Understanding Fear in These Scary Times

If you belong to the Los Angeles Unified School District, a fun activity is to place bets on what the next furlough day will be called. Sports books in Vegas are posting odds and taking wagers. César Chávez Day was the big winner last year and well deserved. Next year’s odds are on Obama Day, 2-1, but I’m holding out for the long shot—Erin Brockovich Day at 40-1.

My husband, Mr. Fancy, and I decided César Chávez Day would be a great opportunity to take our kids to the California Science Center. What a bargain that place is! The admission is donation only, which means free, or at least as free as your guilty conscience will allow. The sweet young lady beside the donation box, with her smile, wrestled $5 out of my tight little fist as I walked through the turnstile.

We were very excited to see an exhibit titled “Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear,” which, we learned, was an “experiential and holistic” examination of fear’s physiological, neurobiological and sociological aspects. Imagine understanding the science behind fear while simultaneously conquering the fear of science, I thought to myself.

Mr. Fancy loves that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, our kids were too afraid to go through the exhibit. Fear is, after all, a funny thing. You never know what’s going to set someone off. For example, an ill-timed viewing of the Wizard of Oz has forced a strict ban on the word “witch” in our household. For two years our daughter has insisted that we must say “pitch” instead—and only in a whisper—“witch” is just too scary.

People’s fears tend to be specific. My dear ol’ mom has several serious fears, which amused and intrigued my siblings as well as me when we were growing up. The most dramatic of her fears is of snakes. She tells the story of being taken to the local rattlesnake roundup when she was a child. Her parents and their friends caught the snakes, bagged them live, and in their casual country manner, tossed them into a pile. My little three-year-old mom sat quietly watching, perched up on a rock, bags of rattling, hissing snakes churning at her feet.

Flash forward a couple of decades and my professional nurse of a mom can’t look at a photograph of a snake without a bloodcurdling shriek escaping her lips. When my little brother was about four he found a rubber snake at the grocery story and couldn’t understand why his mother was running screaming up one aisle and down the next as he scurried after her. “Look, mom, it’s a pretty snake,” he was saying. “Slow down, mom! Look!” Luckily, mom also has a wonderful sense of humor. Her shrieks of fear are always followed by bouts of laughter.

The snake phobia didn’t seem to rub off on my siblings or me. After all, we also had the influence of other relatives who battled live snakes and survived. Many a time, I watched my sweet grandmother kill rattlesnakes with her trusty three irons.

So, no snake phobia for me. My goose bumps come from something else entirely—a world apart from slithering reptiles. Mr. Fancy thought he had married the fearless, confident Texas chick I had portrayed so well during our courting years. It wasn’t until we entered domestic bliss, however, that he discovered the secret I had been harboring—my aversion to Super Glue and Clorox.

My neurosis was easy to hide in our pre-family days. I disposed everything that was either broken or graying, like any good consumer-oriented American does. However, a declining economy and small children have made these shuddersome toxins necessary tools in our cozy cottage. I recently joined a substance use support group and am on my way to recovery.

I tried to convince Mr. Fancy that I also had a deep-seated dread of the vacuum cleaner, but alas, I concocted this about 10 years too late in our relationship. 

Sometimes, I wonder if FDR, our trusty 32nd president, had it right when he famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I say this because last week, while attending to my evening kitchen duties, I heard a youthful shriek from the living room.

“Maaa-aaaam! We need mumble mumble garble barble.”
 “What? I’m in the kitchen,” I answered.
 “We nigjts lheijt to mumble lfffe loiekcit!”
“I can’t hear youuuu. Come into the kitchen if you need something.”
“We need life mumble grumble or steal garble farble fum”
“Come into the kitchen if you need me!”
My six-year-old daughter ran in looking extremely distressed. “Mom,” she panted. “We need to buy LifeLock. Somebody might steal our identity. They have already stolen 12 people’s identities.”

Well, so much for Qubo Channel being a quote-unquote “safe place for children.” The Lifelock commercial has brought goosebumps and juvenile frenzy into our house. What does “stealing someone’s identity” mean to a six-year-old brain anyway? Time to shut off the boob tube.

There really is no safe place to shelter your kids from fear these days. Thanks to the Science Center event, I was reminded that fear is a part of life—it’s how you handle it that makes a difference. Fear keeps up safe—it’s the evolutionary trigger for our fight or flight response. I was able to read that much before my daughter dragged me out of the Goosebumps exhibit.

The upside of our hasty exit was that we were able to spend more time in the attractive Ecosystems exhibit, which really inspiring. I loved it so much I even put more money in the donation box on my way out. I might even buy a membership so that we can go back for John Muir Day.