My dad is 89. He worries about things like whether I am wearing safety glasses when I mow the lawn. 
My kids are cops. It’s hard…racheting back the worry-o-meter when they retire.
I have found my people. I am a chronic worrier. I am on vacation and am leaving in the morning. The rental car is parked a block or so away and has been sitting since Saturday. Have thought about going over in the rain to be sure it starts.
I worry less about my sons now that they’ve found good women to love them and live with. Both of the women are a good yin to my sons’ yang. I also worry less by remembering what I was doing at my sons’ age. I was working, paying bills, and generally being a productive adult. Generally. 
thanks for all the kind thoughts! This has continued to just about as bad as it could (two weeks of ultra sounds just to be sure, medical inducement awfulness, then found out today it didn’t work, so now she needs a D and C.) Has missed work, is worried and sad. I’m just fortunate (keeping to the theme here) that H and I are nearby, so we’ve been able to give support to the two of them through this.
I’m glad you and your H are nearby for your daughter and her partner. That must be comforting to all of you at this sad time.
S flew up to Nashville to be with our family for his sister’s graduation last Friday. As we parted on Friday afternoon, my last words to him were “Text when you land. You know I’ll always worry a little about you no matter how old you are or that I can’t do anything about a travel issue.” D & FSIL are headed to Asia for their honeymoon and my only concern is that they have some way to post a picture daily to let all of their family know they are okay.
It helps to remember what I was doing at their age - living independently on my own, as they are. And not even considering the possibility that my parents doubted my ability to do so.
DD is moving this week, one apartment to another in the same city. And she doesn’t need my help. I have mixed feelings about that, but try to only express the positive ones.
I am a dad, and as my wife has made very clear, my kids weren’t carried by me before they were born, and when they were born they did not come out of me.
I worry less about my kids now than when they were young. It helps that my oldest daughter is married and my son lives on the opposite coast. Out of sight–out of worry.
If my kids aren’t worried, then I am not going to worry.
I want to save my worries for when there is something to worry about.
@dstark, do you want to help me worry over my special needs D who is moving out next month?
Granted, she’s only moving across town and into a group supported house, but I can STILL find LOTS to worry about!
I have 3 kids. I only mentioned 2.
I left my disabled daughter out of my post.
I am sure if my youngest daughter was moving out, I would have some worries.
My daughter told me about a conversation she had with a friend, as they were hiking up Mt. Hood, through snow, at midnight. (Why midnight? Because the snow is firmer when it’s cold, and therefore the climbing is easier.) The friend said, “My mom is really worried. Does your mom worry about you climbing mountains?” “Not that much,” said my daughter, “my brother does competitive skydiving.”
Interestingly, while both my kids have pretty interesting hobbies, they’re also pretty serious about safety. When I have the “what if” conversations with them (as in “what if your primary parachute doesn’t deploy?” or “what’s the plan if someone trips and falls?”), they have good answers. My nickname in the family is “the Queen of the What Ifs” but it would appear that it wasn’t entirely in vain.
After yet another miscarriage, my mom told me we were going to disneyworld for the weekend. She booked our flights, from different cities, and had a room at a luxory Disney resort. Always frugal, my Mom was deliberately open to room service, etc.
It was so lovely of my mom to plan this trip, and for my dad to let us have a first women only trip.
Garland, wishing your daughter a happy next time.
I forgot to mention, dstark, that I also worry about my independent, employed, son who owns a home a few towns from us. I can always find something to worry about (unfortunately).
Garland, so sorry about your family’s loss.
^^ How lovely of your mom to have done that, @bookworm!
My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage with a retained fetus so I had to get a D&C in the hospital. It was a tough time but my OB stressed that it was good I was able to get pregnant. That first pregnancy had been carefully timed for a spring baby. I decided to let nature decide for the future and got pregnant again – with a due date of Dec. 24. (My own birthday is Dec. 26, and I had always previously said I would not do that to a child!) But we got D, and realized what really mattered.
Wishing your D better times ahead, @garland. I am sure you are being a great support to her and her H.
I didn’t make this up, but I agree with the thought - a mom is only ever as happy as her least happy child. I can always find something to worry about with my kids.
My son, who turned 26 last month, was staying with me in Washington Heights over the weekend, and drove back to New Jersey around 11 pm last night, because he had to be at work down in Princeton first thing this morning. I saw him yawning before he left, and expressed concern over whether he might be feeling too tired to drive. He reminded me that he is 26 years old. I can’t help it, though. He’s visiting Los Angeles next month for the first time and renting a car, and I’m already feeling anxious about his driving out there. So yes, I still worry.
But it runs in the family. My mother was a huge worrier, although she died when I was 20, so I don’t know how it would have been had she lived longer. There’s a letter my mother’s grandmother wrote at 79 when she was in a French-run concentration camp in the Pyrenees in 1941 (a few months after her 86-year old husband had died there), and sent out through the Red Cross, in which she expressed great concern and worry over whether her youngest son, then 44 and living safely in Chicago, would ever find a wife. (He never did get married, as it happened. I’m sure she would have been disappointed.)
She’s in a concentration camp and she’s worrying about her son?! I love it!
When I was going through my mother’s papers after her death, I found some correspondence between her and my father – from whom she had long been divorced – that dated back to when my sister and I were in our twenties. They shared their worries about many aspects of our lives – a health issue I had at the time, my sister’s plan to go back to school for a graduate degree, our financial situations, etc. I had had no idea that they were concerned about these things – let alone that they had discussed them with each other.
Our parents worried as much as we do. They just were better at keeping their mouths shut.
Most of the time I don’t really have much to worry about that is worthy of the time, energy and emotional toll.
Most of the things we worry about never happen.
I had a sort of epiphany a few years ago when my husband was deployed for nine months to Afghanistan, one son was on a summer long backpacking trip through Europe with his GF, another son was living in Malawi (extremely third world) for the summer, and my daughter, who was safely living at home with me, had just been thrown from a horse and I was driving her to the ER with her wavy (very broken) arm.
This feeling of extreme clarity and calm hit me. I was as prepared for this tiny emergency as a person could be. My family members had brains and common sense, I knew how to get ahold d of them if needed, and worrying about them as they were spread all over the world in dangerous or “exciting” places could not accomplish a darned thing. But I could take care of this little unexpected emergency that was actually happening now.
I try to be prepared, and not to worry about the rest.
“Don’t worry darlin’, No baby, don’t you fret. We’re living in the future, and none of this has happened yet.”-Springsteen