There's a fear I carry that I don't like to look at directly.
Not because it isn't there—but because once I acknowledge it, I don't immediately know what to do with it.
I'm afraid my children won't be successful.
Not in the shallow sense. In the survival sense.
When Experience Becomes a Warning
I'm intelligent.
I'm capable.
I work hard.
And I still struggle.
That fact alone unsettles me more than I want to admit.
If intelligence and effort weren't enough to secure stability for me, what does that mean for my children—especially when they seem academically behind, unmotivated, or uninterested most of the time
I don't see the same urgency in them that life forced into me early. And that terrifies me.
The Fear Beneath the Judgment
I notice the thoughts before I catch myself.
They're lazy.
They don't apply themselves.
They're behind.
But beneath those judgments is something more vulnerable.
What if they aren't equipped for what's coming?
What if I fail to prepare them?
What if love isn't enough to compensate for what the world demands?
Those fears don't come from disappointment.
They come from knowing how hard life can hit.
Measuring Them Against My Own Survival
I learned discipline through necessity.
Work ethic through pressure.
Focus through fear.
My children haven't had to survive the way I did.
And part of me worries that comfort has robbed them of something essential.
But another part of me wonders if that belief is rooted more in my trauma than in truth.
I don't actually want my children to be forged by struggle.
I want them to be shaped by guidance.
Still, I worry.
Responsibility Without Control
This is the part no one prepares you for as a parent:
loving deeply while knowing you can't guarantee outcomes.
I can teach values.
I can model effort.
I can create structure.
But I can't force ambition.
I can't inject hunger.
I can't control who they become.
That helplessness sits heavy on me.
A Faith That Interrupts Fear
"Do not worry about tomorrow..." — Matthew 6:34
That verse doesn't erase the fear.
It challenges where I place it.
It reminds me that my role is faithfulness, not foresight. Presence, not prediction. Stewardship, not authorship.
My children's lives are not equations I can solve through effort alone.
What I'm Still Learning to Believe
I'm learning—slowly—that success isn't always visible early.
That growth doesn't always look like discipline.
That struggle isn't always a failure of preparation.
And I'm learning that my fear, while understandable, cannot become the lens through which I see my children.
They are not behind versions of me.
They are not failed projections of my effort.
They are still becoming.
And so am I—learning to trust that guidance, love, and time may shape them in ways I can't yet recognize.
That doesn't erase the fear.
But it keeps it from ruling me.