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[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks...." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!" ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!", ">\n\nI have a 3 yo and a 2 wk old and this hits me where I live. My anxiety and depression made it so I never dreamed, but since the kids were born, vivid nightmares of losing them. Awful stuff." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!", ">\n\nI have a 3 yo and a 2 wk old and this hits me where I live. My anxiety and depression made it so I never dreamed, but since the kids were born, vivid nightmares of losing them. Awful stuff.", ">\n\nI used to have nightmares occasionally, nothing serious, being chased, missing a final exam or whatever. Since I had my first kid I have never had a nightmare about anything involving myself or anything else, they are always about something horrible happening to them. It’s been fifteen years…I guess maybe it is a permanent condition. It’s weird because I don’t worry after my kids. They are great, healthy and we live in a good area and I am no helicopter parent, but at guess the subconscious is scared as hell." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!", ">\n\nI have a 3 yo and a 2 wk old and this hits me where I live. My anxiety and depression made it so I never dreamed, but since the kids were born, vivid nightmares of losing them. Awful stuff.", ">\n\nI used to have nightmares occasionally, nothing serious, being chased, missing a final exam or whatever. Since I had my first kid I have never had a nightmare about anything involving myself or anything else, they are always about something horrible happening to them. It’s been fifteen years…I guess maybe it is a permanent condition. It’s weird because I don’t worry after my kids. They are great, healthy and we live in a good area and I am no helicopter parent, but at guess the subconscious is scared as hell.", ">\n\nMy biggest fear is air travel. Imagine having to watch them panic if the plane goes down." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!", ">\n\nI have a 3 yo and a 2 wk old and this hits me where I live. My anxiety and depression made it so I never dreamed, but since the kids were born, vivid nightmares of losing them. Awful stuff.", ">\n\nI used to have nightmares occasionally, nothing serious, being chased, missing a final exam or whatever. Since I had my first kid I have never had a nightmare about anything involving myself or anything else, they are always about something horrible happening to them. It’s been fifteen years…I guess maybe it is a permanent condition. It’s weird because I don’t worry after my kids. They are great, healthy and we live in a good area and I am no helicopter parent, but at guess the subconscious is scared as hell.", ">\n\nMy biggest fear is air travel. Imagine having to watch them panic if the plane goes down.", ">\n\nI was dated someone when her teenage daughter disappeared without a trace. She was found two weeks later, was making some bad choices, but ended up okay.\nBeing with someone while they talk to detectives about their child's sex life, drug use, and cry themselves to sleep is.. a lot." ]

[ "This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.\nRemember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not \"thoughts had in the shower!\"\n(For an explanation of what a \"showerthought\" is, please read this page.)\nRule-breaking posts may result in bans.", ">\n\nEvery time I take a shower I hear the faint sound of my kids crying for help. They are fine ...but my brain loves to convince itself the sounds in the walls and pipes are my kids in danger when I'm in vulnerable places.\nEdit I am curious how many males experience this. I hear this happens a lot with mothers but as a dad myself, I hear this all the time. My wife no longer hears it but with kids at 12/6 I occasionally hear \"daaaad\" or \"hellllp\" or I am convinced I heard a window break or something broke and I have to get out and check it out.", ">\n\nPhantom cries while in the shower are so bizarre.", ">\n\nWhat that's a thing? ಠ_ಠ", ">\n\nMy kid is a year and a half old and it's much less common now, but yes. I will occasionally hear him cry while in the shower even when I have his monitor right there and he's asleep.", ">\n\nThe baby monitor is just something additional to obsess over. Especially when they're lying still, then you gotta go wake them up because they're too still.", ">\n\nNah, you go over there, stare for a minute to verify they're breathing normally, then creep away. \nThen you hear sounds and accidentally wake them up while they're doing their active sleeping. \nIt's a vicious cycle of self inflicted sleep deprivation.", ">\n\nJust fixate your gaze on a spot on whatever is covering them. It's going to move as they breathe. Hopefully.", ">\n\nWe use a patterned swaddle so that it's a tiny bit easier to see the movement. But man, you really can go nuts with the fear.", ">\n\nThree weeks ago we felt a bump on my 11 month old daughter's belly, so we had it checked by the pediatrician just to be safe. Now she's scheduled for her second round of chemo next week, 2 days before her 1st birthday. So yeah, that's a fresh new layer of hell we weren't prepared for.", ">\n\nIt's a horrible age to be hooked up to IV lines. The constant care taking is rough.", ">\n\nTo add to all that, she has a twin brother as well. That's a lot of logistics to keep on top of, and we were already stretched thin before all this came down.", ">\n\nGoing to the park? Be paranoid that someone is following you to snatch your child?\nGoing to Target? Be paranoid that your child will walk out the doors with a stranger when your back is turned. \nDriving by yourself to your best friend's house for a much needed girl's night? Panic about a semi hitting you head on and you dying and your kid has to grow up without you.", ">\n\nDon't forget all the potential diseases!", ">\n\nWe mask and are vaccinated. He's a covid toddler. He's been obsessed with washing his hands since he could run.", ">\n\nSo he will not develop any natural immunity to anything. Nice.", ">\n\n^ Conservatives when they're told to wash their hands", ">\n\n\"I won't be clean and you can't make me\"", ">\n\nshits in own hand and eats it, to own the libs", ">\n\nMy son is almost 7. These have not subsided. Every phase of his life they just morph and grow. When he was <3 I had a fear of returning the shopping cart in the space NEXT TO MY CAR because I was sure someone was going to drive off and he was too little to verbalize it.\nIt never gets easier.", ">\n\nMy son is 22 and I still get them. Even more once he got a car and became more independent.", ">\n\nMy 'children' are 26 and 19 and I still get anxiety when they are out of contact for a while. I know it is irrational but it is not something I can just turn off... I do not let my anxiety interfere with their lives and just keep it to myself, but I definitely breathe a sigh of releif when they get back.", ">\n\nI can be weeks without contacting my parents and I live 2h drive away. Your comment made me think that maybe I should call them more often.", ">\n\nI have OCD and my intrusive thoughts were always my family dying in a fiery car crash. After I had my son it’s just intrusive thoughts of him trapped in his car seat on fire. My OCD was under control, I had a few clocks in my house, it was all fine. After I had my son I went back to a clock on every single wall in every single room. I can see the time no matter where I am. I have my watch, my phone, a pocket watch, and another wrist watch that I keep with me when I leave the house. My van clocks are programmed. The places I spend a lot of time outside my house have the time properly programmed. Gotta keep him safe from dying in a fiery car crash.", ">\n\nThese things related, or just the ol' OCD \"as long as I know what time it is, no car crashes\"?", ">\n\nThis is actual OCD, unlike those people who claim they like their pencils straight on their desk which has nothing to do with it.\nQuite a common one is intrusive commands or thoughts in which if you don't complete them correctly, you think something bad may happen. Perhaps a bit like being really superstitious but to such a degree you're doing silly things as a result.\nSo OP here seems to have internal demands to know the time, otherwise the car incident may become a reality. When of course the real reality is it won't make any difference whatsoever, but testing that theory means chancing the incident. (OP, it won't happen, you'll be fine)", ">\n\nGood bot", ">\n\nI mean, it is really just a sub genre of the fear of loss, but it's probably the strongest example of that fear that most people will ever feel.", ">\n\nUndoubtedly!", ">\n\nWatching The Last of Us is a VERY different experience as a dad than watching The Walking Dead and Every Stephen King movie ever before becoming a dad.", ">\n\nAfter becoming a dad all horror movies with kids have become a hard no for me. I recently had to turn off both bird box and a quiet place after about 20 minutes. Parenting in the apocalypse is just way too real for me.", ">\n\nStephen King’s Pet Semetary. Holy shit. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.", ">\n\nThat was the main one for me after I became a dad. Fucked me up. That and the baby scene in Trainspotting.", ">\n\nI don’t remember the baby scene, I do remember him swimming into the toilet world to get the suppository back. \n“No fair daddy, no fair” “daddy, come play with me”….. in my son’s voice…. And my wife keeps finding that scene on tiktok and sending it to me", ">\n\n\n!The baby dies when they are high. !<", ">\n\nThat’s the scene…and the ceiling part later on.", ">\n\nNot unforeseen. I'm not a parent yet but am fully aware this will be a thing. I got a dog and I have regular nightmares about her getting lost or dying", ">\n\nWhen I got my cat I was constantly worried about her safety. Then my wife and I had our first child and I can assure you that it is a universe of difference in worry.", ">\n\nYeah that's what I mean. If my subconscious is worried this much about my dog, I know the nightmares and worry will be far far worse when I have kids", ">\n\nNow that you have made me think about it I'm probably going to have those nightmares even though I don't have a kid!", ">\n\nnever love anything. \nproblem solved. EZPZ", ">\n\nHearing about possible impending wars was a bit unnerving when I was young. Now I have two sons and the idea is terrifying.\nI recently rewatched The Pacific and realized I was older because I identified less with the young men and more with the parents having to watch their kids go to war.", ">\n\nI used to hide in the clothing racks at stores when I was out with my mom. I thought it was hilarious. she did not.", ">\n\nYou must be my kid", ">\n\nMy wife is due in March. We are so close. My mom had a miscarriage around this time with my brother and it has been on my mind every night.", ">\n\nCongrats. You will have a beautiful March.", ">\n\nThank you!", ">\n\nI’ve had two nightmares about losing my child - one somewhat recently , and one like 10 years before I ever became a mom. If anything the one from before I was a mom was more disturbing! The more recent one was “I’m awake ok we are good” the other one was all kinds of disturbing to me as I thought it was some omen about what kind of parent I would be.", ">\n\nI’ve had multiple nightmares that my child died. Car accidents, wars, monsters, etc etc. \nI don’t have a child. \nI also had a vasectomy in 2018, because I don’t want a child.", ">\n\nYou must have a very imaginative brain!", ">\n\nHere's another one for you: if you die while they are young (7 or younger) they won't even remember you.\nThe only you they'll know is the one is pictures and videos.\nNo matter how much time and love you give them, you'll be a fragment of a memory they may not even have.", ">\n\nI have memories from when I was 4.", ">\n\nThere is a concept called childhood amnesia. \nMost people have little to no memories from before they were 7.\nEdit: why am I being downvoted? Look it up, it's a real phenomenon.", ">\n\nI have tons of memories from before 7 but no memory of 7 days ago.", ">\n\nYeah I’m confused about what that dude is saying. I was 7 in 1st grade. I can clearly remember a bunch of shit from both kindergarten and pre school. Before pre-k things start to get a little blurry though I can still remember some stuff.", ">\n\nIt's feels like one of those \"facts\" you read in Snapple bottle caps.\nI'm sure some study somewhere showed some correlation between memory formation and retention and some average number of people find that memories prior to a certain age are more heavily influenced by media of those events yadda yadda yadda and that becomes \"if you die before they're 7 , they won't remember you\".", ">\n\nI think it's mostly that, to most people on Reddit, there's not that much difference between being 2-4 and being 7 - they don't have kids and don't remember what it was like being that age. So they just sort of have this vague recollection that childhood amnesia means that you forget things from \"when you're young\", and because they didn't remember exactly when it occurs their brain filled in 7 as \"young.\"\nAnd now they're doubling down (by insisting that people are doubting the concept of childhood amnesia rather than recognizing they got the age wrong by about a factor of two) so they refuse to do the ten seconds of Googling that would tell them the correct age range.", ">\n\nMeanwhile I had a nightmare About my Harley getting stolen. I don't even own a Harley", ">\n\nEvery one of my fears revolves around something happening to my kid, even my fear of death is really just fear that I won't be there for her anymore.", ">\n\nOh wow, that's a scary thought! Parenting is definitely an unpredictable journey, but as long as you keep your kid close and give them lots of love and attention, you should both be able to overcome any nightmares together.", ">\n\nBut that's the thing \"keeping your kids close\"is a pretty new phenomenon. As a kid I was out all day and barely interacted with my parents until Sunset. This wasn't considered part of a rough childhood. It was pretty much the norm.\nThe rule used to be \" be home when the street lights come on\" everybody was happy with that arrangement.", ">\n\nyeah the 80s with the incited panic is to blame on this one. no one wants to take your kids, relatively speaking. But like 'fat is bad for you', 'every stranger wants to steal your children' has somehow stuck when it's just very very unlikely.", ">\n\nI wasnt even an 80s child. I was born in late 88 so my entire conscious childhood was 90s and 2000s. Like I said this is a really new phenomenon.\nTruthfully I think videogames and the internet have more to do with it than any moral panic. \nWhen I was a kid there was just no reason to be inside.", ">\n\nWe had video games, and internet. source- born in same era but definitely more free range and allowed to watch late night dubious and foreign language programming until our eyes went square. Parenting seemed a lot more laissez fare.", ">\n\nYeah we definitely had access but my point is these days it is much more mainstream and children have much less reason to go outside. Don't get me wrong I was an early adopter of both videogames and the internet. \nBut that's exactly my point. Once I realized I could access the entire planet from my bedroom I started going outside waaaaaaay less often. \nI'm not speaking from a \"kids these days\" perspective either because given the choice I absolutely would have spent my days playing videogames. They were just nowhere near as accessible as they are now. I had to go outside to find my entertainment.", ">\n\nThey day you decide to have a child is the day you decide to live with your heart outside of your body. You're so vulnerable. Worse than a Lich to it's phylactery. It was so strange. I had different dreams before having children. And now that I have children, my only dream is to provide and protect. The day they no longer need me is a day I'm not looking forward to.", ">\n\nLast night I had a nightmare where my 5 year old and I were in rags accepting food from a woman who was asking me how long it has been since she ate and I broke down because I couldn't remember. This was the most shame I've ever felt in my entire life. Over 24 hrs later I'm still shook up about it.\nThe thought occurred in my sorrow to just give her to the woman. \nI then realized that I was dreaming and forced myself to wake up (a trick I learned as a child due to night terrors.)\nI wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.", ">\n\nNot unforseen at all if you are older than a teenager having a kid. The older you get the more you know how bad the world is and how easily something can just slip from your grasp...right in front of you. It becomes a harder decision as you get older too....but it's worth the risk.", ">\n\nExpecting a baby this summer and recently had the most awful vivid nightmare of our baby being diagnosed with trisomy 13 and having to terminate them. I can only imagine it getting worse once the baby is actually out.", ">\n\nI had no bad thoughts during my wife's first pregnancy, but on the day my first kid was born, it started. It's like this constant little nagging feeling in the back of your head. What if... \nI used to be able to get into a fully relaxed state, eg when hiking or kayaking. Completely empty head, just perceive nature and relax. 8 years since the first kid and I just can't get there anymore. I don't think this kind of anxiety will ever go away again. I like to think of it being the price to pay for having my kids and that makes it a lot more bearable.", ">\n\n... Am I the only parent who DOESN'T catastrophize everything? Not judging the rest of you, but I'm too busy dealing with kid shit that IS happening to think, or even dream, much about things that might happen.", ">\n\nYou have never had a single nightmare about losing your kid?\nIf so, I have nothing but envy.", ">\n\nHonestly? I go to bed exhausted every night. I don't remember my dreams.", ">\n\nUnforseen? I realized this would be an issue when I was 12. \nYet another reason i love being child free. My wife and i discuss it when we watch Criminal Minds", ">\n\nThis precisely one of the main reasons that made me don't wanna have kids haha", ">\n\n100% this. I practically don't care what happens to me at this point (hooray depression!), but I go insane at the thought of something happening to my kid. I just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.", ">\n\n\nI just hope that it doesn't turn into \"overbearing parent that protects their kid from every teeny tiny possible problem\", since that's a different issue that develops from that.\n\nSelf-awareness is the first step to avoiding it :)", ">\n\nBecoming a parent opens your eyes to a depth of love you could hardly fathom before. \nIt also does precisely the same for fear.", ">\n\nOhh okay those. I haven’t had one in a while. Running yessh. They sucked.", ">\n\nWe have window air conditioners and live on the 2nd floor. I have a very specific and irrational fear that my kid is going to grab the power cord right as the AC falls out the window, dragging my kid out the window with it.", ">\n\nYou a fan of Seinfeld?", ">\n\nnot really? Was that an episode?", ">\n\nYeah. Not a baby exactly but Kramer. Almost falls out the window. S5E3.", ">\n\nWell, I certainly respect the show. If I overlapped with a Seinfeld joke, that's a huge compliment! Thanks!", ">\n\nI started having nightmares before my daughter was even born. They went away at about two. But I still worry, 30 years later.", ">\n\nIt kinda happens with me too but for my baby neice. Weird terrible nightmares that she might get hurt so whenever I'm around I'm extra EXTRA careful with everything", ">\n\nWoke up sobbing one night a couple months back. Worst dream I’ve ever had.", ">\n\nLol I am not even a parent and I have had these fears since my first niece was born", ">\n\nIts awesome especially when youve watched every true crime documentary out there and now you cant let your kid out in the garden without thinking someone will hop the gate snatch them and disappear.", ">\n\nMy kid is grown now with a kid .. the fear continues … never ending", ">\n\nWatched Manchester by the Sea a few months after my first daughter was born. Didn't know what the movie was about, went in blind. Do not recommend.", ">\n\nI'm a first time parent with a one month old. Literally just woke up from my first major kid related nightmare. He was dropped from a helicopter. It was horrific.", ">\n\nUnforeseen? Nah. Kids are off the table for us at this point, but when we were trying it was literally the only thing on my mind.\nOur cat died in 2015 and it was one of the most painful couple weeks I've experienced. I kept imagining how much worse it would be if I had a terminally sick child or if something just happened to them.", ">\n\nMy entire parenting process is preventing my kids from dying", ">\n\nmakes sense", ">\n\nOh, mercy yes. I watched 28 Days Later in the theatre (like and idiot) when my daughter was a toddler. It wrecked me. My mind involuntarily inserted her, dressed in her red coat and adorable little hat. Into. Every. Scene. Someone else said it elsewhere in this thread: Since 2001, the apocalypse is way too real.\nEven aside from that, I sometimes have to find a way to distract myself from the horrifying images my mind conjures up of what could happen to her. She's 22 now! She doesn't even live in the same town I do. You'd think that would help ... It doesn't.", ">\n\nIm sure you didnt mean ACTUAL nightmares, but a good few years ago I had gotten to the point where nightmares didn't bother me at all and i could fall right back to sleep with no issues. Fast forward to now and I have an 18 month old. I have literal nightmares of my daughter dying basically bi-weekly and it scares the living shit out of me. Can't sleep for the rest of the night and I just stare at the baby monitor to make sure she's okay.", ">\n\nLosing your kid AND your kid possibly becoming a murder suspect, involved in human trafficking, etc.", ">\n\nAs a father to a four year old, I am really happy I stumbled across this thread to know that it is not just me being over-the-top with anxiety!\nI let my daughter explore and learn about the world, I just try to remove dangers as much as possible while teaching her about how to be safe. \nI hope this anxiety gets better with time.", ">\n\nFor me it got easier with the next 2 kids. I am less worried about them because the first has already \"been there, done that\" and I know what to expect. Unfortunately, the first kid has to bear the anxiety burden because he does everything first. BUT we work very hard to make sure we keep that in check as to not burden him with our worries.", ">\n\nI was literally getting a massage yesterday while my husband took our 18 month old to the mall and I kept replaying horrible scenarios of him losing her over and over again 🙃", ">\n\nI'm a big fan of horror movies, but there are quite a few that hit different since becoming a parent, and some I'd rather not watch at all anymore (Pet Sematery for example)", ">\n\nThree nightmares I’ve had since baby was born last year that stand out:\nSomehow baby is in my bed and gets smothered by my blankets \nI have forgotten about baby and find her crying and emaciated in her crib\nHands reach from underneath the crib and pull her through the rails and underneath the crib", ">\n\nBeing a 10+ year older sibling, I’ve already experienced almost every feeling of parenthood. (I’m 31 and still believe this is true.)\nAnd I do get worried when my younger siblings go out and party lol.", ">\n\nThat is how I ended up in outpatient a few months ago. I never had kids of my own but becoming a full time step mother introduced me to a new world of fears.", ">\n\nThis is to real, my imagination has ran through many scenarios where this is a possibility. My heart drops, I tear up and panic. Quickly compose myself and shake it off but the feeling does return.", ">\n\nOP's first day with a brain cell folks, everybody give them a hand for finding the keyboard to cringe post obvious nonsense 👏", ">\n\nAnother reason not to have kids. I love positive reinforcement on that decision.", ">\n\nI have younger siblings so I can understand that early on, and it makes me not want children", ">\n\nLast night I had a dream where I fingered my wife then had a Pokémon battle.", ">\n\nI had the same dream!", ">\n\nYep. Would've been nice to know that ahead of time. No one tells you.", ">\n\nThere are so many other nightmares that also involve not losing your kid", ">\n\nThis is painfully true. Driving anywhere with my kids is automatically more stressful than driving by myself, simply because I cannot trust other drivers with their safety.", ">\n\nOne of the main reasons why I won't have kids. I have enough anxiety as it is, worrying about anything happening to your kid would put me over the edge", ">\n\nYou could ramp up my anxiety a thousand times until it became utterly crippling and I still wouldn't trade relief for my son.", ">\n\nSo true. So much hits different including movies, books, music, stories from other people, stuff that never bothered you before suddenly really does.", ">\n\nSo original, this sub is a joke. Amazing new and improved shower thoughts\nWhy don’t you let actual original thoughts get posted?", ">\n\nI had these nightmares when I got dogs but not so much since I've had kids. Yet...", ">\n\n“Neverending Story” that shit is fucked up. And “Flight of the Navigator”. Parents missing their kids like it’s nothing", ">\n\nI read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and it made me really scared of all of the drug related dangers my kid could get into. And I'm not even a parent yet.", ">\n\nI was taking to someone about how it sucks that after having kids you having these nightmarish daydreams about all the terrible things that can happen to your kids and she was like, “uh I don’t do that, I don’t think that’s normal…”", ">\n\nLiterally had a dream of my daughter drowning over and over and being just barely out of reach to save her. Was hell on earth", ">\n\nSo many things I didn’t think about, or wasn’t afraid of before having kids.", ">\n\nMy mum agrees\nShe wasn't exactly happy when my brother disappeared", ">\n\nTV Shows about missing/kidnapped kids have become nearly impossible to watch for me since having kids.", ">\n\nI just had my first born son almost a month ago and this is terrifyingly true.", ">\n\nI was an only child for 20 years, then my baby brother came along. I had SO many dreams that we lost him and it was my fault or even worse, my parents died and I had to raise him. \nThe second one is so much worse for me because I knew I didn't want to become a parent since I was a teen and having lil bro around just made it more clear that the parent life is not for me. But if my parents died I'd have a kid and there was nothing I could really do about it, oh god this terrifies me. I love him more than anything in the world but seeing him sporadically is the best", ">\n\nI'm not a parent yet (I want to be someday though) and every once in a while I'll dream about having a kid. More often than not, those dreams end poorly. In one particular dream, I had a baby girl and I brought her to church for the first time. All of a sudden this other couple is holding her saying \"Thanks for taking care of our baby for us!\" and I know it's true, the baby was never mine. But there are a bunch of gift bags next to my seat and I start looking through them, hoping to find my baby in one of the gift bags. They're all empty.", ">\n\nI love my kids but it’s crazy to think about I’ll never know again how carefree it is to not have to worry about my kids for the rest of my life", ">\n\nWhen my kid was but a wee baby, I would wake up at least three times a night, walk down the hall in the dark, go into his room, and just listen to make sure he was breathing. He older now, but I still check sometimes, just to be sure.", ">\n\nWhich is precisely why I will never watch Manchester by the Sea again in my life.", ">\n\nThey're not even my kids and this happens! I'm a nanny and my nightmares involve losing a child at a zoo, getting in a car crash with the kids in the car and a fire in the house while I'm on duty. I will take back ALL my \"in the weeds\" nightmares from my years in the restaurant industry just to make these kid nightmares stop!", ">\n\nI had a dream when we first found out my wife was pregnant. A little blonde girl, who I knew was my daughter, came bouncing into what I assume was our bedroom which glowed from morning light. Girl was wearing a white flowery nightgown and she jump up onto the bed and I sat up to hug her and all I hugged was air. I immediately woke up with this feeling of terrible loss and sadness. I could barely breathe.\nThat scared the crap out of me. Then when our child was born it turned out to be a girl, and she was blonde. I never forgot the dream so you can imagine my worry as she approached that 4 to 6 year old age which I guessed was the age in my dream. \nThankfully nothing bad ever happened and she turns 16 today. She's an amazing young woman and I'm lucky to have a daughter like her. But damn that dream still haunts me!", ">\n\n\"-How are you sleeping as a new parent?\n+Like shit.\n-Is the kid not sleeping well?\n+I wish! the kid sleeps like an angel. As soon as he touches the crib he's gone, but have you heard about the sudden infant death syndrome (yes, this is a thing, it shouldn't, but for some fucking reason it exists)? I can't fucking sleep if I don't hear him breathing and as soon as I stop hearing it I open my eyes a get up as if the bed was on fire.\"\n-Me 11 years ago.-", ">\n\nJust another addition to my already long list of reasons I never want children", ">\n\nWas at the store the other day and a lady lost her daughter. I didn't know what to do but my stomache dropped and i became terrified, she was yelling her name so I started yelling her name. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out. I out my hands up and with a tear in my eye said I was just trying to help. Like a lion moving on to find other prey she walked away still screaming her name. Maybe it's because I'm a man with a beard and dirt on my face since I had just got off work, but I'm just glad she found her.", ">\n\nHell I don’t even have a kid and I have this fear. A lot of time for other people’s kids. \nOnce had a parent use me as a teaching tool or something at my retail job. Kid was with their parents shopping and they talked to me. Kid was being a little fussy and wanted to look at the fish, they told the kid they were going to pay and that they were going to leave if the kid didn’t come. I didn’t think they would actually leave but 15 minutes later I see the kid by himself pacing and looking around. So naturally I decide to help him out and take him to the front so we can call his parents - thinking that they were just at another part of the store. We get to the front and he bolts out the door and opens a random car door. I start freaking out thinking I’m watching a kidnapping before I see the parents in the car laughing their ass off. Needless to say I was pissed.", ">\n\nWe live in Arizona, and growing up i always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon because I should be able to say I've been when people inevitably ask me, right?\nMom refused because she always had nightmares of us falling over the rim.", ">\n\nWhenever I saw images of children killed in war, I was sad and outraged. But it was in a disconnected, intellectual way. Having a child now, I cannot imagine what I would become if I lost her in some conflict. Losing her terrifies me, causes my chest to lock up.\nWar, especially total war launched against civilians, is horrific.", ">\n\nRight after you finally ditch those forgot to turn in your term paper or slept in for the final dreams.", ">\n\nOr worse...the first genre of nightmares. Had an easy going life so never worried. But now with my daughter...so many dangers to imagine.", ">\n\nThis has tortured me every day multiple times a day for the past six weeks", ">\n\nAs in literal asleep ones? Yeah I've had those. I'm at the store, I look around, kid's gone! I call out and can't find em, rush outside to the parking lot calling their name, nothing. Dream logic has me rush to the car, thinking they're there - but no, maybe they went to the lake?? I speed there, barely able to control the car - no kid there. Eerily sunny day, calm wind, I frantically search but nothing. I check my trunk in case they'd hidden there, all I find is my fishing gear, some fresh bait and a sausage-and-peppers on an Italian roll with some mustard. I don't want to say where it went from there, rest assured it was TERRIFYING", ">\n\nFor the first year my biggest fear is SIDS like that terrifies me. Just thinking about waking up going to get the little one and they are lifeless. \nMy wife’s a peds nurse so the crib was empty of anything but a mattress and a tight fitting sheet. But the youngest just turned 1 so he gets a stuffy now. \nI know there was a recent small study i Australia I think. Think it was like 655 they too heel pricks from newborns and found most of the babies they died from SIDS had a lower enzyme in their blood. A vital enzyme in waking up as it sends instructions to the brain to wake up. \nSo that’s promising but SIDS is still the most terrifying thing for a parent with a newborn.", ">\n\nMy first kid was 10 weeks early and in the nicu for a long time. My gruesome baby death nightmares were fueled by the mild ptsd i got from that. My wife as well. \nOne day later, My friends with kids and i were talking about their baby related nightmares and that's how i found out mine were on a horror level a step or two beyond normal.", ">\n\nHow is that unforeseen at all? It's well known losing a child is near the top of worst things a person can experience", ">\n\nMy nightmare is accidentally having a kid. If I become a parent I would hope to loose it jail free.", ">\n\nOh yeah. I remember the moment (while pregnant), that I realized that I was worried about my kid and that I would LITERALLY NEVER EVER HAVE A DAY WHERE I WOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT HIM. Likely for the rest of my life (I hope)", ">\n\nI cant travel with them anywhere, because I have twins and realized that if shit got real, I would only be able to carry one of them in a split-second decision.", ">\n\nMy nightmare was that the stroller handlebar would slip away from me on a downhill slope. Second level nightmare was that I would pick up the wrong toddler at the day care facility (I am that bad with faces....)", ">\n\nI lived that nightmare. still dealing with it 5 years later. he was only 3 months old and died of SIDS at the baby sitters.", ">\n\nI never had nightmares about breaking my phone screen until the first time I broke my phone screen. Same concept", ">\n\nYeah but you don't have to lose a kid to have the fear of losing a kid.", ">\n\nI remember my grandma saying, \"I'm happiest when all my loved ones are safe under my roof\". And I totally get that now, having kids. (Not that bad things can't or don't happen at home but being apart if something bad happens is especially scary to my brain)", ">\n\nAnd yet, no matter how hard I try to lose them, mine are still here", ">\n\nHoly hell is this ever the truth. My wife and I have a persistent fear that somehow we'll both pass in our sleep and our children (4 1/2 years old and 18 months old) will be left in an otherwise empty house with no way to contact anyone.", ">\n\nHell I started get those feelings once my siblings started having kids. Obviously not as strong as they would, but still.", ">\n\nI talk/move a lot while dreaming and during the first year of having our first daughter, I had this recurring thing going where I was waking my SO up in the middle of the night by worryingly looking for my daughter under her pillows.", ">\n\none of the biggest things ive noticed about becoming a parent is a reintroduction into a life of fear. as a kid your afraid of all sorts of shit, then you grow up and in your 20’s go through your invincibility phase. then, overnight, once you have a kid, boom, everthing is a threat. stairs? terrifying. strangers? probablly pedophiles. food? they will choke on it if they even look at it. body of water? streets? dogs? guns? germs? EVERYTHING is terrifying again and will be forever. hurray", ">\n\nMy kid could stand to be more afraid of literally anything. Currently, he fears nothing which is just overconfidence if you're only two", ">\n\nNot really unforeseen. Part of the reason I used to be unsure of having kids was the concern of protecting them from this fucked up world. I am a single mother now and sure enough the anxiety is constant. Life is never the same. Even when you go out and have a child free weekend or something you always have this anxiety about being extra careful and not having too much fun or letting your guard down because if something happens to you, your child loses a parent.", ">\n\nNo need. If you lose your kid, you'll just be back to where you would have been if you didn't have one.", ">\n\nMy beautiful daughter passed away unexpectedly at 5 months old. It is a nightmare in a strong way but I would also never ever trade the love that I had for her for the 5 months. If she never existed I would not feel this intense pain but it was still worth it to have had her. Dads give your kiddos a big ol' hug and let them know how much they mean to you.", ">\n\nHow did you manage to avoid foreseeing this genre, unless you're an orphan whose never met any parent ever in your entire life? Even the most terrible parents in existence talk about the worrying part of it constantly. Hell, some of the worst parents use those worries to justify straight up brainwashing their kids.", ">\n\nTRUE. It keeps me up at night thinking about losing my daughter or dying and her not remembering me (she's only 4). And when you get nightmares themed around that... oof.", ">\n\nFallen Rain. Even when I didn't have a kid, it made me paranoid on what would happen to my young and naive siblings.", ">\n\nOr as in my case you have the child's head fall off while you're (dreaming )of rocking them!", ">\n\nI would never let them out my sight and i don't know how parents deal with toddlers. They're basically suicide bombers.", ">\n\nWhat about nightmares involving losing a kid you don't really have?", ">\n\nNah because they just replaced the nightmares about unwanted pregnancies", ">\n\nI have a lot of fears about leaving my two year old without a dad due to my early death. I have pretty bad anxiety as if so I asked my mom hey, when does the feeling of dread stop that you're gonna die and leave your kids unprepared for the world.\n\"Never\" she says. I guess I have that to look forward to.", ">\n\nWhen I was 4, my mom had a nightmare that a plane crashed into a building and she along with other family members was digging through the rubble searching for my aunt and me. When she woke up, she asked my dad to put on some tv to calm her down, only to have the live footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center on the news on 9/11/01. She was pretty freaked out that day.", ">\n\nImagine becoming a parent while still not having found means to take care of yourself.\nParenting really should be the choice of both parents.", ">\n\nYesterday my mom told me about someone she knows whose 4 year old granddaughter was washed out to sea when they were on vacation. I nearly threw up as I instinctively held onto my 4 year old daughter.", ">\n\n\"Mom, Dad... I don't feel so good...\"\n\"Oh my god what's wrong!?\"\n\"I didn't use enough Essential Oils but luckily you can avoid this terrible fate for 100 meager payments of 199.99! Shipping not included\"", ">\n\nI watched my buddies kid for a night. Literally had a nightmare about losing her that night.", ">\n\nOr your kid doing something terrible...\nHow do you trust they wont put the dog in the microwave and turn it on?\nIts fucked up.", ">\n\nLet's not forget the inability or reduced ability to enjoy huge swaths of media after becoming a parent. X show or movie brings out the hobby horse trope of harming children to capture the depravity of a character. Welp, im ugly dad crying and usually struggle continue or say pass.", ">\n\nI had this for sure for a while after my kid was born. It did wear off eventually though.", ">\n\nAlso, now children’s birthday parties have become bittersweet instead of just fun.", ">\n\nThat thought is 99% of time deep buried be it consciously or not, but thanks....", ">\n\nIf it was unforeseen, then you should have thought more about becoming a parent before becoming a parent.", ">\n\nThe death or harming of my child in a dream has become the most certain lucid dreaming trigger for me. It's like my brain just goes NOPE, AIN'T HAPPENING. I become lucid and rewind the dream because hell naw!", ">\n\nI have a 3 yo and a 2 wk old and this hits me where I live. My anxiety and depression made it so I never dreamed, but since the kids were born, vivid nightmares of losing them. Awful stuff.", ">\n\nI used to have nightmares occasionally, nothing serious, being chased, missing a final exam or whatever. Since I had my first kid I have never had a nightmare about anything involving myself or anything else, they are always about something horrible happening to them. It’s been fifteen years…I guess maybe it is a permanent condition. It’s weird because I don’t worry after my kids. They are great, healthy and we live in a good area and I am no helicopter parent, but at guess the subconscious is scared as hell.", ">\n\nMy biggest fear is air travel. Imagine having to watch them panic if the plane goes down.", ">\n\nI was dated someone when her teenage daughter disappeared without a trace. She was found two weeks later, was making some bad choices, but ended up okay.\nBeing with someone while they talk to detectives about their child's sex life, drug use, and cry themselves to sleep is.. a lot.", ">\n\nNo kids needed, as the Oldest of 4 I've always had nightmares of horrible things happening to my siblings. In public, I still am acutely aware of where they are and if someone is standing too close to my little brother/sister." ]

[]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)", ">\n\nI already had these keycaps when I ordered the board but I’m definitely looking for a new set for when I get bored of this one lol" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)", ">\n\nI already had these keycaps when I ordered the board but I’m definitely looking for a new set for when I get bored of this one lol", ">\n\ncool! my recommendation would be Domikey Ghost - a set I really want to pick up, and would work amazing with the board especially if you still want a little bit of the translucent look :)" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)", ">\n\nI already had these keycaps when I ordered the board but I’m definitely looking for a new set for when I get bored of this one lol", ">\n\ncool! my recommendation would be Domikey Ghost - a set I really want to pick up, and would work amazing with the board especially if you still want a little bit of the translucent look :)", ">\n\nThat’s a nice throwback vibe right there" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)", ">\n\nI already had these keycaps when I ordered the board but I’m definitely looking for a new set for when I get bored of this one lol", ">\n\ncool! my recommendation would be Domikey Ghost - a set I really want to pick up, and would work amazing with the board especially if you still want a little bit of the translucent look :)", ">\n\nThat’s a nice throwback vibe right there", ">\n\nWhat's with the lines" ]

[ "Board: KBDFans KBD67 Lite R3\nSwitches: C3xTKC Tangerine V2\nKeycaps: Tai-hao smoke grey\nStabs: Stock but Durock V2 soon\nMods:\n\n\nLubed & filmed switches\n\n\nLubed stabilizers\n\n\nHolee mod stabilizers\n\n\nTempest tape mod\n\n\nCase sound-dampening foam \n\n\nReplaced silicone plate section w/ thin PEfoam", ">\n\nive got the same board, same colour! although i built mine with GMK Hennessey - though i really like the darker tone of this set! :)", ">\n\nI already had these keycaps when I ordered the board but I’m definitely looking for a new set for when I get bored of this one lol", ">\n\ncool! my recommendation would be Domikey Ghost - a set I really want to pick up, and would work amazing with the board especially if you still want a little bit of the translucent look :)", ">\n\nThat’s a nice throwback vibe right there", ">\n\nWhat's with the lines", ">\n\nI think it’s like foam behind the keycaps. Not my favourite feature but I like how it looks with the RGB on." ]

[]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit)." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up.", ">\n\nI don't think the concept of flat Earth interferes with idea of space exploration though. I mean even if flat, it has to reside somewhere.\nI do see your point, I just had this sudden thought." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up.", ">\n\nI don't think the concept of flat Earth interferes with idea of space exploration though. I mean even if flat, it has to reside somewhere.\nI do see your point, I just had this sudden thought.", ">\n\nTry calculating the reentry trajectory of a ship landing on a flat disk." ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up.", ">\n\nI don't think the concept of flat Earth interferes with idea of space exploration though. I mean even if flat, it has to reside somewhere.\nI do see your point, I just had this sudden thought.", ">\n\nTry calculating the reentry trajectory of a ship landing on a flat disk.", ">\n\n\"uh, down obviously\"\n\nsome nimrod, probably" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up.", ">\n\nI don't think the concept of flat Earth interferes with idea of space exploration though. I mean even if flat, it has to reside somewhere.\nI do see your point, I just had this sudden thought.", ">\n\nTry calculating the reentry trajectory of a ship landing on a flat disk.", ">\n\n\"uh, down obviously\"\n\nsome nimrod, probably", ">\n\nOh right, I forgot atmosphere is a myth" ]

[ "Aaa. I remember the 70s strikes. Good to see history repeating itself. People get pissed off with everything eventually.", ">\n\nIn Economics I was taught that in the 70s bin men strike was because they'd been given so many pay rises by the Labour government of the day that for the first time ever they could afford to strike.\nThatcher came in, wiped out the money, and they didn't strike for over a decade. They couldn't afford the time off any more.", ">\n\nPartly true, but the ban on secondary picketing and solidarity strikes also had a big effect. Part of the reason why they were so prone to striking in the 60s and 70s was that their absence was extremely visible and very costly. After it was banned, they couldn't cooperate with other trades and strikes in the same way, so their value in labour action dropped.", ">\n\nHow do you make it illegal to strike, or more specifically why would anyone follow that law?\nisn't the \"we out number you,\" civil disobedience the whole point?", ">\n\nIt is illegal for the police, or army, to strike, for example. They follow the law because they don't want to lose their jobs and have other penalties.\nYou make it clear to them when they join the job. \nSolidarity strikes and secondary picketing is when there is no problem with your job whatsoever, but you strike anyway because some other job doesn't pay enough and your mate Gary does that other job. \nIt's kinda' a 'We'll burn it all to the fucking ground, even companys/areas that have done absolutely 100% nothing wrong, IT'S ALL GOING TO BURN UNLESS YOU HELP OUT GARY' thing.", ">\n\nSounds like a better world to live in.", ">\n\nUnfortunately, we live in a world where people are intimidated into striking because \"it's illegal.\"\nLike, it's illegal for cops to strike... okay... who is going to enforce that? The cops?", ">\n\nIt's illegal in many countries for police to strike.\nIn Ireland, they worked around this by all calling in sick simultaneously.", ">\n\nThere's also soft strikes where they go to work but don't do anything", ">\n\nAnd for city services there are paying strikes, where people go to work and provide the regular service but charge no fee for it (such as public transit).", ">\n\nYou will see a General Strike before the government get to implement their anti-strike laws (that enable employers to sack employees striking, and enables employers to sue unions that do not follow the rules they haven't even put into writing when passing this law)\nThe law also has a clause in it that enables the government to change it however which way they want without requiring parliamentary scrutiny. \nThe law passed through parliament the other day - tories that don't like it still voted for it anyway - so is now required to get through the Lords before it can be implemented (with the vague wording changed as per the aforementioned clause)\nNot satisfied with costing the nation tens of billions a year with Brexit, more tens of billions in corrupt contracts to their mates and yet more in tax evasion, they've now cost billions more this past year by refusing to talk to any unions. Their own ministers have openly stated that it would have saved money if they had negotiated with the unions. \nThe list of groups that have been on strike/partaken in strike-like actions in the last year:\n\nPostal Workers\nTrain Drivers\nUnderground workers\nRail workers\nBus drivers\nDoctors\nNurses (first time in their history!)\nAmbulance service\nEmergency Services Call Handlers\nFire Brigade\nPolice (not allowed to strike but a few forces have done equivalents in the last year)\nBin men\nBarristers and various court staff\nCivil Service generally\nBorder Force\nDock workers\nTeachers\nCare workers\nAirline workers (attendants etc)\nAirport workers (baggage handlers and others)\nDriving examiners\nUniversity Staff - Lecturers, Librarians, admin staff and cleaners.\nBroadband/Telecoms engineers\nNational Highways staff\nRural Payments Agency\nPhysiotherapists\n\nTruss branded strikers 'militants' - but I think this covers most of society that have access to a union at this point. Even Army bosses made a thinly veiled statement about using them to plug holes when they themselves haven't seen adequate pay rises and face big problems with treatment of personnel, pretty much stating that they would be striking too if they could.\nSo, international viewers, who do you reckon are the problem? This cross-section of society, or the government?", ">\n\nnice at this rate all the essential societal maintenance workers will strike at the same time and the entire british society will collapse", ">\n\nThat is what is called a General Strike.\nAnd it is coming...the Tories have upped the ante with the attack on unions and living standards.\nThey have repeatedly refused to even speak to the unions (indeed, the nurses union pleaded with the PM that if they were to simply come to negotiations, the strike would be called off. The government refused) so if I were the unions, I would be combining now to bring the country to a halt this year.", ">\n\nI could not believe what I was witnessing as I watched the news and the government refused to meet with both the nurses union and the train driver union. And the media did its best, in general, to lay the blame on the unions themselves, and whichever union rep they were speaking to (not \"with\") at that moment in time in particular.\n​\nI hope people find some class solidarity here. Something has to give. Like you said, who is most likely the bad actor here; a varied cross section of society responsible for modern standards and safety, or the common denominator of a wickedly corrupt Tory government?", ">\n\n\n“Of course, the best mitigation would be for union bosses to call off planned strikes, to keep talking and to come to an agreement.”\n\nYou could give the union what they ask for. That would stop the strike.", ">\n\nIf the government ministers agreed to actually talk with the unions then that might happen", ">\n\nThat would require not voting in ministers who's entire political ideology is against the very concept of unions. Its like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA and wondering why they've stopped sending rockets up.", ">\n\nI don't think the concept of flat Earth interferes with idea of space exploration though. I mean even if flat, it has to reside somewhere.\nI do see your point, I just had this sudden thought.", ">\n\nTry calculating the reentry trajectory of a ship landing on a flat disk.", ">\n\n\"uh, down obviously\"\n\nsome nimrod, probably", ">\n\nOh right, I forgot atmosphere is a myth", ">\n\nAlso energy is free and fuel is a lie." ]