Mom Fear… or No Fear?
I scared myself stupid tonight. Recently I got into rock climbing, and since I live in Minnesota where it is 1. rather flat 2. currently under 6 inches of snow I’ve been doing it indoors in a climbing gym. Most indoor climbing is called “top roping” where a rope is attached to the climber, attached to the ceiling, and down to a belayer. The belayer is a person who holds the rope and catches the climber if they fall. The most you can fall is maybe two feet. So I’ve been doing that for a while, and it’s fun. And it’s mentally and physically challenging, it’s a decidedly non-mom activity, and it’s giving me fierce arm muscles.
But, I want to be more fierce. The most interesting kind of climbing is called “lead climbing“. If you wants to climb upsidedown under an arch, or up a 40 degree overhang, or anything more interesting than a plain vertical wall, you need to take your rope up with you and attach it to bolts on the rock (or gym wall) to catch your fall if you fall off. It’s more complicated, and also more scary. The bolts on the wall are around five feet apart. Imagine falling off just before you reach the next bolt – there’s a five foot fall plus another five feet of rope plus another couple of feet of slack and the rope that pays out before the belayer catches you, so that’s a 12-15 foot plus fall. And that’s probably starting 30 feet off the ground and with nothing but a little metal bolt to catch you.
So I take a lead climbing class, and to pass the class, I have to take a lead fall which I think is to demonstrate that I am not a wuss but is actually to learn how to fall correctly. That’s one of those 15 feet kinds, starting 30 feet up, with a rope tied to my waist, nothing above me, and relying on the guy standing on the ground with the other end of the rope to catch me in time. I start shimming up the wall. I get most of the way up and clip the rope onto the last bolt I can use in the test. Now I have to climb up another six feet and let go. My shimmying turns to clinging onto the wall with shaking fingers and advancing very slowly. I’m at the drop point and look down. It’s a long way down. My fingers tell me this is a stupid idea.
My belayer seems to be holding the rope, I’ve seen other people do this and so far, they’ve all survived. It’s still a really long way down. To cut a long story short, I didn’t do it with any kind of glamor, or style, and it took a little coaching yelling from those on terra firma but I let go. I plummet down about 15 feet in free fall which is just enough of a drop to wonder if I’ll stop, before I stop and all the bolts in the wall clang and everyone else in the gym turns around to have a look at who fell off.
And I started thinking. Are moms braver, or less brave than non-moms? Are we more likely or less likely to take chances? Do we have less fear or more fear?
To answer that for myself, I think my assessment of risks has changed. I’m more fearful for my child. I see peril everywhere that non-parents don’t. Tall, wobbly, furniture that might tip over. Unguarded outlets. Swimming pools. I try to manage fear of danger versus never letting my son do anything but when he starts climbing on the furniture it always makes me nervous. Before I became a mom, I would have concerns for a child’s safety, but I couldn’t imagine all the things that I would worry about.
And for me, I think I’m much less scared of things that are common fears, but aren’t actually dangerous, or not that dangerous. Like I’m a shy person, but now I’m much less scared of talking to new people. Or climbing 30 feet up a wall and letting go. Or having 100 other people turn around and look at me. In relation to the worry I have over my son, these things just don’t seem as scary any more.
And I’m more scared of doing things that are actually dangerous, like walking by myself at night in a strange neighborhood, or talking on the phone and fiddling with the radio while I’m driving, mostly because I don’t want to be injured or killed and not be there for my son.
How about you? How has motherhood changed the way you view the world?
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