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" Eight years ago, when I found out that I was pregnant with my son, Henry, I was thrilled. For approximately five minutes. And then I began to worry. Which I suppose isn&amp;#039;t all that surprising. I&amp;#039;ve been a chronic worrier ever since childhood. Early in life, I reached the conclusion that bad things always seem to happen when you least expect them, so the smart thing to do is simply expect them, and that keeps them away. In the many stories I had read about people who suffered catastrophes, no one ever expected them. Why didn&amp;#039;t anyone write books about the people who anticipated all manner of disasters? Because those people led completely disaster-free lives, obviously. That&amp;#039;s just good logic!  A friend of mine posited that perhaps worrying represents the last vestiges of my Catholic upbringing \u2014 my own weird, secular version of prayer. Instead of praying, fretting. Instead of counting rosary beads, hand-wringing. Whatever it stems from, the worry habit has stuck by me for years, despite therapy, medication, and countless adventures in alternative medicine. When I was in grade school, I worried about natural disasters (how likely was it that a tornado would hit New York?). In high school, I worried about getting into college (would that one-day suspension ruin my chances?). In college, I worried about getting a job (who would want me after I failed that oceanography seminar?). At my first job, I worried about getting fired. When I got married, I worried about being able to get pregnant. And then I got pregnant, and worried that I would miscarry.  The stakes being much higher, my worry became that much more extreme. As my first trimester lurched forward, I could barely sleep. I stared at the ceiling all night long and trembled. My eyes teared up over every abdominal twinge. If I had a nausea-free hour, I was sure that it meant my pregnancy had ended. And, oh, dear readers, I Googled. (First rule of pregnancy: Thou shalt not Google.) I Googled terrible things. All of which I was sure would come to pass.  But if I thought the stakes were high during pregnancy, there is nothing like having an infant to consume one with worry. My normally anxious brain went into overdrive, and eventually I went on antianxiety medication. It was either that or embark on a vision quest, and everyone knows newborns hate vision quests.  Even with the help of medication, however, I do tend toward the fretful. I&amp;#039;m not at all proud of this fact. Worry is a total waste of time and energy. It doesn&amp;#039;t take a deep thinker to know that nothing was ever gained from the act of worrying. Worrying is paying interest on your troubles, or it&amp;#039;s crossing a rickety bridge before you come to it, or it&amp;#039;s feeling sick about cake that you might eat in the future. (I believe I just made up a new analogy. Worrying is future cake! Except that makes it sound delicious. Never mind.)   It doesn&amp;#039;t mattermuch what&amp;#039;s actually happening in my life, either. If everything is going well, I worry about death. Death is the perfect focus for worry. No one can tell you it&amp;#039;s not going to happen. And no one can tell you when it will happen. It could happen right now. Or now!  These days, though, I don&amp;#039;t have to worry about death; instead, my default worry is my son. There&amp;#039;s no rational cause for concern here. Henry is a great 7-year-old. We are, by all objective standards, incredibly lucky. But still my brain goes around and around, like a hamster with a furrowed brow on his Wheel of Doom: What am I not doing right? How am I failing as a mother? Didn&amp;#039;t I forget to do... I don&amp;#039;t know... something? &amp;quot;Oh, just you wait until he&amp;#039;s a teenager,&amp;quot; my sister, Liz, cautioned me. Liz has two grown sons. Liz is a positively tranquil soul compared to me, but being a mom will, it seems, knock the calm right out of anyone. &amp;quot;Wait until Henry is driving, or until he has friends who drive. That&amp;#039;ll take years off your life.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Oh, Henry won&amp;#039;t be allowed to hang out with people who drive,&amp;quot; I explained to her. &amp;quot;Or with any people. We&amp;#039;re going to buy him a pet rock. A soft one.&amp;quot;  I&amp;#039;m pretty sure my sister thought I was kidding.  A month or so ago, I found myself agonizing over Henry&amp;#039;s sudden dislike of school. One day he came home, tossed his backpack to the floor, and announced that first grade was boring. Oh, and also, there was absolutely no way he was going to college. More school? No, thank you. Henry repeated similar sentiments over the following weeks. No more school for him. Feh.  I was in turmoil.What had happened to my little boy who cheerfully skipped all the way to school on his first day, who couldn&amp;#039;t wait to dive into his homework assignments? Had school somehow squashed Henry&amp;#039;s innate love of learning? I whimpered all of this to my husband, Scott. &amp;quot;First of all,&amp;quot; Scott sighed, &amp;quot;he didn&amp;#039;t skip to school on his first day. Second, you do realize that kids just... say things, right? That they don&amp;#039;t always know what they&amp;#039;re talking about?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;He seemed to really mean it.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;So why don&amp;#039;t we talk to Henry&amp;#039;s teacher?&amp;quot; Scott asked.  Well. That particular strategy had never occurred to me. Worry, I have found, tends to turn me just a little bit dim. Talk to the teacher? When I could simply chew on my knuckles and picture my son the school-hater sitting in jail because his intellectual potential was never realized? A few days later, we did indeed meet with Henry&amp;#039;s teacher, and she offered to give our son some extra challenges. Naturally, I worried that such a simple solution wouldn&amp;#039;t be enough. He probably needs an entirely new school, or a special tutor, or college! His genius is too far advanced for first grade! Despite my misgivings, however, her plan is working out fine. Henry hasn&amp;#039;t complained once about school since.  Now that I don&amp;#039;t have to worry about Henry&amp;#039;s academic progress, I find myself with quite a bit of extra time on my hands. Which might be why today I Googled &amp;quot;earthquake New York area chances of certain doom.&amp;quot; I would tell you what I found out, but I don&amp;#039;t want to worry you. Now if you&amp;#039;ll excuse me, I&amp;#039;m off to buy some jugs of distilled water and a few hundred rolls of gauze. Alice Bradley also shares her adventures in parenting at finslippy.com, momversation.com, and lets-panic.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son, dog, and cat. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a6166/stop-worrying/?link=rel&dom=yah_life&src=syn&con=blog_redbook&mag=rbk>