The #1 Thing My Mom Told Us as Preteens

The other night, one of my kids received a phone call from a girl at school…

Afterward, he came into our living room and flopped down on the sofa. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I was so quiet on the phone,” he told me. “She probably thinks I’m boring.”

As we sat there together, my episode of The White Lotus paused on the TV, I told him something my mom told us many times growing up, something I’ve thought about for decades since, and observed and witnessed so many times, I now know it deep in my bones.

“Honey,” I said, stroking his hair, “In situations like these, everyone’s just worrying about themselves.”

It’s true, don’t you think? Have you ever come home after a party and lay awake wondering how someone else came across? Have you ever had an awkward interaction and lamented that someone else was inherently embarrassing? Have you ever hung up the phone worrying if someone else was too reserved or too chatty or too quiet or too loud? No, of course not, you think about yourself. Everyone thinks about themselves.

Cuddling on the sofa, I told my child, “If the person on the phone even noticed that you were quiet, which they probably didn’t, they wouldn’t think, ‘Why is he so quiet?’ Instead, they’d think, ‘Am I uninteresting? Should I be saying something different?'”

Now and again, I have to remind even myself of this, and I’m 46! Recently one of my best friends was quiet on text, and finally I had to ask:

(Our texts remind me of this meme)

Bottom line: We all worry! We’re all trying! We’re all harder on ourselves than anyone else ever has been or will be! And once you realize that everyone is analyzing themselves, and no one is analyzing you, you can just be kind and openhearted and human and awkward and forgiving and loving and whatever you want because you will be free. xoxoxo (Remember this other social anxiety cure-all?)

P.S. 21 completely subjective rules for raising teenage girls and teenage boys, and the best thing my mom did as a parent, overall.

(Photo of my friend Claire with her daughter and my son. xoxo)