PARENTING April 29, 2002 Issue

Taming the wild 'what-ifs'

Name removed by request

BETWEEN MINIBIKE DUSTUPS, snake-and-spider invasions of our forts, and a few spectacular collisions (catching too close to the batter, not-quite-clearing-the-diving-board flips), my sisters and I were a tough crew.

Childhood spills and griefs, for us, felt less like catastrophes than healthy challenges met and mastered. If someone had asked me back then—as they did many years later when I was feeling afraid—what I was expecting in the face of those challenges, I probably would have said, "I'm expecting to dust off and get back in the adventure."

Misadventure did not fill us with fear. And I've always attributed that to my mother's calm. Though she only recently admitted to me her serious distaste for lizards—reptilian terrors that often occupied our pockets and jars—I marvel at how I never sensed a crack in her cool over our well-being, even during incidents that, today, I might consider scary.

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