It's a Bad Time to Have a Fear of Flying

Why are the most politically charged fears the things least likely to happen?

How does anyone have this much leg room in 2025

Something almost every subscriber knows about me by now: I have OCD. I wrote about my diagnosis here, and my OCD still makes guest appearances in otherwise unrelated articles, such as my lighthearted story about how my son’s plastic genie lamp in his school backpack held our family (and his school) hostage all winter, partially due to my OCD-fueled fears that angering his teachers would result in a CPS call, on top of my other OCD-fueled fear that the genie lamp had magical powers that would cause harm to my other child. (You needed to be there.)

Despite all my fears—everything from getting rabies to having someone else’s embryo transferred during IVF—one thing that hasn’t gotten a lot of play is my fear of flying. If someone asked me if I had a fear of flying, I’d probably say no. But at the same time, quite literally every time I get on a plane, there’s a moment of turbulence where I look at my kids and think, “Well, I guess this is the moment we all die.” Invariably, my next steps are:

• effusively tell my kids how much I love them, hopefully without freaking them out

• pray to God for forgiveness for every bad thing I’ve done, and hedge my bets, offering to posthumously convert to whatever religion is actually correct

• look around at the flight attendants to see if they look cheerful or if they’re also doing an interfaith Coward’s Prayer.

I had accepted this fear as another side effect of flying, on par with bringing out the old cracked-screen iPad for my kids that “only works on planes,” Stroopwafels briefly tasting like the best thing in the world, or people scolding me to bounce and entertain my whining baby, who I know is exhausted and trying to fall asleep. And one reason I could largely disregard my mild fear of flying is that I knew it was stupid, and everyone I knew, in real life or online, would confirm it was stupid.

But if you’ve been paying attention, it’s much harder these days to get people to reassure me that a fear of flying is stupid.

Heads up: because I’m celebrating one year of running this Substack, I’m doing a 20% off sale on annual subscriptions! If you’re on the fence, now is a great time to join the CHH community—you obviously get to finish this article, but also receive 5+ articles like this every single week! I’m biased, but I think it’s a pretty good deal.

But don’t ask me, ask my subscribers!