Philippa Perry Article "I miss my adult children so much it feels like grief".

[Idlewilderness]

I miss my adult children so much it feels like grief | Life and style | The Guardia

My children would be mortified if I showed them this, but I could have written this letter.

Funnily enough, the Uni years didn't bother me at all. They came home every now and then, and were here most of the summers. I have a very busy life and I was fine with that.

But they are now at opposite ends of the country, they have very busy lives and we have seen them each once since Christmas. I have to work very hard not to let it break my heart. I am so jealous of those whose adult children live near to them. I don't expect anything different from them, I'm not looking for answers, it's just very helpful to read this and realise I am not alone in how it makes me feel.

And like the letter writer, I was exactly the same in my own twenties. Though there were much younger children at home who didn't go away to uni so my parents didn't have an empty nest until I was about 30!

The thing is, no one tells how how much you will love your children. I want to see them and feed them and tuck them in and just look after them. Its just in my bones. But they are big boys and dont need it. And I'm so proud of them but it breaks my heart too.
Its weird how much we love them. Its far more than kids love their people. Kids grow up and move on and move away and can leave us no problem. I cant seem to leave mine and move on. I do a good job of acting busy and independent but its just an act. Id drop everything for them in a heartbeat, if they called for me.

I feel the same. I really struggle to understand people who don't! Mine are still quite close-but DD's partner is from South Africa, and I dread them one day deciding to move there. I think if Labour had lost the election they might certainly have considered it. DS is only a town over from us-for now......

I'm hoping to make you feel slightly better telling you my situation. My husband left me after a mid life crisis/agfair age 36 when both my kids were 1.5 and 2.5. I was blindsided, he then turned into someone I barely knew, and I ended up having to 'share' my children the whole of their lives. My parents also had far less contact as grandparents because of this. They both went to Uni at the same time and I barely saw them as Covid hot and my dad had a life threatening illness and I was a carer. They then both travelled. Both have returned to UK and locally but my son is living with his girlfriend and her whole family has embraced him and he adores them. I'm happy for him and accept that if they have kids, I'll not be the first port of call for a grandchild. My daughter is more local than my son, and she is also very close to her partner's family.
What I do is make dates and events for us to get together-we all enjoy a few drinks and the football (even their gran) in this family. My mum craftily did this with me and my sister - not forcing us to do boring stuff but often inviting us for meals and drinks which we enjoyed. We have the odd holidays together, too. No pressure on anyone to come etc..
But I'm SO bitter about the 'family years' I lost, having to 'share' them with my exH and his family. Of course I know they needed contact with both of us, but it still stings. I feel you and your pain is understandable. I've always filled the 'love gap' with my dogs - it helps!

@Wentie - same here. I would never want that to be the case for me and mine, but DM married again and barely sees me, siblings or our DC. PIL are great GPs but it’s not the same and I am bitter that DM is as she is.

We all have to be happy in our own skin. I have no family. Given up as a baby. Just divorced my h so have lost him, I hear from his mum and an aunt and that's it, two kids at uni and one renting. So I spend a lot of time alone. The kids message and phone a lot and I have the youngest at home for the summer but I'll be moving house soon so will see one of them a lot less than I do now but will be living nearer another.

I figure I've done my job as my kids have good lives. We have to give them roots and wings but we also have to build a good foundation for us for after as well.

The funny thing is, when we leave home we really don't give our parents much thought, we never see it from their perspective. I guess we are just self centred when young.

I wish i could go back and ask my mum how she felt when i moved abroad at 18 but i never did. I never did and now i can't. So i have to remember how i was at 18 and not be hurt when my dc are the same.

I feel you. I always say that the thing I fucking hate the most about my husband leaving me is having to share my precious babies. Seeing them for only half of their life, it just kills me to think about that. Sounds like you’ve made absolutely the best you can so good on you. Xx

Unfortunately we are both still working full time.

That can of course be reviewed once we retire.

DS GF doesn’t want to live too far from her parents and DS joked once he wouldn’t want to live more than an hour away. He said you and Dad make a complete human between you but apart you are useless. We have a difficult history because our DD died a few years ago. It showed us just how fragile life is which is why we have made a huge effort to retire early, we were always going to but not this early.

I think the Mum and son thing comes about because some women cannot let go of their sons as they are the only love in their life and they see their partners as a rival. Whereas I see DS GF as a wonderful addition to our family and him to her family. She has a younger brother and DS and him get on really well which as he never had a brother as I miscarried the little brother he would have had makes me really happy.

If the natural order of things happens as they should then I want to know my child is loved and can also give love when I slip off this mortal coil.

I hated having to share my boys when they were babies but as older children it was much easier and gave me the opportunity to develop life long friendships. This has been a life saver since my children have grown up and developed their own lives at the other end of the country. I love them and know they love me but we are all busy and right now it’s a case of fitting everything in..

I struggled for a while with how to ‘be’ with my newly adult children, the shift from parent / child to adult parent / adult child was tricky and It’s not something I see discussed anywhere so maybe I’m alone in that. 10 years on, it’s better now, we’ve established new boundaries.. although I slip into Mum mode pretty easily and sometimes they clearly want me to do that. I once read an interesting article that posited that the English language has no word for adult-child unlike other cultures. I wonder if this is pertinent to the difficulty of adapting to the changes outlined in this thread.

Clearly the emotional pain of loss as children move on is very real as we lose our place in their lives and take up another one. Reading the thread some adapt better than others but having your own life is crucial. As another poster said, maintain your friends and interests.. life can be long ( if you’re lucky) and 16 years of intense child rearing is only a small part of it.

I miss having my boys around all the time but, truthfully, I miss my babies and that fabulous togetherness that parenting young children gives you. Clearly that period has passed but I remember it with huge affection. Treasure it while you can.

Wouldprefer I think that’s an interesting topic Dh parents have really struggled being parents of adult children. They used to “tell us off” and were quite authoritarian and would make zero effort with us we had to make the effort with them. They didn’t seem to realise they needed to develop a relationship with us as equal adults - and were put out that we were not deferential to them.

I did ask my mum. I moved across the world when I was in my early 20s. I once asked DM if that was horrible for her and she said no because she liked seeing me living life in a way that made me happy. Maybe it hurt in other ways but she never let on. And it’s a lot easier to stay lightly in touch now with family WhatsApp groups etc.

Isn't it normal for young adults to want to go and spread their wings though? The only difference nowadays is that people are able to travel further than ever before.

I visit my father every couple of weeks, taking my two little ones with me, because I love him, I appreciate all he has done for me (my mother died young) and I couldn't bear for him to feel unloved or lonely. I just pray my children do the same for me when they grow up.

Of my friends who are close to their parents still, it's the ones with loving, fun and flexible parents who spend lots of time with them. No one wants to spend time with overbearing, critical, needy people regardless of blood line

What a beautiful post, thank you. ❤️

Its entirely normal now. It wasn't so normal when i did it 40 years ago.

Are you actually suggesting that all the parents on here who are saying they miss their adult children are overbearing, critical and needy?

I hope for your sake your little ones agree that you are a loving, fun and flexible parent when they are older - and that their careers or partners don't trigger a move to the other side of the world.

If you haven't been through the transition to being the parent of adults, you may find it hard to understand the emotions of those who have.

That's lovely, I have a terrible relationship with my father and can't bear seeing him. He's horrible to me and after decades of trying I've not got it in me to keep trying any more. It's taught me a lot about my relationships with my own DC though for which I'm pleased I guess.

Relationships have to be earned, I feel that so strongly.

I didn't read it like that and as I posted above, my father is hostile, critical and overbearing and no I don't want to see him and yes I agree that I hope my children don't feel like that about me when they're older. Well they're early 20's now and we have a great relationship so long may that continue.

Really?

Because both my parents and all their siblings "flew the nest" and disappeared off travelling in the seventies and eighties.

@Wouldprefertobereading You are not on your own in having found it a challenge to know how to build a good relationship with your children as they become adults. I felt the same and think it is a work in progress.
This has been a very supportive thread for me and I thank everyone who contributed their experiences.

Yes- reading this thread has been very thought provoking but has also made me feel less alone. Thanks everyone.

I think that was quite unusual. Obviously some people travelled or moved abroad, but I don't think it was the norm. I was first generation uni (actually Poly) in the early 80s and no-one I knew had a gap year to go travelling. There were so few jobs that quite a few of us hung around the city we'd studied in and didn't do much after we graduated, but no-one I knew went off on great adventures.

I think there are still many working class communities where people tend to stay close to where they were born, but it's now very normal for graduates to go where the graduate jobs are - which can be anywhere in the country or worldwide.

I feel the same. I couldn’t stop crying when my oldest son moved out three years ago. He was 33 and he’s bought a place three miles away! I love him more than I can say. His girlfriend is now living with him and I don’t interfere but to me he comes first in everything. ❤️

These weren't really gap years, more adult children moving abroad after university - either to travel for a bit before settling down into careers, or moving abroad to follow their career goals.

Maybe it was more unusual than I realised, but DH's parents also moved to the opposite end of the country to start a family (they moved back when the oldest was 10 or so) and his mum's sister also moved to the opposite side of the world, and they were very much "northern working class".