Motherhood is a Welcome Grief?

On children growing up and away and how that affects us as mothers

Oct 12, 2024

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Good day to you,

There are so many firsts for each child, the first smile, the first step, the first time they are ill, even the first shiner. First day at school, first exam, first boy/girl friend, first breakup, first time they stay out all night. These are all firsts to be remembered, celebrated. These firsts will never come along again.

I wrote this short one-liner title after an interaction with our eldest child, now almost 30. During her late teenage hood somehow we became disconnected and years later we still don’t connect well. I’m sure she would agree. I tried hard to reconcile a couple of years ago, as I have a few times, suggested meeting, talking, working this out, maybe with her therapist cos I miss her so much. She didn’t respond. She never responds, or if she does it’s an ‘I’ll get back to you, I’m busy right now’ and she never does get back to me. And that is completely her right. But every time I do this I grieve. Every time she rebuffs me I grieve. The beautiful child grew into a beautiful woman, and the beautiful woman doesn’t wish to share her life much with me. And that is completely her right. I don’t know what I did wrong for she won’t tell me. If I knew I would change my behaviour if I could or, at the very least, apologise for the wrong I did.

So I grieve her loss. And yet I think I would grieve anyway, for isn’t that what motherhood is about? Bringing children into the world and waving them off into adulthood - we raise them to leave us behind, to move on and have their own lives. If we are very lucky we are privileged to be an integral part of that life, our children will want to share everything, every small part of their lives with us. Ring home regularly, like I used to. Every Saturday for an hour or so, my mother and I, and occasionally my father joined in, discussed everything and anything. If I had anything special to say I rang midweek too. R was the same. In this day and age it is so much easier to be in contact, though I don’t expect it. If they don’t want to do that that is completely their prerogative. It’s their life, to be lived how they want. That’s how I brought them up. They owe me nothing.

So where does my attitude come from? Probably from being far too controlled whilst growing up. I’ve touched on this a little before, that my father wasn’t the most nurturing when I was growing up and we, or at least I, was expected to fulfil HIS dreams for me rather than fulfilling my own. He could always give ‘sensible in his eyes’ reasons for his choices. And I could give just as sensible reasons for mine, but his always won. And I very much resented it.

I longed for him to apologise for the choices he forced onto me. I tried to talk to him about it but he just rejected my attempts. Eventually I gave up, knowing I would never have a decent relationship with him. In fact it was, very much the antithesis of the good relationship he had with my brother. It was difficult. It was a matter of duty really. When my mother died and he rekindled an ancient relationship it fell apart even more as he rejected my children because the new wife resented the fact they had been born whilst my mother was alive. My children did not grow up knowing their Grandfather. But my brother’s children, born after my mother passed, were welcomed with open arms. A couple of years ago he died and it was a relief.

That sounds awful doesn’t it? And believe me I’ve felt the shame and disappointment in myself for feeling so. I cried more for the cat we had to put down last year than I did for my father. Did he find fatherhood a grief, or more a disappointment, or an annoyance? I definitely felt an inconvenience and nuisance as a child.

I loved, loved, loved being a mother. My children were my joy. I subsumed so much of myself for them. To give them what I did not have. I loved them fully and wholly without pause. I poured that love into them. I tried to the best of my ability to equip them for this world. I maybe didn’t manage that so well, but I tried. Each stage of my children’s development was a wonder, and I was filled with excitement for what would come next and grieved over the previous stage for it was gone never to be visited again.

Here Kelly Hampton addresses the grief of children growing up too fast rather more eloquently than I am able and Josephine Hughs, in an stricken about grieving growing children, states

Grief doesn’t have to be just about bereavement, it can also be about endings in life. Many parents feel sad as they watch their children grow and realise that a stage of their child’s life is over.

It’s normal. We are allowed to grieve as each stage is over and also be excited for the next one to come. I do feel a little guilt as I have a lovely friend who lost her son to cancer when he was still young, and she will never experience the minor griefs with him, her major grief being rather all encompassing at his demise; and rightly so. But it isn’t a competition, there is no wrong or right grief. Our sons were in the same class, were friends, liked the same things. She must watch me post about my now adult boy and wish her boy was still there to experience the same things.

The grief becomes a little sharper when the child, now grown, is no longer a close to you as you would like. I wrote the following poem after a rare conversation with the eldest after she talked about spoken poetry and sent me a link to a poet she liked. So I is actually written to be read aloud, bear that in mind when reading (I really struggle to read out loud due to dyslexia so I won’t torment you with a recorded effort).

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

A B C D also known as This, my child, my daughter

A) When my daughter has a daughter, she will understand how
My heart overflowed with love for the child before me.
And she will understand how I poured that love, carefully, nay rashly, into her,
Filling every wrinkle, every crevice, of her new formed body,
Until my love alone plumped her flesh and made her solid.
It flowed like warm molten jelly into her chubby edible, kissable fingers,
Eased into the delightful crinkle at the back of her knees,
Solidified in her miraculous smile and
Escaped as chuckles and bubbles from her soft milk-worn lips.
My love sustained us both through endless dark nights of winter when she wouldn’t sleep,
And I, zombie like, lived in a half world and could not recognise reality from fantasy.
My love flowed ceaselessly into her, and we were one.
This tiny, new, delicate, wonderful body that flew from mine.
This amazing, glorious creation of mine. Of mine. Of mine.
This beautiful, overwhelming creature that took all I could give her
And wrested more when I thought there could be no more.
This, my child, my daughter.
B) When my daughter has a daughter, she finally will see how
All that I was is all that she now is.
How that love I poured endlessly, carelessly, as if it had no end
She will decant into her child and she, with its loss, become whole.
Not knowing what was missing she will be now complete,
Until the next maternal urge, but, for now,
Her daughter, like she did for me, will make sense of the world for her,
Give her meaning, and reason, and a want to just be.
To just stare at her face, to stroke her oh so tiny hand, to cradle her to her bosom,
And to just love her, JUST love her, just LOVE her, just love HER,
Until nothing else is left and they are as one.
This love that will sustain for years, through tears and tantrums,
Through rage and anger, and hope, and pride and those teenage years.
This, my child, my daughter.
C) Oh those teenage years!
When my daughter has a daughter, she may recognise how
She ripped my heart, still beating, keening for her, out of my ageing body
And tramped it beneath her feet. Still oozing love for her, it beat slowly, trying so hard not to die.
Every slight, ripped it further apart, shredded the bruised coarse muscle,
Every flinch at my touch pained it more and still the love poured out.
Creeping towards her, desperate to fill her heart once again,
to calm her raging emotions, to ease her churning mind, to make her solid again.
This whinging, whining, moaning, churning, reborn personality.
I watched her achievements with un-allowed pride, un-allowed love,
I asked questions and watched her mumble to herself, annoyed at my intrusions,
At my wanting to know her still as she became adult and grew away.
This, my child, my daughter.
D) When my daughter has a daughter, she will understand how
scabbed, scarred poorly healed heart-wounds can bleed again easily,
that words wound deeply still, even in the bloom of young adulthood,
even though I taught her to live and love away from me,
to explore the world freely, to love another with all her heart.
As she grows and blossoms more, even when she stumbles and falls,
my love is deep and still wishes to lift her, to sooth her, to help
but my love is dismissed, un-allowed, unwanted, pushed away harshly,
Where has my heart-given love gone? Is it all used already? She rejects more.
She pushes me away even as she needs me close,
I can’t pump rejected love from a distance.
My energy drains, I struggle to stay afloat, too much heart-love lost,
I must withdraw and wait for her to reach out, not convinced she ever will again,
for she is running from me,
but I will be waiting, my love ever overflowing and ready for her.
Her daughter may not do this, for she may have pumped love more effectively, more rationally,
She may never experience the heartache she has caused, or know the pain she inflicted,
I wish we were still as one.
This, my child, my daughter.

This wonderful, glowing, amazing, love-filled adult I grew.

Motherhood is often so very hard, and that’s not talked about enough. We are expected to say it was wonderful and amazing, and it was. But it was also awful, and horrid, and messy, and heartbreaking. Still, I miss it a lot. I miss the children they were at the same time as loving the adults they have become. I am SO proud of them all.

With my younger two children we have many frank discussions about their upbringing. They are both on the autistic spectrum and I didn’t realised because they were ‘mini me’s, what ever I did I did with love even if I got it wrong. I truly believed I was doing the best for them. But of course I have erred, and where I have erred I have apologised, and they have graciously accepted. I wish my father and I could have had that conversation. I wish my eldest and I could have that conversation.

Maybe when she has her own daughter.

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