Why I Have Anxiety About My Child’s Future (And Small Things That Help Every Day)
10:15 PM last Tuesday, I was folding Leo’s hoodies on the couch, my chamomile tea gone lukewarm, when a Reel popped up on my feed. A mom was grinning, holding her 12-year-old’s acceptance letter to a prestigious STEM boarding school, talking about how early prep pays off. I glanced over at the coffee table, where Leo had left his half-eaten granola bar and his 7th grade math worksheet, still unfinished, with two doodles of T-Rexes in the margins. My chest tightened, the way it always does when I start thinking about his future.
Leo’s my oldest, 12, and he’s always marched to a different beat. In elementary school, he got sent to the office twice for drawing dinosaurs during science lectures. He forgets to turn in 2 out of 5 assignments every month, and he still can’t remember to pack a water bottle for soccer practice. My husband teases me that I worry too much, but every time I chat with other parents at pickup, or scroll through the news about how competitive college admissions are now, how hard it is to land a stable job, the anxiety creeps back in. What if I’m not doing enough? What if he falls behind and can’t catch up? What if he can’t take care of himself when he’s grown?
Two weeks ago, we were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, chipping away at that same unfinished math worksheet. Leo got stuck on a slope problem, crumpled the paper up and threw it on the floor, and said, “I’m stupid. I’m never gonna get into high school, let alone college, and I’m gonna live on the street forever.” I froze. That wasn’t just 12-year-old frustration talking. That was my anxiety, leaking out of his mouth. I’d been saying offhand things for months, things like “you need to get your grades up if you want to do engineering later” or “if you don’t practice turning in homework now, you’ll never do it in college.” I’d been carrying this worry around and pouring it right into him, and there it was, plain as day.
I used to automatically jump in to reassure him: “Of course that’s not true, you’re so smart.” But that never helped. It just brushed off his feelings and got us both more tense. This time, I didn’t say that. I just picked up the crumpled paper, flattened it out on the table, and said, “You’re right, this problem sucks. Do you want to go get ice cream and tackle this tomorrow?” He stared at me for a second, like he was waiting for the lecture, then nodded. We got in the car and drove to the Dairy Queen down the street. We didn’t talk about grades or college or the future at all. We just argued about whether his Oreo Blizzard had too much cookie dough or not.
That night, I started thinking about small changes I could make, things that wouldn’t upend our whole life but would keep my anxiety from hurting both of us. The first thing I did was cut the question “what do you want to be when you grow up” out of my vocabulary entirely. It always made Leo clam up, and it always left me anxious when he shrugged and said “I don’t know.” Instead, I ask him one question every night at dinner: “What’s one thing you did today that you enjoyed, that didn’t have anything to do with a grade or a test?” Some nights he says “I helped the new kid find his locker” some nights he says “I built a working drawbridge on my Minecraft castle” some nights he just shrugs and says “nothing.” It doesn’t matter. It shifts the whole conversation away from what he’s doing for some distant future, to what matters to him right now.
The second thing I do is keep a private note in my phone, just for me, where I write down one skill Leo shows every week that doesn’t show up on his report card. Last week it was: Spent three hours taking apart our old broken Bluetooth speaker and putting it back together until it worked, even when my husband said it was garbage and we should just buy a new one. The week before that it was: Stayed after soccer practice to help the 8-year-old rec team practice kicking goals, even though he was tired and wanted to go get tacos with us. This week it’s: Spent all his birthday allowance buying recycled plastic to build a prototype robot that picks up trash from the creek by our house. I never show him the list. It’s just for me, when I start spiraling about missing assignments or bad test scores. I pull it out, and I remember that the things that get you through life aren’t the grade you got on a 7th grade algebra worksheet. They’re persistence, and kindness, and caring about something enough to work at it even when it’s hard.
I also made a rule for myself: cut at least one “future prep” activity a year that we both hate. Two years ago it was the weekend chess club all the “high achieving” kids joined. Last year it was the prestigious summer coding camp I signed him up for because everyone said it looks great on college apps. He cried after the first two days, said it was too fast, the teachers didn’t have time to help him, and he hated every minute. I called the camp, got a partial refund, and spent the rest of the week going to the natural history museum with him every day, which he’d been asking to do for months. That week, he learned more about marine engineering and what he actually cares about than he would have in that whole camp, and we didn’t fight once the whole week.
I won’t lie, the anxiety doesn’t go away. Last night, I was folding laundry again, saw another post about an 8th grader who got a perfect PSAT score, and that familiar tightness came right back to my chest. What if I’m wrong? What if letting him take it easy now means he struggles later? I walked down the hall to check on him before bed, and his sketchbook was open on his desk, pages and pages of that trash-collecting robot, all different designs, little notes in the margins about how to make the arms move better. I stuck a sticky note that said “I love this design” on the top page, pulled his door closed quietly, and went back to the living room.
I don’t know what Leo’s future will look like. I don’t know if he’ll go to college, or what job he’ll have, or if he’ll always be happy. There’s still so much uncertainty, and some nights I still lie awake worrying. But I know that if I keep letting my anxiety about his future ruin the present we have now, that’s the only thing that’s guaranteed to hurt both of us. These small things don’t fix all the unknowns. But they take the edge off. Right now, that’s enough.
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