Worries

As a child I was always a bit of a worrier. I remember a Brownie meeting when a fireman came and talked about turning off all electric plug sockets at night. My Dad was resolutely determined not to have to reprogramme the Betamax video recorder everyday so refused point blank. I went to bed convinced we would burn in our beds.

I had to have the door open just so (my own palm's width) and the landing light on.

I went through a fear of my parents dying which I obviously never mentioned to them. Instead I thought it was better to say "see you in the morning" every night. If they said it back everything would be fine. If they didn't I spent hour tossing and turning expecting the worst.

I shouldn't really be surprised therefore that my own eldest daughter can worry for England. Although it only happens the instant I leave the room after I put her to bed so I'm pretty sure it's sometimes a delaying tactic. She's not daft. Mention a fear of death and what parent doesn't hang around for another half an hour chatting in a reassuring fashion?

That isn't fair really. She definitely does worry. Although the worries sometimes seem wildly different from each other.

Last night she was worried she'd upset her friend two months ago by refusing to let her do her nails. Last week it was about having to swim without goggles. She is often worried about the saggy state of her panda's arms. Often it's how long she will have to live with her verrucas and whether bits of her will fall off.

Tonight she is worried about all the endangered animals in the world and what on earth can be done about it. This one has come up more than once and, well, I can't exactly say "it'll be alright, go to bed and I'll add more stuffing tomorrow" to fix it.

So in a desperate bid to get her to go to sleep (so I can actually write something) I've promised we will consider some more fund raising efforts for the WWF (not the wrestlers of course) as a family. So brace yourselves.

Let's hope tomorrow's worry is about socks again.