Sun 28 Sep 2008
Brain Storm
Posted by Jane under Updates
[8] Comments
I’ve been having lots of thoughts lately on the subjects of parenting and loss.
Although we don’t often think of parenting as a loss, I’ve been surprised at how many families I know who have been affected deeply by a loss related to parenting. Whether it’s infertility, the death of a child or the more mundane losses like our waistlines and our free time it seems to me that many hopeful parents find that the joy of parenting comes along with a grieving of some sort.
I’ve been thinking in particular about how having a child can reconnect us with old losses and bring us face to face with our own brokenness. That as we work so hard to give our children everything, we have to accept that everything is something we don’t have to give. Ramona’s journey towards healing has so many parallels to my own search for wholeness. And as we pursue health for her, I’ve been wondering what God expects from us as parents when it comes to providing opportunities for wholeness and health for our children.
And now I’m wondering what you all think. If you have the time to comment on your own experiences and the ways that parenting and loss have intersected in your lives I would be so grateful. If you are too shy to include your response in a comment below, please feel free to email me at janedeitrich***at***yahoo.com.
Thanks. We continue to wait for Ramona’s MRI results. Here’s a shot of her looking SO big, I guess she’s not a baby anymore…
What you write is so true. Although parenting has brought plenty of joy into our lives, it has brought an end to things that we knew pre-child. Before Elijah was born I had a few active hobbies that I was very passionate about. They were a huge part of my life for a long long time. I haven’t had time to get back into those hobbies since, and I catch myself getting sad about that. I feel like I am still grieving the loss of those things. Saying that makes me feel a bit selfish, but I think what I am feeling is pretty normal. I love my baby dearly and wouldn’t change a thing.
I missed free time alot not that I would change anything about having Izzy she is the world to me and I am forever thankful for her and enjoy her. I am not sure if I realized how much I misied a little time to myself until she started preschool and now while she is at school I have a couple hours 3x a week to myself with out too much worry and no guilt because I know she is having lots of fun and learning while I am away! I have been able to skate which I used to do anytime the ground was dry before I was pregnant and the happiness I felt with the sun on my skin going as fast i my burning muscle allowed was refreshing. I knew I missed skating but I had forgtten the feeling of the sun, breeze and most of all not worrying for a few moments! I was great! I of course miss my prebaby body but what ever
I’ll see it again someday!
I love Izabell, love everyday with her even the days i want to pull my hair out because she is 2 and very stubborn:). It hurts to know that she has challenges with her health but that is the way it is some days it is harder than others. there is so much we have to talk ourselves though i wonder and really doubt that I would be that same kind of parent today if Izzy was born healthy would I still appreciate her as much? hopefully and probably right?
You are right on, Jane. I think any time of growth or change brings both joy and loss, and parenting is no exception. I feel the loss of time alone, time to concentrate, time to just sit. Most of the time, I feel okay about it because this stage feels very temporary — the babies are only babies for a few years.
It is very, very hard to face the fact that we can’t give our children _everything_. This past summer, I read something very helpful to me in one of my favorite parenting books, _Liberated Parents, Liberated Children._ The author talks about the goal of our parenting as providing an environment where children can grow to be “strong and humane.” I agree with this — I think Jesus was strong and humane — and it helps me to focus on a couple of qualities to pray for them and work towards.
after 4 kids, I dont remember what I had anymore!
I’ve been thinking of very metaphysical losses. I long ago gave up the idea of hobbies, etc. That’s easy to do when your kids are so close together and with Ramona’s medical stuff. I never expected to able to hold onto that stuff through this.
But I did expect that my idea of family as being an opportunity for spiritual redemption and wholeness might still happen. I feel like I came into parenting the true modern woman. Modern in the mid-century sense, when it seems to me that people hoped that somehow technology and science might cure all ills and free us from suffering. Ya know, like the Jetsons?
I think I somehow viewed my chance at mothering as a second chance for myself. That my struggles with eating, my struggles with depression would somehow be less disappointing if my children didn’t have those problems. That if they were whole and healthy I would somehow be more so too.
I think I’m just coming to terms with the fact that redemption is just not available to us in this world. I’ve heard people say that God is the only one who can save us, make us whole. This has always sounded very dramatic, and downright pessimistic, to me. I guess I thought that if I prayed and meditated on brokenness, that if I humbly acknowledged my proper place before God I would receive the peace and joy that is promised by God to believers.
So that’s the loss I’m thinking about today. The loss of some of my ideas about what parenting might bring into my life. Of course it’s brought unimagined joys and gifts too. But I think I’m probably gone past modern to post-modern. Maybe that’s a gift too. Post-modern Christians are the coolest, right?
Anyhow, you can see how mixed up I am and that’s why I was hoping to hear from you guys…
Oh, Jane. You’ve hit a sore spot with me. And I say sore because it actually hurts a little to think that I feel that I’ve lost aspects in my life when Madden was born. I think we can both relate in that we both have babies who are so very special. Ramona with her heart, Madden with his prematurity.
Although I know I’m so very blessed to have this beautiful little boy who beat so many odds I still feel empty in some ways.
I think it started when my pregnancy ended so soon. I never got to experience watching my belly grow. I didn’t experience the whole birthing room ordeal. My baby didn’t cry when he was born. And I didn’t get to take him home with me for 2 months.
So, yes. I did experience loss in that aspect.
And now, although both Madden and I are healthy I find myself not being able to leave the house. Because of his prematurity I have to be careful where I take him. A cold to him means a trip to the hospital in the first year.
So, I have lost that feeling of taking your new baby here and there. When normally you want people to inquire about your new baby, I actually get nervous when people walk towards his stroller.
And freedom. I feel like a selfish idiot admitting that I miss my life before Madden. Because the pregnancy wasn’t planned I was still living my “roaring twenties”. I suppose I was in denial about how much my life would change. I miss Chicago. I miss my friends. I miss not caring.
I think about the way I feel towards this all the time. Sometimes I even brush it up to being post-pardom. But I also know that I was raped of time. Time that I should of had to prepare mentally to leave my old life behind.
The other day I was in tears asking outloud, “when will something go right?!?!?”
And then I realized I said that while holding madden. It was a HUGE wake-up call. I was holding a miracle. I wasn’t the only one raped of time…this baby was too. He had to fight for his life. And he won. We won.
So, even though it’s a sore spot with me its slowly begining to heal. My heart is becoming less and less selfish. Because the reality is… once your baby is born (or handed to you) your heart is given to them. Would we have it any other way?
And I think by being a mother who is strong enough to talk about this makes us better parents for just being aware of how we feel.
Jane, Thank you for putting this in writting. I feel loss a lot lately. Loss of time, hobbies and the such. But lately in our Church we have loss children, parents and grandparents to crazy “freek” accidents or unknown medical issues. It has come to hit us in the face as we realize that any of us can go, and go unexpectedly. The thought of loosing a daughter or my husband puts me in fear, but then I rest in God’s arms. We have been finding joy in involving the girls in our hobbies, in our time and in the word of the Lord. Who knew that a 2 year old could memorize 6 Bible verses in 6 weeks … and more easily than adults? We have made it a habbit to develop more “us” time for Brian and me. As one Christian author (Can’t remember her name) says, “sex is a great way to measure how you are in your relationship, just as prayer is a measuring stick for your relationship with God”. Hard with wee ones, but possible! I guess we don’t have to let loss take over, we can just recognize it and maybe find joy in other time and moments in our current life.
I’m just now catching up with your doings and reading this post and the responses to it. And feeling blessed that I get to read it today because just this morning I was feeling angry about the loss of time alone, the loss of only having to take my desires into consideration. I wouldn’t trade Danny for anything, but it is hard to be pulled in so many directions and feel that there isn’t space for me (and not just Danny, but work, relationships, etc.)
And then, as so often happens, time has opened up in my life – work was cancelled due to the snow but I didn’t find out till I got there, so now I have a few hours to tinker about (get caught up on your website!), catch up with the other people who came in to the office anyway, maybe do a little shopping. Danny is safe and happy at the daycare he loves, and it looks like he may be the only child there today, so he will get lots of attention.