Into the Deep End: What Fatherhood Taught Me About Fear (So Far)
Facing an unknown fear while on vacation with my family.
Photo by Fermin Rodriguez Penelas on Unsplash
I’ll never forget the day I stood paralyzed on the shore as I watched my sons swim to the middle of the large lake. I tried with every fiber of my being to jump in the water and swim with them and enjoy the perfect Saturday afternoon.
But an invisible force took control of my body. I couldn’t move.
Something stopped me. An unseen hand pushed against my chest, holding me back from spending time with my kids. I felt like a mime trapped in a glass box. The world was silent. Hundreds of other dads with their kids were swimming and splashing. All I could hear was the sound of my beating heart. All I could feel was the weight of fear hanging from my chest.
In that moment, I knew something inside me changed forever.
With two boys ages 9 and 11, my wife and I are forever finding activities to do and places to go in Los Angeles County. We have to keep our wild beasts at bay for fear they’ll get sucked into a world of Fortnight and Roblox.
Last summer we spent a long weekend at Lake Arrowhead. A picturesque lake community tucked away in the San Bernardino mountains, about 45 minutes or so northeast of Los Angeles. (“Depending on traffic.”)
We rented a friend’s cabin and explored various shops and attractions along the lake. Took a boat tour and saw homes of celebrities from yesteryear and today. We made smores at night and imagined the size of the bears roaming the woods.
A weekend in the woods with fresh air, fresh water, and family.
During the mini vacation we ventured to Lake Gregory, a small recreational lake down the winding road from Lake Arrowhead. Lake Gregory is to the folks living in San Bernardino as Zuma Beach is to the folks living near Malibu. A place where the locals go to escape the heat and the tourists.
Lake Gregory doesn’t get the hype and fanfare of the other nearby lakes. It has a beach that’s a mix of pebbles and sand. The concession stand looks like it belongs in a teen horror flick from the 1970s. And there’s a small pier with paddle boats and kayaks and a pontoon boat. No large, fancy homes to drool over. Just families spending time together and enjoying the sun.
Lake Gregory did have one attraction that Lake Arrowhead didn’t.
In the middle of the lake, a short swim from shore, was a floating fortress of floaties: slides, trampolines, bounce houses. There must have been at least seven or eight of these massive rafts with at least a few hundred kids and adults swimming and diving off of them into the mildly cold lake water.
My kids’ jaws dropped when we walked up to the beach.
My wife set up our chairs and our cooler. “Dad, let’s go, c’mon!” they begged as they watched kids of all ages do backflips off the inflatable castle.
First step was to get a life jacket.
I stood with my boys in the long, winding line of people waiting for a life jacket. The line buzzed with nervous energy as every kid, teenager, and adult waited their turn.
When we reached the front of the line I helped my kids put on their life jackets and paid the attendant $5 and walked towards the lake.
I HATE jumping into cold water. Or anything remotely cold. Even when it’s 100 degrees outside, if the pool, or any body of water, is below 80 degrees I’m not going in.
But, it was a family vacation and my boys were excited to spend the afternoon playing in the middle of the lake with their dad. So I ignored that personality quirk and readied myself for the cool lake. It was the perfect childhood memory waiting to happen.
My boys didn’t waste a second. As soon as their life jackets were on they made a beeline to the water and dove in. Mind you, they’ve been taking swimming lessons for the last five years and have become strong swimmers. Front stroke, backstroke, freestyle, butterfly. My wife and I have no concerns about them swimming in the pool, a lake, or the ocean.
I’m not a bad swimmer myself.
As I followed my boys to the lake an odd feeling started rising up inside of me. Starting deep in my gut and settling in my chest, I felt an overwhelming sensation, like some magnetic force was pushing me back from the lake and from my kids.
It wasn’t nervousness or an upset stomach. It was something more personal. Something psychological. Something hidden inside me that wanted out.
I stood like a statue at the water’s edge. Paralyzed. Frozen. My brain told my body to move but my body wouldn’t listen. It’s as if my body was taking orders from something else. Some invisible hand that forced me to step away from the lake.
I don’t know why this feeling came over me.
I don’t know why this feeling came over me while on a vacation with my family.
My boys didn’t think anything of it. They never looked back. They raced each other to the first floatie — a massive water slide. They were busy making childhood memories.
Dumbfounded and saddened, I stood on the beach wearing a life jacket and watching my boys splash and swim and play. I felt defeated. I felt like a failure.
After a few minutes standing on the shore, I walked to where my wife was sitting in her beach chair reading a magazine. At first she looked at me confused and then worried.
“Where are the boys? Why aren’t you with them?”
“I didn’t go,” I said after a long pause.
“What do you mean? I thought you were going with them? You’re wearing a life jacket. Just go,” she urged.
“I can’t,” I said.
“What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well? Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
I shook my head no. My shoulders dropped. My eyes began to water. Sadness and disappointment crashed over me. My wife could see it on my face and in my body.
Her worry gave way to irritation which transformed to anger. And rightfully so. I was ruining our vacation.
My wife shook her head. “You’re different,” she said. “You’ve changed.”
I didn’t respond. I sat with my toes burrowed in the sand, hiding with shame. She was right. I was different. I had changed. I wasn’t the same Frank she knew when we woke up that morning. I knew I wasn’t the same. I knew that I would never be the same again.
And I didn’t understand why.
Carl Jung often used water to symbolize and describe the unconscious mind. In Man and His Symbols, he writes, “Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness… The water is the living symbol of the dark psyche.”
If water is a metaphor for the deep, primal force within the human psyche, representing the vast, unexplored realms of the mind, then did being at the lake trigger some deep, maybe even suppressed, unconscious feeling? At that moment was my unconscious trying to communicate with me? Why? And about what?
Didn’t my unconscious mind realize I was on a damn vacation with my family? That I was supplying it with a crap ton of experiences and memories for it to chew on and ruminate over while I slept?
Ever since that incident I’ve thought about what that experience at the lake meant. I don’t know if this is a normal parenting feeling or something more personal.
Digging deep within myself and reflecting on that moment, there are several themes that emerge that describe what that feeling could represent and why it happened.
In most movies scenes with water symbolize a form of cleansing, a starting over for the main character.
But water also has other meanings: transformation, the unknown, destruction, birth, life, beauty, transcendence.
Fatherhood and the Evolution of Risk
On the surface, Lake Gregory is the same as any other lake: fun and adventurous. But below the surface lies dangers that are still and silent, hiding from the joy above.
Being a father is like swimming on the surface of the lake with your family on your back knowing that below you is a world that is hostile and challenging and full of danger.
You keep paddling for fear of what lies below.
Being a father means you will forever be swimming in the deepest ends of the ocean of your life — protecting your family from danger, providing them with a home, food, meals. It’s part of our evolutionary biology to be providers and protectors.
It’s fine to swim over your fears when you’re young but as an adult you have to open up that treasure chest of fears and allow yourself to be changed by them, to face them, and become something greater.
In that moment at the lake my new self as a dad confronted my old self. The water represented freedom and courage and pushing myself to the limit without responsibility.
But on the shore I was confronted with the limits of that risk-taking. I’m a dad, a husband, a provider. Risk is calculated. An equation that’s been dormant inside of me was activated and it computed that the risk, for whatever reason, wasn’t worth it at the moment.
Navigating New Fears as a Father
Swimming in the waters of fatherhood means accepting that your feet will never touch the sand and you’re at the mercy of the currents that swirl around you. Trust in yourself and your abilities and knowledge builds. Instincts kick in.
The feeling I felt was a new sensation. A new feeling. A new fear. The challenge is navigating it, hoping that everything I know is good enough to face it. Pretending isn’t an option.
Talking with my wife on the shore forced me to be vulnerable in ways that I wasn’t before. To see the disgust in her eyes and admit without explanation that I wasn’t myself felt demoralizing. But I had to overcome that feeling, to own it.
Most fathers, and men in general, struggle with the idea of vulnerability. There is a stupid idea in our society that men who are vulnerable are weak and unmanly (whatever that means). A chink in the armor of manhood. That being vulnerable is a threat to what a father, and a man, should do and be.
But the best of us know that being vulnerable, especially in front of our children, models what it means to be a compassionate and understanding person.
I perceive the world through an entirely new perspective since becoming a dad. I see a world full of an abundance of opportunities. I also see a world full of dangers and threats that I never knew existed. I see ignorance on TV every night and I have to admit to myself and my wife and kids that I don’t have any answers.
I don’t know if I can protect our boys from the blatant disregard for human decency that’s festering on this planet.
But I do know admitting that I’m scared is the first step towards being the father my wife and kids need me to be.
The Limits of Fatherhood
As my boys jumped and wrestled with each other on the floating fortresses in the middle of the lake, I watched other parents take their kids on the small two person kayaks and paddle around the lake.
Other families boarded the pontoon boat that took an hour long excursion around the lake. Behind me were families enjoying the beautiful sun, eating chips, and tossing a football. Everyone around me was enjoying a sense of freedom and ease that I didn’t recognize.
I felt empty inside.
Perhaps that moment on the beach was a realization of the limits of fatherhood? Maybe in that moment I felt the gravity of being a father and the person everyone else in my home relied on to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.
Perhaps in that moment I realized that my dreams and desires were second to the needs of my family? The decisions I make impact my wife and kids. I can hold on to my dreams and run away from my fears, but at what cost to my family?
I know this is selfish to say, but I have to admit that the desire for untethered freedom stayed with me for a long time after my kids were born.
For the first few years of my kids’ life I remember feeling jealous of my wife because I felt like our kids needed her more than me. I felt like I was just a body living in our apartment. I ate, slept, watched TV on repeat for years.I preferred to work and focus on my career and dreams.
Life with a newborn or young kids isn’t the romanticized version we see portrayed in movies and television. It’s messy. It’s confusing. It’s a constant challenge of wills.
Now that I have a decade of parenting under my belt, I readily admit that I was completely wrong. I was needed. I was seen. Just not in the way I had imagined.
My wife and I would talk about how a baby will cling to their mother more than their father. I took advantage of that time. I had the best of both worlds — I could be a dad and I could work on my career and other interests whenever I wanted. My wife is the one who had to make the sacrifices in her life.
The immense energy that held me back from playing with my kids that day was a reckoning for me, a reminder that my choices have a massive impact on the lives of the people I love the most. That I am needed.
The Past Shapes Our Present
That moment on the lake wasn’t only about me as an adult. That feeling I experienced was something I learned when I was kid. And like all feelings of guilt or shame or fear, oftentimes it’s the parents who are the first teachers.
Fear isn’t genetic. It’s learned. And the lessons it teaches you is carried with you well into adulthood.
My mom was timid and introverted. She wasn’t comfortable being in the spotlight. She was a small woman with a waif-like frame. She wore large, thick-rimmed glasses and she had jet-black hair. She smoked cigarettes, swore like a truck driver, and drank lots of coffee.
For most of my life she worked at a hot dog stand in the mall. Friends, parents of friends, acquaintances, girls I liked, and people who wanted to kick my ass knew and loved my mom. She said hi to everyone who walked by and she greeted everyone with a smile and a wink of an eye. She loved her job because she was a people-pleaser, a caretaker.
She never did anything for herself.
On the surface this is absolutely noble. I’d be a complete devil if I thought otherwise. But this self-sacrifice also showed me how NOT to take chances, how NOT to pursue my dreams and desires.
I don’t know what my mom wanted to be when she was younger. I don’t know what her dreams were. She bounced from job to job until she landed at the hot dog stand and stayed there until she retired.
Like my mom, I’m rather introverted by nature. I overthink things. I second-guess myself (much to my wife’s irritation). I’m scared to take risks and put myself out there. And I’m fully aware of not passing along those fears and insecurities to my kids. I give them pep talks and positive encouragement when they’re trying something new or scary. Or simply to tell them every day how much I’m proud of them.
The lesson was that the safe road is the only road. But that’s not the road I want to show my kids.
Adapting to the Demands of Fatherhood
Remember the scene from SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION when Brooks, the older inmate, finally gets his release from prison? Brooks tries to cross the street and a car races past him and honks, scaring him back onto the sidewalk. Society had changed so much since he was incarcerated.
Later, Brooks sits at a desk in his transitional apartment. He’s writing a letter to the guys at Shawshank about what life outside the concrete walls is like. He observes, “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.”
(If you know the movie, then you know what happens to Brooks after writing the letter. That’s NOT what this section is about.)
At the heart of what Brooks is saying is true. It’s difficult to keep up with the pace of change. Especially today. Society moves too damn fast.
All of that change: technology, climate change, a “flatter” world, divisive politics, the list could go on and on and on. All of it makes parenting damn near impossible. Social media, schooling, the future of work. Every parent worth their salt is concerned about all of those things and more.
It’s odd to say, but it’s true. As a father your number one job is to continue learning. To continue changing and adapting. My boys see me. They study my every movement, action, and reaction. If I can’t adapt and change, then what am I teaching them?
When my wife told me that she didn’t recognize me that day, maybe she was telling me she didn’t recognize my inability to meet the needs of my kids? Not jumping in the lake might seem like a silly thing to make a big deal, but I failed to do something that I’ve done hundreds of times before.
Maybe at that moment I was overwhelmed. The pent up feelings that all parents endure every day might have welled up inside that it consumed me.
It was a wake-up call that change is an essential part of fatherhood.
Letting Go
As I stood on the shore watching my boys swim towards the crowd of people playing on the floating inflatable jumpers, I watched them bonding, connecting on a level that I can’t teach them.
They swam in quick, syncopated strokes — left, right, breathe, left, right, breathe.
Two acting as one.
Together they ventured out and learned that they have each other. I’m off to the side, cheering them on. In time my cheers will fade. But they will always have each other. I have to let go. I have to find different ways and opportunities to step back and let my boys not only be themselves, but to find themselves, together, in different situations.
But with each stroke, I questioned myself whether I’ve taught them enough, at this moment, to survive.
That feeling never goes away. Some call it worry. I call it trust. Do I trust in what I’ve taught them? Have I taught them what they need?
It’s the difficulty of balancing protective instincts with the need to trust my boys’ ability to navigate the world on their own terms.
I often wonder about the moments my parents had when they learned they had to let me go. When I graduated high school. When I got my driver’s license. My first job. Girlfriend. All the events that mark the rite of passage and transformation in a person’s life. How did they feel? What did they learn about themselves and of life in those moments?
I like to think they kept those moments locked in their memory to savor and nourish themselves in their darkest of times.
I know I do.
When my kids finished playing on the floaties, we sat down to eat lunch. It was silent. Families all around us were laughing. Music was blasting.
Knowing I had to do something to try and redeem myself, I rented paddle boats and took my kids and wife out on the lake.
We paddled in silence, circling the shore, staring at houses we didn’t care about. Like the lake beneath us, everything looked normal on the surface but beneath it all, nothing would be the same again.
Luckily my kids didn’t notice. They were happy being in the paddle boats. My wife was quiet for the rest of the day. A coldness came between us.
I tried to bridge the gap by repeatedly asking, “Are you okay?”
She dryly responded, “I’m fine.”
We carried on with the trip, as good parents do, pretending the silence and the distance was normal, until the tension between us dissolved — but never really disappeared.
Fatherhood doesn’t come with an operating manual or directions or any semblance of guidance. There’s no playbook to tell you how to handle moments like these. You just have to trust your feelings. Some things click “on,” and other things turn off without you even noticing.
Maybe that’s what I experienced that day: some kind of internal switch that left me standing there, paralyzed, while my kids swam fearlessly in front of me?
I think every father has a bit of George Bailey in him. We love our families fiercely, but we quietly wonder: Am I enough? We wrestle with the gap between who we are and who we think we’re supposed to be.
But fatherhood isn’t logical. It’s not about being the tough or the smartest guy in the room. It’s messy. It can be terrifying. There’s no clear line between right and wrong.
At the start of our trip, I never thought about how fatherhood has changed me or was changing me. But that moment on the shore of Lake Gregory showed me a side of myself I didn’t know existed. It didn’t make sense.
But fear doesn’t make sense, just like love, just like fatherhood. It’s not supposed to.
And maybe that’s okay. Maybe being a father isn’t about never being afraid or vulnerable, but about being there, in the moment, in all of the uncertainty and contradictions.
Fatherhood is about letting go of who you think you should be, and simply being who you are.
