To think that all mums are losers

[Zavi]

My own experience of motherhood involves so much loss...

Gone are the days when...

I could hold my tiny baby with a single arm.

I was held out as a paragon of virtue ("that's my mum" said with huge pride to new kids he'd met in the playground) by my son

My DC's eye would widen with delight at the sight of me first thing in the morning

My pre fluent-speaker DC's would express himself (exquisitely for me) in jumbled words, expressions and mal-approprisims

I could go on and on...

but they are all gone, never to appear again!

Hate this aspect of parenthood: this sense of the loss of the child that my child was when they were younger.

And my DC is just 8 yrs!

I just find that, things always seem so rosy in retrospect but I only really, properly, appreciate them in retrospect - when they are gone forevermore, instead of "living in the moment"

Hence the loss....

Anyone else felt that parenthood, inherently, involves loss?

desirable blush

I feel your pain, ds3 has just moved back home and I am bizarrely excited, two of my friends have lost their children in the last couple of months, both of a similar age to him, one to cystic fibrosis, one to a motorcycle accident. All 3 ds children are now adults, make the most of every minute because too soon it is a memory.
At one time I had three under three and it was a logistical nightmare at times, right now I think I would swap a whole lot to get five minutes of that time back

Childhood goes so fast

Until they become fecking teenagers and then time seems to stand bloody still!!

what a maudlin view if being mum.stop moping,stop weeping what was
you get on with the here and now instead of indulgent posts about loss
it's all going on all there to enjoy,instead of introspective loss just get on with iy

Can't you have another one OP? Then you can do it all over again. I have a 7 year gap and its not too bad

what?have another yay relive that mammy moment?it's not like buying a puppy
raising a child is the move ons,is the constant transitions,not getting maudlin
have another one sounds so glib,like buying a pet.what if op lost again in 8yrs, ave another?

I miss BFing because DD2 did it for so long, but in most other ways I enjoy seeing them grow and develop.

I certainly don't miss never finishing an adult conversation chasing bolting DD1.

OPs choice if she feels at loss enough to post here. Scottishmummy, why do you assume people don't put much thought in planning a family. OP will consider her situation and see if it fits that and I don't expect her to bin her pill to follow mumsnet advice

You're all over shop dry,op can post whatever she wants,posters respond.that's mn
your post was frankly so glib.dearie miss the baby years?have another then
if she feels maudlin when kid is 8yo this may recur,does she keep having more to relive baby time!

Aw have another glass...

have another glass?
that's odd
but consistent with your odd hey have another baby posts

Anyone who misses their child being small is just treating them as a dog they'd paid out money for SM?

What on earth??

keep up before you get indignant.she was advised hey,have another do it all again
so glib,so superficial like you just keep replacing children to have baby years with
it's not like that.a child isn't a hey do it all again commitment.it's not that easy

Well no I don't think it is a loss, I enjoy newborn babies and stumbling toddlers, but like people have said, you wouldn't want to be stuck in that phase forever. It's more interesting to be constantly going through new phases. Dd is 9 and I think starting the whole puberty thing, this will be erm interesting, judging by her strops thus far.

It's a bit like those people who wail and gnash teeth about children going to nursery/school, all the "I'm losing my baby" posts. I honestly don't get that. Ds2 will be going to nursery in January, he has never been looked after by anyone but me/dp. I thought he would be freaked out, but he loved his taster day, he will gain so much from nursery, I'm excited for him.

I'm the least sentimental person I know though, so maybe that is it.

I do think some Women are somewhat addicted to the pregnancy/baby thing though, there is zero need to be having double figures of children.

I've heard of less credible reasons for deciding to have another baby than because you enjoyed looking after one who's got older SM.

Nothing to do with replacing an older child at all.

I love who my 12 YO DD1 is now in the same way as I did when she was a baby, but that didn't mean because I liked looking after her as a baby (for mostly selfish reasons as I said before) that I was replacing her when DD2 was born.

And neither of them have anything to do with the way I feel about our dog, who, love her as I do, doesn't have a share in the emotion I have for my daughters.

(OK, she does, but only a small bit in comparison)

I've considered it all as happy progression
1st day nursery,1st day school,happy events
they move on,as a parent you support that.

I do support it SM, honestly I do.

DD2 would never know I felt like that about having a snuggle in the morning with her while she pokes my eyes to get them open, or when she comes up and throws herself on me with her arms round my neck, and that a small part of me is sad because I don't want it to end.

I can feel that at the same time as knowing it should rightly end at some point. I'm not reckoning on keeping her in a perpetual state of being a baby for my own ends.

I just don't do those things with other people and don't want to really, so I'll miss it when it's not there and she's all stroppy and telling me I don't understand her.

Maybe that's it SM, I understand her at the moment and it just complicates things when school/hormones get involved?

I love watching DS grow up, but I know what you mean. I was looking at an ornament that had a picture of him as a very young toddler on it and I thought, "Oh I'd like to hold that baby again, just for a minute!" :)

Mine are all taller than me now but they are still my babies!
I think that you are looking at it as 'the glass half empty' rather than 'the glass half full'. You do lose things but you really wouldn't want a lifetime at that stage - you gain as you go to the next and you have all the memories ( and so do they). You don't stop being a mother at 18yrs.

My DC are 11 and 8, and I did think that I would be sad to see them grow up, and I do have a little moment when I remember them fitting on to my chest, but they keep doing new and wonderful things. DS started secondary school, and I came home from work on Friday to find he'd made me a cake (following a recipe from the Great British Bake off Christmas special!) because it was the end of term and I've been a bit stressed.

Now that will be up there with the other memories that make my eyes mist over. They just keep adding to it it OP. In years to come, you will remember now as you remember their younger selves today.

I really love this blog post on time with our kids. :)

If that's how you feel, OP, then that's how you feel.

But I think such an overwhelmingly negative post about the normal experience of motherhood is inevitably going to touch a nerve for people who would give their right arm to experience all those "losses".

"My own experience of motherhood involves so much loss..."
When I read this opening sentence I was fully prepared for you to disclose some real losses, but what actually followed was a list of the normal milestones of childhood.

I think it is terribly sad if that really is the way you feel about motherhood - but I am very uncomfortable with you presenting yourself as having suffered "so much loss" when there are so many people who truly know what loss is.

Gosh op I bet you wish you'd never bothered starting this thread?!