why doesn't anyone tell you about the grief?

Please don’t use the word grief, it’s incredibly insulting to those who have actually lost a loved child.

Respectfully, it's not up to you to police peoples feelings or words - that is also incredibly insulting.

No one is trying to compare their situation to anyone else, just expressing their own personal experience in the context of their own lives.

I starting thinking about my daughter leaving home when she decided she didn't want to hold my hand anymore when we were out. By the time she leaves I think I will have dealt with it. I will still cry

Bittersweet, yes. Grief, no. I hope you never get to know the true difference. When you have grief over a child it doesn't get better as you adjust to the new stage. It complicates your life forever. You also never get to get excited about them coming home. It's a very different thing.

Yup - I felt it intensely with my first one and it wasn't as hard with subsequent ones.

Plus by the time the last one left, the first one was back home again 🤣

But it's a very real, specific kind of sadness - and I disagree that it isn't grief. It's the end of that time in your child's life when they lived with you - wonderful for them to be starting this exciting new time but so bittersweet for you. You are allowed to grieve that that time is over.

It will ease off, I promise. The first 3 or 4 weeks are the worst and then the new rhythms of life settle in and it's okay again. By Christmas you will be excited for them to come home and just as excited to see them off again 😉

My DS has finished university now but I was surprised how much he was still here! The Christmas, Easter and Summer breaks are very long. It felt like he was back almost 50% of the time.

I thought i'd feel it ..but nope lol. We still have group family time and facetime a lot. I'm more proud of her over coming so many struggles - eating disorder, anxiety etc..i thought she'd not cope - i didn't even think she's finish school. We do the 4 hour trip some weekends to catch up for the weekend or she will come home. Was every weekend, but now much more settled and has bucket loads of school work to do..I thought my DD2 would struggle as they're best friends..but taking her room (the best room in the house) totally made up for it and she's even caught the train to hang with her. I'm loving seeing her so independent.

OP I wrote this post almost exactly a year ago. I was really bereft. I'm so close to my children and I found it difficult. I have a great job, social life etc - so unlike the PP suggests, this feeling isn't because you don't have anything else going.

My advice is just to feel the emotions. Everyone says it does get better and it really does. I still feel sad every time they come back and then leave again, but nothing like how I felt dropping them off for their first year.

Sending love.

Well to answer your question, people didn’t tell you about it because:
a) it’s not grief, it’s sadness and you should be grateful it’s not grief
b) not everyone feels the same way,
c) if they do feel this way they have the ability to rationalise that their DC is happy, independent and fulfilled so it’s a happy sadness
d) being told about something like this beforehand doesn’t change the experience.
e) not everyone wants to go around like a negative Nancy pre warning their friends that they’re about to feel bad. And why would someone else have more insight into your emotions than you do yourself?

My DD told me she’s definitely moving away for University next year. She’d been considering staying at home and going locally (this is quite a popular thing where I live). I jumped for joy. Not for me - I’m going to miss her like crazy and I get a physical pain sometimes when I think about it. But I’m happy for her, this is the right thing for her life and future. And that’s what parenthood is about.

I understand being sad but crying everyday for weeks seems bizarre to me. Those saying its like grieving someone has never gone through real grief of losing a child or young person. I understand you may feel that way but you shouldn't tell other people that. Like that thread yesterday where someone has posted an instagram video grieving my son going to university and then tagging her friend who actually lost their son! I would have thought parents would want their children to be independent, get on the next stage of their life. Some children can't do that.

I think 'grief' is a huge over dramatisation. I missed my daughter very much when she went to university, but she came home for holidays and an occasional weekend, and we also went to visit her once or twice each term. I was so happy for her thst she was doing exactly what she wanted to do, and that we had brought her up to have the confidence to move 200 miles away and manage her own life.

acknowledged by who?
make a bigger scene
the pride/joy /relief of ds 1 get the uni place he wanted was icredibly different to the reality of drop him off, (still think)blocked off phone(claimed bd reception for first 6 weeks)
grief might be a bit excessive but ...i get your meaning in tht it hit like a brick....all you can do is give it/and your DC time...focus on....this is now.you NEVER stop being mum
my ds1 post grad ...other end of country-we re closer than most i think.calls me or ds 2 (14) on his walk home from work most days.
change is often hard,if its moving as it should be...go with it

I understand the sadness but grief is different. Grief is what you feel when your dc dies. It’s a pain like nothing else. There was a thread yesterday about how insensitive it is to use the word.

watching modern family finale I sobbed thinking that will be us as Claire and Phil in the next 10 years… then my dc behaved badly and that eased the pain. We’re making plans for life once the nest empties. It might include new pets and travel.

Please don’t use the word grief, it’s incredibly insulting to those who have actually lost a loved child.

@Bibbetybobbity thats exactly how I feel.

@sunseaandsoundingoff · Today 22:27

I think it's the difference between parents who make their kids their whole life and haven't really have any interests outside of them for 18 years, and those who have.

Wow, RUDE! So, parents who are blue - and feel low - when their DC start Uni, are sad because they have fuck-all else in their lives except their children?

Catch yourself on FFS!

What an ignorant and unpleasant post.

I must be in the minority because I don’t feel it. Older 2 dds have been to uni and now both graduated. I missed them, of course I did, but was happy and excited for them (and also enjoyed having fewer people to cook for!).

Dd3 is 17 and autistic and even though she is high functioning, she’s emotionally quite young. She does have plans to go to university eventually but at the moment I find it hard to imagine. I’ll be singing from the rooftops if and when she goes!

I actually think I’ll feel more grief if she stays at home. I see my job as raising independent adults and I’ll be sad if it doesn’t happen.

What a load of rubbish implying if you're not devastated your children are going to university you don't love them . I just felt incredibly proud when mine went. It was the making of them. And no they didn't come back afterwards they just have fantastic careers and I'm excited for them. I don't secretly hope they'll boomerang back and live with me for years either. Doesn't mean someone falling apart loves their children more than I love mine.

I went to uni over 45 years ago and my mum sent me an article from a magazine in which the writer was relating her sadness at her child going to uni. "The empty place at the table and the missing toothbrush in the bathroom." Young people leaving home has never been easy. I missed mine so very much when they went. The way of life (for some strange reason we all think will last for ever !) is altered ,never to be quite the same again. However you get used to the new normal.

I think it's alright and understandable to have sadness, maybe even strong sadness, but otherwise I totally agree.

I cried a river when they started their first day of school.

It's the spectre of their growing up and forging a life without you at its heart. You know, the very things you bring them up to do.

Motherhood can be brutal.

But then they come home and bring others and a new generation in their wake.

That will be your consolation.

It's not a real loss, it's a change to be celebrated. OP's child is thriving and moving forward in life. Some of us had to stick our similar aged children into a hole in the ground and will never speak to them again, never see them go off to university, never see them graduate and get married, have children. We can't share good or bad news with them.

There's nothing wrong with some sadness but grief for a living child is misplaced. Be grateful.

You really really don't get to tell others what they're feeling.

What a really helpful comment. 🙄⭐️

You are confusing grief (an emotional reaction to change and loss) and bereavement (mourning a death). Grief is precisely what OP is experiencing.