I stood in the hallway, heart pounding harder than it should for a Sunday afternoon. Every horror story other parents had whispered over coffee crowded my mind. I’d promised myself I would not become the parent who listens at doors, who treats their child like a problem to be solved. Yet there I was, hand on the doorknob, wondering if trust meant doing nothing—or looking anyway.

When I finally opened the door, the scene was almost painfully ordinary: textbooks spread out, my daughter animatedly explaining equations, her boyfriend nodding, pencil moving across paper. No scrambling, no guilt, no secret to catch—just two kids doing homework, my worst fears exposed as my own projections. Closing the door again, I felt both foolish and strangely grateful. I understood then that trust isn’t the absence of worry; it’s choosing, in the middle of that worry, not to let fear define who you are to your child.