Does being a mum mean worrying forever?

[mcrlover]

DD (baby) is at the end of recovering from a sick bug, and it has been such a stressful few days. Finally she's asleep and I have so much residual stess. She started nursery a few months ago so is still catching everything. I am finding it so stressful and anxiety-inducing. Feels like I'm in a constant stress loop that she's healthy and safe.

Is being a mum this stressful all the time (YANBU) or does the stress and worry get better (YABU)?

Yep never stops

It’s a bit of an up and down thing I fear. When they’re tiny, particularly with your first, everything seems a bit scary, and it is, you’re literally in charge of a tiny human, then it gets less worrying ime, you find your feet and they get that bit more hardy as they get towards toddlerhood / primary etc. Then it’s a different kind of worry, you can’t protect them from everything and you feel quite out of control, or so I gather. Mine are still quite small, 4 and 1. I try not to think about the teenage years and beyond too much 😂
I expect it’s partly down to your own natural disposition. MIL for example is, god love her, a fucking drama queen so is prone to worrying and having a stress about everything so naturally that translates to still worrying wildly about her ‘darling boys’, who are now 38, 36 and 33… and mostly relatively sensible… ish 😂

I feel this way too. I worry every single day but they are my greatest joy and I love them more than I ever thought possible. That is worth every shred of worry I feel over them.

I have three DC aged 21,25/26 and 30
i worry a bit about the little one (all 6’2” of him) as he is in a transitional time and has always needed a bit of steering.
don’t worry about the other two really, even though one is in a very high risk profession.
its such a relief.

For me yes. I still can’t sleep until my son is home from a night out and he’s 21. As much as I love him being at home I get some relief when he goes back to uni, I can’t worry every minute if I don’t know what he’s doing. My other son lives with his gf so I don’t worry so much there. My worry can slip into unhealthy anxiety though, and being on my own means I have no one to bring me down to sanity. My worry annoys me, the mother of my son’s best friend never worries about him. Sometimes I wish I was more like her but she doesn’t have the warm closeness I have with my kids. I don’t let them know how much I worry though as year’s ago one of them got quite annoyed at me about it, so I’ve stayed schtum since. 🫤

Physically it gets much easier as they get older. Mentally, it gets much harder. My eldest is 32 this year and I probably worry about her more now she has her own children and a demanding career. Middle DC is 30 and settled in a happy relationship/new home but I worry that her (very lovely) DP has got a drink problem and I'm concerned about her getting married/having kids. Youngest is 27, very emotionally fragile, had an ED in her teens and I'll never stop worrying about her. I think your worries just change with their ages, to be honest.

You get a bit more used to it. Those devastating what if scenarios that show up in your mind all the time become kind of normal to you. Its mainly just acceptance and focusing on controlling what you can.

Aww the worry is insane !! I have 2 adult children one I don't t worry so much the oldest is a constant worry !!! He b 26 soon 😊 just part of being a parent it's a lifelong job ! I really love it but if I could worry less it wud be even better x

Yeah sorry but i deffo don’t think that worry goes away. The bigger they get the bigger the issues get and the less in your control (or even sphere of experience) they are. Whilst I love the close relationship we have as they’re older, in many respects it would be easier for me if I wasn’t a sounding board for all of their problems - because if I was in the dark perhaps I’d worry less. But I’d take that worry 100 times over for my kids to know (no matter how old they are) that they can pick up the phone or come see me and tell me anything. And that’s on top of the usual worries that they’ll get into terrible trouble whilst out drinking or will crash their car on a long journey. I empathise with the poster who said them going back to uni is a relief because sometimes when they’re home it’s worse as you have a rough idea of what they’re doing all the time, when the eldest is away at uni I can have some element of blissful ignorance.

Only if you let it. Yes you do worry about your children until the day you die it’s natural. But the things people worry about today would not have had an eye blink years ago. People think everything is so hard and everything causes them anxiety. We didn’t have enough time for anxiety.

The worry doesn’t go away, but you worry about different things. I get so anxious about my little ones being ill, e.g. checking their breathing etc if they have a particularly bad cough but if DS who’s 17 had the same cough, I wouldn’t worry as much. However I worry about him crashing his car (now he drives!), something bad happening whilst he’s at a party, things like that.

I can control things better in terms of safety with my little ones but once they’re out in the world you have less control. I think you just get used to that constant concern, to be honest. DH always says it’s the price of love, which helped me reframe it in my head.

I think from the day they are born you live with the awareness that if anything bad happened to them it has the potential to destroy you.
This is a huge burden that can't be put down, and so the only way is to find a way to carry it as best you can so its weight doesn't overwhelm you.
You take the necessary actions to manage risk at each stage, from awareness of illness in your new born, to safety advice when they go travelling as young adults.
Then, satisfied you've done all you can, and that the odd are in your favour (most children grow to adulthood, encounter no huge mishap, thrive and outlive us); you accept that it's impossible to have love and joy and freedom without any worry, and that the second is the price you pay for the first.

Personally I've found it gets better as they get older but it looks like I'm in the minority!

This really.

I’ve not voted as while the worry never goes, I do think that some of the anxiety you are describing sounds rather extreme.

I went through a period before DD was born worry about how I would deal with the constant worry for their safety and wellbeing. In reality, in terms of the day-to-day stuff, I’m rather relaxed about things. Don’t worry about her at nursery, a tumble- fine, general illnesses not fun but they get over them.

However, all of that goes alongside the knowledge that she is the most important and vital thing. That I have never felt love like this and if anything happened to her it would break me utterly. I don’t know how or if I could carry on.

There are times when I worry dreadfully - a few minutes of ‘oh no, is it meningitis’, when I see a rash; devastation when she said that nobody at nursery liked her (she soon made friends); and a mixture of worry and guilt about the state of the world now and what we have to come.

But all of it is made worth it by watching this wonderful, silly, joyful, interested, very normal and totally unique child growing up into a wonderful creature and watching as she discovers the world.

As the poster above says: we never stop worrying, but it’s always important to watch yourself as that very natural worry can easily slip into irrational anxiety and catastrophizing.

Yes, it does. You are only ever as happy as your unhappiest child.

I've been sad for a while that my absolutely gorgeous, talented, wonderful daughter hasn't had a relationship (ASD etc) and it's getting to the point where she probably won't be a mother.

But parenthood has its downsides - the price of having children you love is a kind of eternal low-level anxiety for all kinds of reasons. To some it's just not worth it (but few people understand this until they've had children).

I know that my daughter's psychology is not ideal for motherhood. She's also bi-polar and I would worry that she might be tipped into severe PND. I've seen the effects of really severe PND at close hand with a friend's daughter, and I would hate that bomb to go off in my family.

But it's up to her - and I'd support her whatever she wants to do.

It depends how their personal/emotional relationships go! If it's all like a fairytale - great. But it can be gruelling for them and you when these things go wrong.

I'm afraid it gets worse. When they're children you're responsible but have control. When they're adults you don't feel any less responsible but you lose the control.
One of mine has ongoing health issues which probably doesn't help.

Yes. Ds 37 and 28 and now a grandson and I worry about them all

Mine are early 20s and I worry far more about them now than I did when they were children.

I have three children whom I love more than my life. I confirm that this quote is true.

Also as soon as the least happy one sorts something out, something else will happen to them/another child to keep you on your toes.

I wonder though - if parents have really happy children, are they also really happy? Everyone has their own stuff going on.

You can worry inside your own head without them knowing. I am 100% in favour of young adults making their own decisions and going their own way.

Yes, in my experience, being a mum does mean worrying forever. My daughter is 35. I still worry.

Yes. It just becomes a different set of problems to worry about. Right now you know where they are and what they are doing.
teenage years bring different worries and hoping you have done enough to instil sense into them
adult children are going to go through pain and heartache and you just want to protect them and take away any pain but you can’t.

No.

I say this as someone whose 2yo son was in A&E at 2am on Saturday. His immediate symptoms were at a level where I needed to worry about him. And I hated the fact that he didn't like taking the medicine.

But now I know the cause of his illness and how to manage it I'm fine again.

Funnily enough my MIL is always instructing me "not to worry", because she thinks my noticing things and acting on them is "worrying". I don't see it as worrying. Just observing, taking note and acting appropriately. And she declined to take him to the pharmacy to be checked over the afternoon before the night trip (she was babysitting).

So it depends what you mean by "worry" really.