Is it normal to feel sad about kids growing up so quickly?

[Emx2]

I know this may sound strange, but it’s an honest question - how do you as a parent cope with your kids growing up so quickly?

I have three children aged 14, 13 and 11, but I feel like I have just blinked and we’re at the preteen/teen stage! Honestly up to about a month ago it’s not bothered me at all, every stage has had its fun and its challenges. I’ve been grateful to move away from nappies and sleepless nights and on to family days out and more recently into meaningful conversations and shared interests. But these last couple of months I have really struggled with the fact that they are on the cusp of being adults and moving on to more grown up things in just a few (probably short) years. I can’t think of anything that’s happened in that time to trigger this, I literally just woke up one day feeling so sad about it all.

I know it’s what kids are supposed to do, I’m so very proud of them, hugely grateful I have them in my life and that they are happy and healthy, but I just have this overwhelming sadness I’m struggling to move on from. I can’t even properly put into words what exactly it is I’m sad about! I suppose I just wish I could rewind the last couple of years and do them all over again, or at the very least pause where we are now for a while longer. I don’t feel ready for the next chapter. Photo memories don’t help as I look back at things from years ago and it feels like yesterday, and it reminds me there are things I’ll never do again (good and bad), like pushing them in a pram, carrying them on my shoulders, battling with car seats, holding hands out in public.

We make lots of memories together, we all get on well (the usual bickering and family chaos aside) and I’m lucky that they still enjoy trips out as a family - shopping, cinema, theatre, even the occasional day out to a castle, zoo or theme park, plus family film nights and board games at home. So it’s not even like they are shut up in their rooms ignoring me that’s making me sad. I’m happy and sad at the same time if that even makes sense.

My ‘baby’ will soon be starting secondary school and entering the days of mobile phones, bus trips to school, more grown up conversations etc and I just miss the simple naive days when they could just experience the joy and magic in the world with me there holding their hand each step of the way. They are very independent kids and I don’t hold them back or show them my sadness about this, this is just something I’m currently battling internally.

The few friends I do have and my siblings/siblings in law all have much younger children, and I find myself feeling slightly jealous of the years/stages they still have ahead of them. They also don’t really understand how I’m feeling, other than to suggest maybe it’s a hormonal or vitamin imbalance thing (I’m approaching 40).

Hopefully someone else has felt like this and can tell me this feeling doesn’t last, or what might help me work through it. I don’t want this sadness to overshadow life and I end up missing out on even more. I know I just need to focus on the good stuff and keep making memories, but I can’t help feeling how I feel.

@Poodlezzz it was fantastic. I had the most easy going , well behaved child ever. Very academic. Never any bother, even as a teenager. Turned out he has Aspergers.

I'm finding it a bit odd but we do have a strange situation. On 21st of August I'll have 18, 16 & 14 year old. It feels like I've just blinked but also our journey has been complicated. My 16 yo is severly disabled and functions at about age 3. Wears nappies, has a catheter, is fed by tubes and constantly requires my attention. According to the NHS he's now an adult... so no more children's wards or play specialist, which is what gets us through lots of admissions.
They were all only born yesterday and I feel once they get to high school it all flys past!!!

I can see what she is talking about, 11yo dd just left primary but with older dc I know that everything changes now and it’s just not the same innocence or joy.

I think what you're feeling is something that a lot of parents feel, OP, so you're definitely not alone.

My children are in their 40s now and my grandchildren are the ages of your children, so I'm sort of going through it second time around. I miss the little grandchildren and the simplicity of their emotions.

I feel this way. Mine are 14 and 11. The 14 year old has spent the summer holidays out all day every day with friends right up to bedtime. I love this for him but I miss him so much! My daughters about to start high school , I know she will start doing the same shortly.
My kids have been a sticking plaster on my terrible marriage. I dont know what i am going to do once they leave the nest. My husband and I dont do anything together and I dont want to either.
Even if we separate that just means im completely alone.
Me and the kids love going to the seaside and I know this will end soon. I cant just go by myself?
At that time my parents will also be extremely elderly and I am so scared I am going to fall into a massive depression.
The only friends I have have young kids so not at the same life stage. I work part time but the people i work with are quiet and dont socialise. I am absolutely dreading it

I'm already dreading this and my kids are only 3&8!

I wanted children for as long as i can remember....it was my ultimate goal in life ...but I didn't really think beyond that.
I'm not career minded and don't have many hobbies, although i do enjoy socialising with friends.

I'm very affectionate with my children (they don't seem to mind!) I stroke their hair, kiss them, cuddle them etc multiple times a day as it's just second nature to me now.I get sad when I think that one day I won't be able to do that anymore and worry how i will cope (although I'm lucky that's a way off yet!)
I feel sad that my eldest only has afew more yrs of primary school, and my youngest only has a year or two more of being truly 'little' with her fluffy hair, cute baby voice, paw patrol obsession and mispronounced words.

It's going too fast and sometimes does make me want another (although in another sense not sure if I could go through it all again now, as i'm late 30s and don't have the easiest kids or good sleepers!)

My little family is everything to me.Us all being together makes me so happy....it feels horrible imagining a day when they might be out all night or living somewhere else (although I don't want to hold them back) I feel like my life purpose was to nurture little children.
I used to work in a nursery but couldn't afford to go back to that now, and it's not the same as having your own as obviously you can't smother them with kisses and cuddles etc.....and i'm not a dog lover so that is ruled out for me! 😅

I guess I just have to try to park the fears whilst i can and enjoy it whilst it lasts......
I really really feel for you all at the older stages.I'm sure there are some lovely aspects but I know I'll just miss the littleness so badly when that is me.

Just came across this post because I was searching the internet for advice, or I don't know just commonality.

All of you have children a lot older than mine, I'm feeling it with a pre-school aged child! and almost all the discussions about it relate to children leaving home, or at least becoming semi independent.

Most of the time I'm ok, but sometimes I look pictures and videos of how happy he is, happy doing simple things like playing in a toy car and singling "Wheels on the bus". I want him to stay like that for ever, because I know whats coming, he has no idea.

I can't explain it, he has so much joy ahead of him, so do we as a family, but his simple pleasures at discovering the world without even knowing bad things can happen - knowing he has to learn that they can (and will - I won't be here forever) just hurts me to the core.

It is a form of grief, a sense of loss, and I get why some other people don't want to call it that for fear of offending parents who have lost children - but I have lost a child, and I'm not offended.

Maybe that loss is what drives my current sadness, over the past few years my own naivety that everything will be alright in the end has been obliterated, I don;t want my child to ever have to deal with that.

Writing this out has made me reflect, and maybe my issues are different, caused by different life events. But just writing this has been cathartic. I hope me child goes to university, leaves home, stops needing me - but at the same time I want to freeze us all where we are now, I guess because it feels he is safe now.

It has also occurred to me that if I could I would go back to my own childhood I would, in a heartbeat, but you can't, and neither can my son go back. Thats a very sad thing - no wonder we feel a sense of grief.