While struggling to cope with our tribulation, I found this perfect letter:
“Why do you think this is? Why don’t they feel this connection?”
Some people are monsters and don’t have empathy for other people, period. I’ve encountered a couple of icy cold parent-child interactions in my life that I can never forget. My sister and I still talk about a plane ride 15 years ago where a 4-year-old spilled water on himself, asked his dad for help, and the dad said, “Not my problem!” I can’t even process that…if a TOTAL STRANGER’S child asked me for help, I would DIE before I said something like “Not my problem”!
That kid’s probably in college now, and it still gives me chills to think of him reaching out to a parent and touching a barbed-wire fence. You don’t have to beat your kid to hurt him.
@atomom, your posts on 1/26 were point on for me.
When my boys were young, I felt like a part of my heart and brain were always elsewhere for every minute they were away from me. Hard to explain, but I can tell you know what I mean. Now that they are grown men, I don’t feel that anymore. It is said that having a child is having part of your heart out there walking around every day.
And another thing about the feelings angle…I cannot possibly know the joy and contentment that a person who chose not to have children feel with their choice.
I understand that deep connection as well. Whenever I feel that either of my children are not telling me the complete truth about something, I will say “I don’t think you are telling me everything. Do not try to fool me, you and I were the same person for 9 months, no one knows you better than me.”
I
My husband calls that Momtuition @HarvestMoon1.
Last night my husband and I were in this little neighborhood restaurant that a lot of American’s frequent. Since it is within easy walking distance from our apartment building we are somewhat regulars there. Another regular who we hadn’t seen there in a very long time (a year or so) who we are only acquainted with because we have seen her at this restaurant, came in with several other women for dinner. In the past we have always seen her there with her two lovely young children (maybe 6ish and 8ish years old) who always seemed to well behaved, sweet, well cared for, etc. in this casual restaurant context. So last night made the assumption that this woman was having a night out with the girls and her kids were somewhere else with some kind of child care. Not having seen her for a long time, I casually asked her how her kids were doing. Her reply was something like “good, I sent them back to the states to live with their grandmother.” I tried to hide the shock on my face and can’t even remember what I said in response, but I think it was a polite, “Oh, sounds like they are doing well there.” Something like that. But even as I think about it now, I realize I may have left my jaw on the floor. Obviously there is a whole big story behind this that I have no clue about,
There is a huge continuum of what parenting means to people and how they feel about it, that is for sure. It was hard enough for me to send my child from here to go to college, I could have never made this type of decision (though we did contemplate boarding school in the past).
I would have had to have been in a very desperate situation before shipping my
Kids off to be raised by someone else, even my dear parents. I personally can’t identify with this either.
A family i was friendly with sent their kids to boarding school about 30 minutes away. There are plenty of wonderful private schools in the DC area. They didn’t come home on weekends and the parents never went to see them. You never know what’s going on in someone else’s life, but this was really peculiar.
My mom always said she got us for 18 years, period. Maybe boarding school would be a fabulous opportunity for one of her kids…too bad. We were just going to have to miss out. She was hanging on to all 18 of those years she was entitled to! 
“Parents have a special relationship with their children (and it’s not the same relationship that children have with their parents). It is an urge to protect and nurture, a responsibility/duty, and a particular emotional bond”
For me that special relationship didn’t kick in right at the birth of my daughter. It kicked in maybe 30 minutes later. For the first little while I was just watching as the neonatal nurse was cleaning her up and taking all the measurements and doing everything they do right after birth. But after she put a diaper and some clothing on her and wrapped her in a light blanket, the little one began to settle herself down and stopped crying and fussing. She was apparently trying to get back to that nap that had been so rudely interrupted.
And it was at that point, watching that newborn fall back to sleep, that I saw how helpless and at the same time how trusting and confident she appeared to be. Without knowing any different, she seemed to know or expect that she was in good hands, that she would be protected, and everything would be taken care of. And I realized that the people who would be the ones to take care of everything was US - her parents. And I immediately knew I would do my best, that I would never knowingly or willingly do anything to let her down.
It was at that moment that “an urge to protect and nurture, a responsibility/duty, and a particular emotional bond” kicked in.
I don’t regret having children. I do regret having my 1st child at 18. It made my life and her life much harder than it needed to be. I still would have had her but I would like to have been older.
Oh my, 18! You were a baby yourself.
Scorpio, I loved your post. My little one was rushed to ICU, and I was exhausted after 44 hours of labor and crashed. I have no memory of when they brought him to me, but he latched onto the breast, made eye contact, and that was it. He made me look good to the nurses and the pediatrician.
Oh my gosh, you are all making me wish I could hold that five pound perfect little person wrapped in warm pink blankets in my arms again, just for a moment or seven. She’s still a “perfect little person” in my eyes, but about a hundred pounds bigger now, and much to mature for swaddling.
And then…you get to become a grandparent! I can hardly wait.
Yes, that first moment of eye contact with your newborn is magical!!
I remember being overcome with love-a new kind of love, obviously, than the romantic love I had experienced. It was wonderful and scary. What if something happened?
There was a story in the news when my S wa a baby about a little girl who fell in a hole in her yard. They were having trouble getting her out and it went on for days, if I remember correctly. I just about went crazy because I was empathizing with the parents. I was literally crying and not wanting to watch the news, yet just waiting for her to be freed alive.
I knew then I was a changed person.
But I have never felt my kids were “perfect little people” or “perfect big people.” They each have flaws, as do I. And they sometimes make me crazy. Like about 5 minutes ago when I talked to D2 on the phone!
Yes Baby Jessica trapped in the old well resonated with many and there was a huge collective sigh of relief when she was safely rescued!
I had all the same feelings when I met my baby, and she was 23 months old in China. She was absolutely terrified at the thought of losing everything she knew at that point and she yelled and screamed and kicked the door for hours after she was dropped off in my hotel room. I cringe to think how scared she must have been! I was pretty terrified myself, having lost all confidence that I was up for the job, but the second I saw her, I knew I could be her mom, and it was my job to win her over. After a few days, she decided to keep me :x although for a few months whenever we were with a group of people like at a party, she would try to win someone else over, just in case I didn’t take her home. And my feelings for her, although very strong and protective from the first second, went from feeling like a babysitter to feeling like an aunt to feeling like a mother over the first few days. It took a month or so until I knew I would gladly accept torture or death to protect her. But she was mine from the very first second, all 22 pounds of her.
Yes Himom. Baby Jessica.
In contrast I recall watching the Casey Anthony trial in horror wondering how any mother could possibly behave that way. I think that had a lot of mothers holding their children closer. The illustration of how not everyone has those nurturing feelings.