Learning about fear from a baby

Some babies’ fears are rational, and some babies are to be feared. (George Eastman Museum)

It’s happened with almost every one of my nieces and nephews: My mom and I are visiting a beloved baby, and said baby realizes his mother has left the room. He looks from his grandmother to his aunt with rising panic. “Who are these people? Where is my mother?” His face crumples and he begins to wail, inconsolable.

It’s so cute and sad. The baby cannot possibly comprehend the depth of our love. He can’t imagine the lengths we would go to protect him from harm or see to his needs. He doesn’t understand that he’s hanging out with two people who will be unconditionally devoted to him forever. All he sees is his own fear. He just wants mom.

Such separation anxiety is a natural and normal part of an infant’s development, eventually solved on its own by a child’s increased sense of security and understanding of the world. But even though we all grow out of separation anxiety, we still carry fears with us. And some of our fears are just as distorted as those of the baby who cannot be soothed by the love that’s all around him.

Even if you don’t believe that there’s a benevolent force animating the world — a creator who loves you more than you could ever know, and that whole thing — there is plenty of evidence that working through fear yields positive results. The upside of taking action despite the fear outweighs the comfort of sticking with the known.

Many of my students are afraid of looking stupid, so they don’t ask for help. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll roll my eyes and be annoyed that they don’t know something. The reality is that I am thrilled when they ask for help. It doesn’t make me look down on them — it actually increases my respect for them. Furthermore, asking for help means that they will be successful at whatever we are working on, and that this will happen faster.

Unfortunately, even though my students know and have been told that the result of asking for help is a positive one — and maybe they’ve even experienced it a time or two — it’s not enough to build a new habit. Just like the baby who has yet to learn that his mother comes back every time, my students have not learned that asking for help yields positive results. They sink back into the fear.

I can see the students’ plight as clearly as that of the baby. The next question, then, is to ask myself, “What am I afraid of that betrays a limited understanding of the world?”

I’ve been afraid to spend money, afraid to ask for help, afraid to stick up for myself, afraid of losing someone, afraid of being disappointed. There is a long list. And yet, even though some of the things I feared were valid, I could always see how, once I found my way through or around the fear, things got better and I grew as a person. Through experience, I can operate with the belief that my fear, in an effort to keep me safe, is not giving me the whole picture. This gives me the strength to make decisions that send me in the direction of growth.

In time, the baby will learn that his mother can’t actually protect him from everything, and yet he will venture forward anyway. His mother’s love will give him the sense of security to try stuff even though it’s a little scary. Likewise, we’ll never know, at the leading edge of our fear, what’s actually in store for us or how things will turn out. Just like the baby we once were, we can continue to push outward anyway, expanding our capacity to trust not just others, but ourselves.