Always Imagining the Worst? A Primer on Parental Catastrophizing

You may have read the story of Karyann Parkinson, the Williamsburg, Virginia, mom arrested for letting her son walk half a mile in their gated community to gather goose feathers.

Sam, 5, was fine. He and Karyann had been out earlier that same day, and he wanted to go back where they’d just been, passing a pond on the way. Eight months pregnant with child #5, Karyann told Sam, sure – go have fun while I make lunch.

But seeing a boy alone, someone called security. The guard summoned to pick him up said, “Get in the vehicle. I’ll drive you home.” Wise Sam refused. No getting in a car with a stranger!

So the guard walked him home and told Karyann he wasn’t allowed to walk around unattended. Karyann, who’d just finished law school, said she knew this was not against the HOA rules.

The ruffled guard said, “Well, it’s against the LAW,” and called the cops. They came, and called Child Protective Services, too. Long story short, Karyann was found guilty of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” and sentenced to six months in jail – suspended if she comports  with Child Protective Services, which placed her on their Child Abuse and Neglect Registry.

I summarize all this because of what came next, which was an interview with Karyann and me on the NPR show “On Point with  Meghna Chakrabarti.” Karyann explained that she knew her son could handle this little walk. 

For my part, I said we’ve forgotten how much kids can do on their own, even at young ages. (I walked to school by myself at Sam’s age and no one arrested my mom.)

And while the authorities may be raising their own kids differently – everyone does – that doesn’t make Karyann guilty of neglect. Neglect is only when you put your kid in obvious, serious, likely danger. 

But then – and here’s my big point – host Chakrabarti turned to the final guest, a pediatrician and “injury prevention advocate.”

First of all, let me state that I like injury prevention, too! But to the safety expert, this scenario looked very different than it did to Karyann and me. 

The expert said sure, Sam was fine. But what if on his walk he saw a duck in the pond? So cute! But wait – the duck got its foot caught in a net! The duck is in DISTRESS! Little Sam, bless his heart, wants to SAVE THE DUCK! He runs into the pond and drowns. 

Mom rules the day forever. 

The end. 

I was stunned by the ease with which the safety expert took an everyday experience – a little neighborhood walk – and turned it into not just a bad experience but the absolute WORST: A child is DEAD and it’s ALL HIS MOTHER’S FAULT.

I call this “Worst-First Thinking” – thinking up the WORST case FIRST  and proceeding as if it’s likely to happen.

It can feel prudent…until you examine it a bit. After all, the least likely, most horrific thing could happen in ANY situation. A child could choke to death on a sandwich, or trip on the dog and suffer a fatal concussion. Mom could be driving him to the dentist and they get totaled by a drunk driver.

We don’t catastrophize about everyday activities EXCEPT when we let our kids out of our sight. That particular catastrophe is so valorized that we punish the moms – like Karyann – who DON’T do it. 

Worst-First Thinking feels prudent. It feels innate. But it is NEW. Our parents didn’t imagine the worst case scenario every time we walked to the store, or passed by a pond. 

Now that we do, it is turning rational, loving parents into criminals, and kids into prisoners under house arrest. They’re stuck on the couch, scrolling, snacking, anxious. 

How is that making anyone better off? 

NOTE: Let Grow’s whole goal is to RENORMALIZE basic trust in our kids’ ability to be okay on their own a bit, and turn-off the worst-first thinking. We do this through our free school programs, our talks, and our legislative work.