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?

No I don't really. My eldest will never speak so others can understand him (I do understand his words in a way no-one else does), and will never be able to live alone.

I feel more loss with him really than the other two although their baby days are well behind him. All those hopes and expectations I had.

agree with kungfu. however well meant the OP, it was unintentionally thoughtless to those who have lost children and those whose children will never go beyond the pre-fluent stage.

Zavi, I understand what you mean infact I was speaking to some friends the other day about the little things you miss as they grow up. One example was the fact that my DS used to double up on lots of words so chocolate was "Choc-choc"and another was that he used to introduce himself to people as "Limam" (Liam), habits that at the time seemed bizarre and I worked hard to correct but sometimes 5 years on I wish he would do it again just once :)

Now he is 6 and brings something new to us everyday like the fact he will read EVERYTHING with a word on it or whatever hair raising stunt he has decided to try on his big boy bike, these are all things we couldn't even imagine when he was younger so the more he does and learns the more he us becoming his own person that e can have fun with and teach in a new way.

Yes it is easy to look back and say we miss those times but like someone else said your small child is still in there and sometimes you catch a glimpse of how they used to be (for me this is when DS starts speaking about "electytricity" :o

When Dd was 14 I did miss the funny, kind, fun-loving 3 year old that she used to be. Quite a lot, actually. I think that those teenage years that girls go through are the hardest that we ever experienced as a family.
She is now 16 and I am so proud of her and feel guilty that i wanted her to be 3 again. But if I hadn't kept thinking back to those days, then i don't know how I would have survived.
So I can understand how you feel op.

Watching my children grow is so bittersweet. That first day of school for ds1, I should have been doing a year earlier with dd1. Every Christmas, every birthday, every special event has a face missing. Some days it hits me like a tonne of bricks.

That's loss. Watching your children grow, develop, learn, enjoy - how can that ever be described as a loss?

Horribly insensitive thread, no matter how unintentional it was.

Is it comforting to be sentimental? Neighbour (10 yrs old than me, had 4) always says that line "They grow up so fast!"; I've never felt that way. I feel guilty for not being able to relate.

Very wise friend advised when we were 20 that every age should be enjoyed for itself. I guess I took that to heart.

I can only muster wistful nostalgia when I compare my sweet innocent compliant docile angelic-faced 4yo to my stroppy spotty smelly self-centred wilful teenager (muse).

Starfish -I was having a discussion last night about how as a sister of a severely brain damaged child I felt no one really 'got' what my childhood was like. People are either indifferent, sympathetic or just don't understand the impact it had. I'm not maudlin or asking for sympathy at all but my childhood was different because of an often desperately ill sister.

I don't really expect anyone to understand anymore than I can appreciate life in their situation. I often think about my parents and feel so much sorrow for them. Not sure what the point of my post is tbh :) starfish's post struck a cord I guess.

I think it's a bit like survivors guilt and they don't wish to confront it. In our case it was same old same old (today she's ill, today she's very ill, today she's ill) so not exactly positive unless we lied

So a conspiracy of pretending life is normal, develops

I appreciate people asking after her otherwise its like she doesn't exist. They don't have to know what say but tbh just any acknowledgement or interest validates it all

Anyway back on topic. I feel some sense of nostalgia but not loss about my DC growing up.

I didn't enjoy the baby stage, and I found the toddler age a ball ache. DD is 4 now (still very young) but her personality is fucking awesome, we laugh so much, and can communicate...I love her growing up and becoming the person she wants to be

For anyone who has really lost their child and is feeling that sense of loss, I can not imagine your pain, but feel an abyss of feeling when I even try to think about it. My sympathies are with you.

For anyone who mourns when their child grows and develops within the expected bell curve, you should stow your sorrow and enjoy the fact that you have so much to be grateful for. Parents who have children with disabilities also feel joy as their children develop, but strangely enough, they have a little more to feel sad about.

having experienced ups and downs I'm grateful and happy for all progression
I think op shouldn't get a gard time she meant no harm
hard as it is,there's always triggers or reminders that are wounding.ir canfeel as if world doesn't stop or accommodate loss,it's so individual

What you are describing Op, is really the transience of life in general, not just the experience of having children. It can feel very sad, but agree with others who suggest choosing to look at it as a series of beginnings and not endings. Things cannot stay the same, and we wouldn't want them to- not really. Change is a privilege , as the parents who have lost children point out.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet.

That has always summed it up for me.

magimed that is beautiful, and something to aspire to at least.

Starfish how old is your boy? :)

Hi missy, I've only read to page one and won't carry on, as this is beginning to upset me. But, I can tell the op meant no harm. She sounds a lovely mum,who,fortunately has never had to think about "loss" in the true sense of the word.
At this time of year, it's hard for the Mums who face Christmas without a child that should be here with us. I know I am trying to keep it together.
But, that is for me to deal with.

For what it's worth op, I really miss the baby stages,too!

Happy Christmas everyone

I think it's really quite damaging to get stuck in this constant mourning of the past. (Admittedly I found the early stages so absolutely horrible that I wanted to hit, very hard, anyone who told me to 'enjoy it while it lasts'.)

Yes, my daughters were adorable babies and toddlers. I panicked when DD1 hit four, because I didn't know how to 'do' older children - and my own childhood was mostly pretty unhappy.

But actually, I bloody adore them at every age they are. And they are their own people now, at 11 and nine, and that is so much more fun and interesting. I'm not going to get stuck in a never ending cycle of sentimental self-pity.

I don't think the op meant any harm...

This is a difficult time of year for parents who have lost children.

My ds is disabled, i wonder, only very occasionally, what the future holds for him. I've realised i have concentrated so much on his strengths that i don't know what a typical 7year old is like,even though he's my 4dc.

I learnt the only way i could cope was to be very grateful for each thing he managed to achieve. I adore him for who he is,i don't see his disabilities.

Like an earlier post,my friends or family Dont have the same perspective as i do. How could they? i really don't wish that skill on anyone!

Christmas is a time to reflect,to be grateful for what we have&to mindful of those less fortunate.

For my part, I am thinking rather a lot about a dear friend whose daughter died this August, a few days short of her sixth birthday.

She has reasons, masses, of them, for selfpity. I really don't.

OP, I also think you're not going to do your child any favours with that attitude.

Actually I kind of agree unfortunately with chris. You should be grateful u are witnessing their growing up! You seem very sentimental today or drunk/maudlin and I don't see in ur post a reason why? Has something happened?

I see how it's sad that things change and how fleeting that moments truly are, honestly, I don't understand why you seem so down rather than philosophical about it. Have u and ur child fought today?

I remember reading something when I was pregnant with DS1 where a woman described her experience of motherhood as joyful but also as a series of mini bereavements. Having my parents die when I was relatively young made me think she was being daft but I can now see she had point.

It's not that I wish my kids were still babies - it's just that I have loved all of their ages and stages and I want to do it all again (but knowing what I know now). I want them to be all their ages all the time and the ages yet to come. Because they are wonderful and I am greedy.