was, I wouldn’t let my kids go with anyone but a few trusted people and once that even included my own dad because I thought he might get into a car wreck. Because, you know, I’m immune to getting into car accidents.
It also manifested in an ugly way of being over critical of my kids. I’m not joking when I say that I am not a natural mother. From the time I was pregnant to now I am constantly researching all things motherhood, asking people how to parent, and in general just winging it. I’d take lists to my OB of questions I had. But they actually weren’t questions, they were fears. Did I weigh too much to have a healthy pregnancy? I had low iron- so how will that effect the baby? Should I start a gestational diabetic eating plan at 10 weeks- because I might have it? Can you tell if I’ll need a c-section? What can I do now to ensure that I’ll be able to breastfeed?
When I had my son it didn’t get better. Was he making eye contact appropriately? Did he have enough muscle mass? Is he eating enough? Is he hitting milestones like he should? My sister was an early childhood intervention specialist- so you better believe I made her do evaluations on my kid. I was constantly reading to him, making him play developmentally appropriate games, and in all honesty trying to condition him into the perfect child. I think all moms go through this a little bit but I think I might have been taking it to an extreme.
You know why I didn’t want my fear of snakes to pass down to my kids? Because I didn’t want to limit them. I didn’t want a fear of snakes to keep them from enjoying swimming in a pond (which I still will not do to this day). I didn’t want them to not want to go on a hike because they might see a snake. I didn’t want them to miss out on something enjoyable because of fear. It was so easy to identify my fear of snakes. It was harder to realize I had a deep fear of being a mom, or a fear of screwing up my kids. I was turning something amazing like motherhood into something not as enjoyable because of my constant fears of if I was doing it right. The hardest part? I realized I might be pushing those fears on my kids. I was making them anxious. The oldest started biting his nails and you could tell he felt a pressure to behave a certain way. It was my worst fear- I screwed up my kid.
It didn’t happen right away but little by little I gave my fear up. I tried to consciously not let fear dictate my life. How? Well for me, I did it by calling out the fear and prayerfully giving it to God. I also let my kids see me pray about it and talk about it. I wanted them to know that even though I was nervous about something it wasn’t going to stop me from going about my day.
Maybe you too have fear that keeps you from enjoying things like you should. Maybe you’re at the step where you need to identify what that fear might be. What trait do you not want to pass down to your kids? Is it your fear of snakes? Or something more?
