Wednesday 21 June 2023

Worrying

 

Worrying

 This morning I read Jenny’s post at ‘Procrastinating Donkey’ and it struck a chord with me. She is a worrier. So am I. Are you?

Is there an inherited tendency to worry, an anxiety gene? Maybe we all spend much time worrying unnecessarily, but do not give voice to it.

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) said, ‘There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened,’ and Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) advised, ‘Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.’

My adult children and grandchildren have anxieties to contend with and they are a natural and usually transient part of life. ‘Will the car pass its MOT?’ ‘Will this cake, curry, roast be edible?’ ‘Will I be able to complete the marathon/cycle race/10-mile bash, 5K run?’ A little anxiety is important because it releases adrenalin, though I’m not sure how much adrenalin is required for cooking. It might more appropriately be needed for those destined/doomed to eat my cooking.

 I suppose all children worry, some more than others. Sometimes the expressed worry is covering a deeper concern that the child is unable or unwilling to express. Some of my younger grand and great-grandchildren worry, (the ones between 7 and 10) sometimes with good cause.

Bullying is a great source of anxiety for children and notoriously difficult to deal with. Too often in the past the victim has been isolated from the bullies ‘for his/her own good’ but that teaches the bully nothing and doesn’t help the sufferer.  Even if the bully is contained and monitored, from which, again, the bully learns little,   there are times when oversight is not possible. Washing hands, lining up for assembly, changing for games, all provide opportunities for covert victimisation.

The proverb, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ is so patently untrue as to be laughable. It does not refer to grievous bodily harm, which one obviously would remember, but more to sly pinches, punches and hair-pulling. Spiteful words remain long in the memory and, oft-repeated, can do immeasurable harm.

Sometimes a child’s worries cause mirth, hopefully unseen by the child. ‘I’m worried my second teeth haven’t come in’ sounds funny, but to the child it’s a real concern that only a visit to the dentist will allay. ‘I’m worried I’ll get into trouble because I’ve forgotten my reading record/water bottle/school jumper’ doesn’t seem like a punishable offence, but for the child whose teacher impressed on the class that such items must be brought into school, the omission can cause floods of tears and panic.

 All too often, nothing ‘bad’ happens, but for the child, the stomach-churning anxiety that something dreadful will occur is physically painful. Having been repeatedly reassured by a parent that ‘it’s not the end of the world’ the child goes unhappily to school and discovers that the parent was right after all. These non-events (to an adult) are some of life’s little lessons and form part of a child’s journey towards adulthood, learning self-determination, organisation and confidence along the way.

The following poem by Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019) expresses the futility of worrying.

 

I worried


I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right directions, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

 

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

 

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

 

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And I gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

18 comments:

  1. Such an excellent poem. But the sentiment expressed is something that would probably only be meaningful to someone over a certain age.

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    1. I agree. 'If only we knew then what we know now' . . .

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  2. Thank you for this counterpoint to my own worry, and for the article on Mary Oliver, which included as its final poem a piece I had not heard before but which hit me like a brick. A good brick, but still :)

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    1. A brick that didn't leave a bruise, I hope;-)

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  3. You expressed the worry and fear children experience so well. I have at least learnt that what I worry about is not usually a problem. It is what I am not worried about that surprises me in not a nice way.

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    1. There should be a leaflet - 'When to worry' . . .

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  4. Mary Oliver definitely got this one right. I come from a long line of worriers. My mother and her mother before her did it well...too well.

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    1. It's exhausting, isn't it? Such a relief when it stops . . .

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  5. Those with endogenous anxiety feel it comes from internal biochemical or genetic reasons. Those with reactive anxiety are responding to outside causes eg death of a spouse. Does it matter? Yes! I think the responses to reactive anxiety are most open to strengthening remedies (eg talking therapies, gym and judo, writing regular blog posts), rather than drugs.

    Children are usually not insightful enough to describe sources of, or useful responses to their own anxiety.

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    1. I agree. Children in the grip of anxiety are not receptive to calm reason.

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  6. I love that last verse. That's me after a lifetime of worries about all sorts of thing - singing in the sun (and wind and rain and snow) is just lovely! xx

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  7. I'm a terrible worrier. I'm not sure about an anxiety gene but I think it's possible that it's a learned behavior. My mum was a worrier and my kids are too.

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    1. I think it's highly likely that it's a learned behaviour.

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  8. I'm not a worrier, my family wasn't either and I married a man who came from a non-worrying family too. I don't recall my children being worried about anything, (perhaps they hid it successfully?), but all of them are well-adjusted adults holding down good jobs now.

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  9. They sound like well-adjusted children of well-adjusted parents. Accept what is - worrying won't change it.

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  10. It is sad to know that young children are living with gut-wrenching anxieties. We are seeing it in our grandchildren who should be living their best lives, free from the kinds of worries that they are expressing. What have we done to our younger generations?

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    1. It's a competitive world and the competition starts very early, in school. Children have so many hoops to jump through, standards that 'must' be met, driven by the teachers who are driven by the government. Many parents (mostly the mums) compare notes and worry that their child isn't doing what so-and-so's child is achieving. The children always know who's 'best' even when the teacher goes out of his or her way not to make a point of it. Everyone in school is pressured (I'm talking about primary schools)
      No wonder children seem weighed down by 'life'. There's not enough time to stand and stare and that is so important, as is constructive play. Too many subjects on the curriculum to try and satisfy too many 'experts'. Spend a day in a school - it's exhausting!

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