Does anyone else feel deep sadness about missing their children's future?

[SillyOctopus]

Hello!

I'm a fifty year-old dad with a happy family and two wonderful daughters, 9 and 4. A Google search brought me to an old post on Mumsnet about this and I am 'glad' I'm not alone. I'd love to hear about other people's thoughts and feelings - mums and dads.

Fairly often I feel real physical, tangible sadness that I will die and I won't be able to be with my children. Today - I'm welling up, with a tight throat and waves of tight chest feelings - hence I was Googling it and see some other people have the same experience. I suppose I just wanted to 'say it', so I'm writing it here.

It feels selfish in a way - it's not that I feel that they'll miss me, but that I won't be around to enjoy their company. I feel real strong physical, tangible sadness and regret that I won't be able to be with my children. I already feel that their childhood, and our time together, is going far too fast.

I'm not afraid of being dead, I'm not religious and I believe that once you're dead there's nothing. It's like 'advance regret' - hard to put into words.

I don't know whether it makes any difference, but I'm bipolar 2 and had a recent diagnosis of autism spectrum. My emotions have often been quite extreme or quite flat across my life. Having children opened up whole new areas of emotional experience, so I guess this is still a learning experience as they and I grow!

At any rate, if there's a positive to this, I at least try very hard to make sure we all enjoy our time together - from bedtime stories to days out, or just watching tv together. In the end, I just want them to be ok and have the best lives and happy memories. I keep it to myself and certainly don't inflict these feelings on them!

Thanks :)

God some of the comments on here.

Stop thinking about it, stop dwelling on it blah blah...

If only it were that easy. Its like saying to someone with anxiety to stop being anxious, or someone that worries to stop worrying, or someone with depression to smile and get on with it. Life, and emotions and thoughts are just not that simple.

I get it OP. I try not to think about the future too much in that sense but its hard sometimes.

I'm in my 50's now and my DD's are both grown up and in stable relationships, with one getting married next year. I want to be in their lives forever! I don't want to miss a single thing. I want to watch them have children, and watch those children grow and thrive and to have the big family Christmas surrounded by Grandchildren. It makes me sad if I think too much about things that may happen and I won't be here for it. So I guess, I just try not to think about it. But it seems its not as easy as that for you.

Just keep doing what you are doing and try to enjoy those moments that you have with them. Cherish them and don't wish time away because its not until their childhoods are over that you fully appreciate how precious they were.

Reframing your thoughts will help you stop feeling and thinking this way and a counsellor or therapist will help you to do this.

I had a counsellor after my Mum passed away, just for a course of 6 sessions, but it was so helpful to be able to talk about what was going on in my head, without ANY judgement and have her help me reframe the way I think about things and look at things. It changed my perspective on everything and stopped me spiraling.

Maybe worth a try for you?

I lost my dad a few years ago, he was mid 80s and I was 60. Objectively I know how lucky I was to have had a loving father for 60 years. I get upset to think how sad my children will be when I die, knowing how raw I felt when dad died at such a good age.
I feel sad that they’ll be upset and I won’t be around to comfort them. I try not to think about it, they are all adults doing well in their lives, and I hope we all live many more years.
It’s not something I deliberately think about but it pops into my head every now and then.
Sometimes I push the thoughts away, sometimes I have a little cry but mostly I think how lucky I am to have a loving family, as I know not everyone does.

the op has Bipolar and autism and is complaining of being so overwhelmed he can’t stop thinking about this. It’s not normal.

apart from anything else, if you’re getting tight chest feelings you should get your heart checked.

Yes, I get this completely. I wish my dad and my in laws could have lived former because they’ve missed out on so many achievements by their GCs

but if we live forever then the planet would be over crowded and me and my kids wouldn’t exist.

I think what you're expressing is something mums often write/talk about - time going fast and you realise you're raising them to leave etc etc. There's a bit of an extra note becuase you're 50 not 40, but really... so what?! Its not like you were 70 when you became a dad. As others have said, all being well you have decades left yet in normal circumstances and they'll be grown up with their own full lives by the time you die, not little ones.

So on one hand I think you're over thinking this as its not that 'way out' or unusal age to be a dad, but on the other hand I wanted to acknowledge your feelings and I think most parents relate to the 'days are long but the years are short' when you're in the thick of it with small children, and the fact that we all realise we aren't going to be around forever.

So maybe its not so much an age thing per se, just a parent thing.

How lucky your children are to have a deeply caring dad who'll reflect on his emotiions and make the most of all the fun things (and even simple everyday things) that you have now and that you'll do in the years to come.

No, I don't think it is normal. I have felt like that, just before a really risky surgery, but that was a normal response to the situation. Even then, not something to dwell on.
Not wanting to go straight to the dark, but tbh any of those stories of Dads that take their own lives, and murder their children at the same time, also seem say similar!

I had my daughter at 40. I lost my birth mum at birth, my 'real dad' at 11, my adopted dad at 21, and my much beloved mum who brought me up relatively young too, at 30.

I don't get the sadness about not being with my daughter after I'm dead, but I get the absolute fear and dread about how she'll cope without me, the worry of leaving her alone in the world. When someone in the public eye dies for example, my brain automatically does a calculation of how old DD would be if I died at that age. I don't know why - it's automatic, and ultimately useless, but it's what happens.

I didn't choose to wait till later to have her, and it wouldnt have been my choice for her to be an only child, but here's the cards we were dealt. She's here, she's amazing, we're so lucky - I think we just have to get on with it. Give her the best life we can, build strong relationships with her, and foster them between her and the important people around her, give her all the love and strength we can, allow her to develop the skills and resilience she will need. Crucially, ensure as far as possible a good financial buffer for her. And accept that I'm ultimately not in control of it - and that I don't want to waste the miracle that is the fact we have her at all by worrying about what's down the road.

Yep. Grandparents are older these days, and I'm very aware that statistically I might well not be around when my grandchildren reach their late teens (or even early teens).

These thoughts pop up whether you want them to or not. I can generally distract myself from that thinking though. Like you OP, I use those thoughts to make the most of the time I have with them, and build the kind of relationship that means they'll have fond memories of me.

It feels selfish in a way - it's not that I feel that they'll miss me, but that I won't be around to enjoy their company

This quote from your own OP shows what I mean about main character.

Basically @SillyOctopus you're feeling something that most of us do, if that helps! But in your case those thoughts are more intrusive and more difficult to banish than it is for most of us. So maybe some counselling might help?

@SillyOctopus: your feelings are pretty natural. My dad has his kids in his 50s & often expressed this, my DH is 60 with a 20 year old & feels similar

Focus on today - but there is nothing wrong with you, sounds like you love your kids & enjoy their company!

Redirect thy thoughts to ensuring that you'll be in good health and able to work until 70, have a decent pension pot, and have at least a 4 bedroom house with two bathrooms which will allow you provide accomodation to your children once they leave education as unlike when you graduated school or university in the 1990s, independent living is a financial struggle for many young adults today, with many living with their parents until 30, and still needing significant financial support with deposits in order to get on the housing ladder. This will be even tighter in 10-20 years time when your children are entering the work market.

You've got a long time to go in the active parental support role. No time for moping about with sepia tinted spectacles on reminiscing about a life not lived. Chin up. Best foot forward.

We're all allowed to have thoughts in which we're the main character! That's entirely normal! It's when our actions make us the main character to the detriment if others, that it's a problem. And OP shows no signs of doing that.

My children lost their dad young at 11 and 13. He was 47. I hope that when I die they'll be settled and happy with a life partner. So they'll have that support

Grandparents are older these days, and I'm very aware that statistically I might well not be around when my grandchildren reach their late teens (or even early teens)

I was lucky enough to have two grandparents live into my 30s. Being honest though, I didn’t see much of them once I was an older teen and adult. A few times a year. I think it’s reasonably normal for grandparent involvement to drop off as grandkids grow up. So even if you were alive you might not see that much of them i reality.

I want to watch them have children, and watch those children grow and thrive and to have the big family Christmas surrounded by Grandchildren

Kind of similar point here. What if they don’t have kids? What if they move abroad?

Many pp, OP included, are imagining a very specific rose coloured future that they are going to miss out on, with lots and lots of family contact, grandchildren etc and being heavily involved in their lived. But there’s no guarantee that’s how it will be. It might be that your kids and grandkids (if they even exist) wouldn’t see much of you anyway.

Yes, quite often. I'm trying to plan ahead to at least reduce the admin they'll have to deal with. Got my will and POA's sorted. We don't really have any family, they will have one aunt and a cousin at best.

I think about this at times especially as i get older but I try not to focus on it too much. We were all out in my garden waiting for the eclipse and i was thinking that i won't be around for the next one in 2090, and my older dc aren't likely to be either. Sad to think of my dc dead and gone, but you just can't dwell on it, you would drive yourself mad.

@AliasGrape that is a beautiful post x

I once read that God deliberately made teenagers obnoxious, to make it easier for parents to let go..😊

This is one of the difficulties in being an older parent. And I think the issue is far greater for the child than for the adult. Missing out on grandchildren etc is sad, but it is harder for the new parents than the deceased grandparents. My DD (22) has an ongoing worry about me dying and her not being able to cope without me. I am 63 with underlying chronic health issues so I won't be one of those octogenarians living like a 50 year old. I try to reassure her that I am doing everything I can to stay healthy and I am well looked after by the NHS, so I am not going anytime soon. However, I lost my dad at 27 and my mum at 33, so I know how tough it is losing your parents when everyone else has theirs. I guess the only thing you can do is help your children believe in themselves and hope that they are settled with partners before you go so you do not leave them all alone.

I feel completely the same, OP. We are so very close and it frightens me to think they could be ill in later life and I wouldn't be there to support them. I know it's completely ridiculous but I am just so aware of the transient nature of our time here. When my eldest's lovely dad was dying, he said he was only sad about not getting to watch her life unfold. That broke me really.

I am neurodivergent too and have had a lot of mental illness in life. I often have troubling and melancholic thoughts that I get stuck on. Having said that, I have never had this particular one! It’s going around my head a bit now. 😂 For me, I am often troubled by the thought that my children will one day die (hopefully a very long time in the future when I am long gone). The thought of them ceasing to exist makes me sad. I have to just distract myself and keep busy when I have these kind of thoughts otherwise I spiral into despair.

I sometimes have waves of this same emotion.

Having brought my chidlren up to adulthood and delighting in how they have turned out it feels strange and slightly sad that I will not see how my GC turn out.

And what changes they will see. My OH died 6 years ago and technology has advanced even in that time, and since this was his interest I sometimes feel sad that he has not experienced these things.

I do not dwell on it - but I think it is an emotion as old as time - poetry and literature are full of it.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

Thank you for taking the time to read and think and reply. It just hits me sometimes and I know some other parents do feel the same. I keep it to myself and then i go and do 'dad' stuff with them and appreciate it!

As for my medication - that did make me laugh - it's all good, thanks :) I'm sure non-afflicted people also have emotions!

Is it 'main character' to want to spend time with your children and regret that you won't be able to?