My phobias before becoming a mom: spiders.
My phobias after becoming a mom: spiders, grapes that are not cut in half, bodies of water that are not enclosed, staircases that do not have a baby gate, pine cones.
The first ones are common sources of mom anxiety, but… pine cones?
This past fall was a beautiful time for my daughter and me. We live on a street that has some gorgeous trees that light up a millions colors in the fall. My daughter loved to be outside in our front yard, freely roaming around picking up sticks and leaves.
One naptime, I opened my phone and saw this news headline: Toddler Chokes to Death on a Pine Cone at Daycare. I did what no anxious mom should do. I clicked on the article. I read all of it; the interview with the daycare workers, the comments from the ambulance responders, the interview with the parents. I was filled with sorrow and horror. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like for everyone involved.
After that, I could not longer enjoy our afternoons of playing in the front yard. Before playing, I would scramble to remove all the pine cones I could find. My daughter would gleefully pick up leaves, but the moment she came across a pine cone I had missed, I was filled with fear. Even though she was mostly past the stage of putting things in her mouth, I could just imagine her putting it in her mouth, running away from me, choking. Soon, we started avoiding the yard altogether, opting to go on walks instead or head down to the playground.
I was reading this great book the other day: Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster. This book is amazing for anxious moms like me, as it lays out data on major parenting decisions from the perspective of an expert on statistics (and shows that in many cases, parents should just go with their personal preferences.) It’s been a decade since I took a statistics course, but the book reminded me of such an important truth in statistics, one that can be summarized in a pithy motto:
ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA.
What does this mean?
It means that individual occurences are not good evidence for, well… pretty much anything. The fact that your friend once had an allergic reaction to blueberries doesn’t mean blueberries are bad for you. The fact that I once found $20 inside a box of cereal does not mean most cereal boxes come with money. Even though individual stories can be emotional and deeply persuasive, good information comes from a series of observations, measurements, or facts.
Maybe I’m a nerd, but this line helps me so much. Just because something happened once, does not make it likely to happen to you and does not mean it is something to worry about. So now this is my internal response, not just to scary headlines but to all kinds of anecdotal stories that get thrown at me.
The news story about how a baby contracted a fatal illness from a pet dog.
Anecdote is not data.
The mom friend who hears that you co-sleep and warns you that her cousin who slept in his parent’s bed ended up emotionally stunted.
Anecdote is not data.
That relative that warns you that you shouldn’t be allowing your child to walk outside barefoot because she once heard a story about a child who developed flesh-eating bacteria from walking outside barefoot.
Anecdote is not data.
I might get it tattooed on my face.
The only information anxious moms should be tuning into is the information based on many observations over time.
And just a thought about all those scary headlines featuring child accidents and injuries: If any parent spent an hour reading those articles, they would probably conclude that the whole world is a terrifying death trap. I mean, for any object that exists in your home, there has probably been some time when that object led to someone’s death or injury. I remember seeing a recent news story about a woman who fell on a reusable metal straw and died. So tragic, but also, what are the chances? It is so so unlikely. It is not a reason to fear metal straws.
It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take logical steps to reduce risk to our children. Of course we should! But, we cannot remove all risk from the world. We can reduce risks certain ways, but still, the world is full of danger and risk. Most of the bad, scary stuff is very, very unlikely to happen to you. And if we live our lives in fear, we will be missing out on so much beauty and joy and good stuff. Now that these gray, cold winter days are here, I feel a little sad that I let my irrational fears keep us from playing in our beautiful yard back in the fall.
If you’re an anxious mom like me, try not to click the scary headlines. If you do see a scary headline, try to remind yourself just how unlikely that situation is. And remember, anecdote is not data.
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