Last month, my mother-in-law (who has never been in the military) pulled the most brilliant of sneak attacks on us. As she was chatting away with my five-year old on Skype video, she said very casually asked, “Are you coming to Texas to spend your summer with me? You are old enough to fly by yourself now.” My daughter was instantly bouncing off the walls, announcing to everyone in sight that she was flying to Texas for the whole summer. To her, it was a done deal.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled.  I gave my mother-in-law big props for using all the leverage she could manage in the situation because, while it annoyed me, I probably would have done the exact same thing if I had been in her shoes. However, I was a little ticked that my daughter would be so quick to be ecstatic about leaving me for such a long time, although Eric and I have worked long and hard to encourage her sense of independence.  Most of all though, I felt fear.  A lot of fear.

What if the plane crashed? What if she got lost??? What if something happened during the flight and Riley needed help? What if….??? What if…???

As I tend to tackle problems analytically, I worked through each level of fear logically. I reminded myself that statistically, Riley is in more danger in my car than an airplane. It just has the illusion of safety because we do it all the time. I called the airlines and was assured that a child is never without the company of a responsible adult at every point of the trip. As for my other fears, they were addressed by the fact that Riley is incredibly good at verbalizing her requests and needs and superb at entertaining herself. (I do feel sorry for the person who gets seated next to her, because she does like to have lengthy conversations with adults.)

But all that logic didn’t make me feel any better. I wasn’t any closer to making a decision about whether I could let her go. All the answers to my own questions just sounded like excuses, contrived to trick me into letting my daughter do a very foolish thing. But something was niggling in me to keep thinking about the issue.

So when logic couldn’t help me, I went to my values. What do I really value for Riley? What type of woman do I want to raise her to be? The answers came easily.

• A sense of adventure.
• Independence.
• A deep bond with her grandmother.

How does a child learn to value adventure? She has to experience it. How does a child become independent? She has to practice being on her own and realizing that she is capable. And how does a child form a deep bond with her grandmother who lives over 3,000 miles away? She has to actually spend time with her. And time without Mom and Dad hovering close by.

It was at that point in my thought process that I realized that my values must be reflected in my actions not just in my words. If I say these values are important to me, but I refuse – out of my own fear – to allow Riley to take the necessary steps to ingrain these values in her life, I am just spouting off verbiage to make myself look good. After all, what parent ever proudly boasts, “I want my daughter to be completely dependent on others her whole life” or “I want my daughter to live her life bound up in fear of the unknown” or “I don’t want my daughter to bond with her grandmother” (unless, of course, grandma is unhealthy for her)???  No one says these things – yet it is so easy to do the things that lead to them if we aren’t careful.

The concept of values and actions comes into play in our sex lives as well. If what we say we value is different that what we actually do, then we need to pay heed to that disconnect.

Let’s say that we profess that a frequent sex life is important, but sex just never seems to happen. We get really busy during the day with the kids and so we are too tired at night. It looks really good on the surface – makes us appear to be phenomenal parents because we give so much to our kids. But is pouring into our kids an excuse to avoid intimacy?

Here’s another one. Perhaps our dirty little secret is that Lost, or The Bachelor or Leno is more important to us that bonding with our spouses. It’s just so easy to leave that TV on instead of interacting together. Ultimately, TV demands a lot less of us.

Here’s an exercise for you. Sometime this week, take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center. Label one side as “values” and the other as “actions”. Values reflect what you believe to be important and actions are what you actually do. If there is a disconnect between the two, then write down two new actions that you can take this week to support your values. If your actions and values are way out of alignment, then pick two actions to do each week until you find the situation rectified.

Just so you know, Riley is booked to visit her grandmother in Texas this summer. Since this is the first year of travel alone, we are starting out with three weeks. I am still fearful. I do, however, wholeheartedly believe that my responsibility as a parent is to confront my own fears for the growth of my child. It is not easy, but the values I hold are too precious to be held hostage by fear.