"It shows I care"

In a good many families, worry is how love gets said. "Text me when you get there." "I couldn't sleep until I heard the door." "I've been worried sick about you." If you grew up with that, you learned two things together. One was that people who love you worry about you. The other was that if you don't worry about someone, perhaps you don't love them enough.

So the idea of worrying less about your children, or your parents, or your partner's health, can feel like a plan to care less. There's a touch of the last chapter's superstition in it too, a feeling that a good mother stays on watch, and that the one night she doesn't will be the night something happens.

I want to separate caring from worrying, because I think they've been welded together by habit and they come apart quite cleanly.

Caring shows up in what you do for the other person. It might mean ringing your father on Sundays, going with him to the hospital appointment and writing down what the consultant says. It might mean teaching your daughter to check her tyres and paying for breakdown cover. When your friend tells you about her test results, it means listening properly, with your mind on her and not on your own fear. All of these reach the other person and make some difference to their life.

Worrying, in the sense of this book, happens in your head at two in the morning. Your father doesn't know about it, and it does nothing for his heart. Your daughter's car isn't made safer by your sitting up. If she could see you, she wouldn't feel loved so much as guilty, and she might start telling you less about her plans. That's a common result. The children of heavy worriers often learn to edit what they report, to protect the parent. The worrier then knows less about the child's life and has less chance to help.

And when the worry does reach the other person, it doesn't always arrive as love. Often it arrives as pressure. "Are you sure you should take that job?" "You're not going to cycle in this weather, are you?" To the person on the other end, it can sound like a lack of confidence in them. Some of them hear "I don't think you can manage". That's not what you mean at all, but it's what gets through.

The objection I hear most often goes like this. "My mother worried about me constantly, and that's how I knew she loved me." I believe it. But I'd ask what, specifically, you remember with warmth. I'd guess it's the things she did. She waited up with the kettle on, or sent a parcel to your first flat. She turned up when things went wrong. Those were acts. The hours she lay awake did nothing for you, and they cost her a good deal. You could keep the acts and spare yourself the hours, and nobody you love would be any worse off.

There's also a social side. In some groups of friends and some workplaces, trading worries is how people bond. "Aren't you worried about the restructure?" "I'm terrified about secondary school places." If you stop joining in with the same energy, you may feel you're being cold. You don't have to make a show of it. You can be interested in someone's concern, and kind about it, without taking it home with you.

So here's a way to translate a worry into care. When you notice one about someone you love, ask whether there's anything you could do for them this week. If there is, do it, and let that be how your love shows. If there isn't, because they're an adult and it's their life and their drive home, then for now the caring thing may be to trust them. Trust is one of the ways love gets shown, and when you worry about someone all the time they don't get much of it.