Fear in the Home: How It Shapes Children and What Helps

How Parents Teach Fear Without Meaning To...and How to Correct It

One of the earliest memories I have of fear does not look frightening at first.

I was little enough to still be going to a Mother’s Day Out program at a church in Virginia. I was buckled into the car, and one of my prized possessions at the time was a big plastic tub filled with random Legos. My mother had set the tub on the roof of the car while she leaned in to strap me in. Then we pulled out.

Where we lived, the roads were mostly rural, but before long she turned onto a larger four-lane highway. There was a stone quarry nearby, so dump trucks and work trucks were always barreling through that stretch of road. My mother drove fast. She had a heavy foot. We were up to speed when we heard a violent crash on the roof.

She had forgotten the Legos.

The bucket had flown off and shattered across the highway. Back then seatbelts were different, so I could stand enough to look out and see Legos scattered everywhere, all over the road, all through the traffic. My mother pulled over, jumped out, and started trying to gather them up. Trucks were flying by. Horns were blaring. She was holding up her hand, trying to stop traffic, stooping down, scooping up pieces, checking on me through the window, then going back for more.

I was crying.

I think she assumed I was upset about losing my Legos. That made perfect sense from the outside. She was trying to fix the problem she thought mattered to me.

But I did not care about the Legos.

I wanted my mother back in the car.