Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
Do you secretly prefer one of your children over the others?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Mamaof5" data-source="post: 471322"><p>This is a very unique question for me. I love them all equally and would lay my life at each of their feet equally so if that meant they had the best life possible and I had to make that choice.</p><p></p><p>However, I'm closest with my youngest. The first born I didn't get the bonding experience I had hoped for as a first time mother. He was 3 months premature, in NICU for a long time and we were separated immediately after birth (what a bonding killer huh). I've spent his entire life (almost 11 yrs) searching and seeking for that deep bond as a mother and son relationship has. Not to say I am not bonded to him or he to I but it's not as deep as it could be. I don't think the insensitive hospital staff who stuck me in a maternity ward without my baby and with 5 other mothers who had theirs helped at all with the situation. Not one bit. I spent that first 24 hours of his life crying non stop and having to listen to 5 other women and their families coo over their healthy full term babies while mine was downtown, miles away from me. The most helpless, painful experience of my life as a parent. It even goes far beyond and above the difficult child'ness he has now.</p><p></p><p>My second, I'm well bonded. She's a joy but she tends to insert herself as my assumed second in command (she's a mama hen all the way almost to a fault). She is very mature for her 9 yrs of age (turning 10 soon) to the point I swear she's a 30 something stuck in a 9 yr old body...My own version of Invasion of The Body Snatchers in the flesh some days.</p><p></p><p>The next two and previous two I failed so miserably and horribly at breastfeeding with a strong desire to accomplish that said breastfeeding. It's still a painful scar and wound - really a thorn in my side. I had no support, was told I would never accomplish it and was pushed to bottle feed instead against my wishes. I never did have a problem with supply just a problem getting that supply into the baby in a normal capacity and form of function. I felt like a failure to the point where my forth I refused to even try because of the shame of failure and the fear of being once again broken by that sense of shamed failure. I lost out on that breastfeeding bond, that part of what motherhood should have been.</p><p></p><p>The fifth, I owe my 18 months of success to another lady (since gone our separate ways in life) who pushed me past my fear, my sense of shame, sense of broken-ness and told me "yes you can". I have a very deep bond with my youngest and I really do think that it was because of the extended breastfeeding relationship. I truly believe in that relationship bonding mother and child in a way that bottle feeding cannot and will not. If that offends some - remember I bottle fed too, I don't look down on it at all. To each their own.</p><p></p><p>As for guilt. I have tremendous amounts of it. More than I think I can handle at times because of this "difference" between the kids. Again, I would lay my life at any of their feet if that's what it took to save them. I would steal for them, kill for them, lie and die for them. They are my immortality, my past, present and future. They are a piece of me I'll leave with the next generation and the one after and so forth as my mother, her mother and much more before them did.</p><p></p><p>That's the true definition of human immortality - our children. We live on in them as they pass a piece of us forward as we have those before us.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mamaof5, post: 471322"] This is a very unique question for me. I love them all equally and would lay my life at each of their feet equally so if that meant they had the best life possible and I had to make that choice. However, I'm closest with my youngest. The first born I didn't get the bonding experience I had hoped for as a first time mother. He was 3 months premature, in NICU for a long time and we were separated immediately after birth (what a bonding killer huh). I've spent his entire life (almost 11 yrs) searching and seeking for that deep bond as a mother and son relationship has. Not to say I am not bonded to him or he to I but it's not as deep as it could be. I don't think the insensitive hospital staff who stuck me in a maternity ward without my baby and with 5 other mothers who had theirs helped at all with the situation. Not one bit. I spent that first 24 hours of his life crying non stop and having to listen to 5 other women and their families coo over their healthy full term babies while mine was downtown, miles away from me. The most helpless, painful experience of my life as a parent. It even goes far beyond and above the difficult child'ness he has now. My second, I'm well bonded. She's a joy but she tends to insert herself as my assumed second in command (she's a mama hen all the way almost to a fault). She is very mature for her 9 yrs of age (turning 10 soon) to the point I swear she's a 30 something stuck in a 9 yr old body...My own version of Invasion of The Body Snatchers in the flesh some days. The next two and previous two I failed so miserably and horribly at breastfeeding with a strong desire to accomplish that said breastfeeding. It's still a painful scar and wound - really a thorn in my side. I had no support, was told I would never accomplish it and was pushed to bottle feed instead against my wishes. I never did have a problem with supply just a problem getting that supply into the baby in a normal capacity and form of function. I felt like a failure to the point where my forth I refused to even try because of the shame of failure and the fear of being once again broken by that sense of shamed failure. I lost out on that breastfeeding bond, that part of what motherhood should have been. The fifth, I owe my 18 months of success to another lady (since gone our separate ways in life) who pushed me past my fear, my sense of shame, sense of broken-ness and told me "yes you can". I have a very deep bond with my youngest and I really do think that it was because of the extended breastfeeding relationship. I truly believe in that relationship bonding mother and child in a way that bottle feeding cannot and will not. If that offends some - remember I bottle fed too, I don't look down on it at all. To each their own. As for guilt. I have tremendous amounts of it. More than I think I can handle at times because of this "difference" between the kids. Again, I would lay my life at any of their feet if that's what it took to save them. I would steal for them, kill for them, lie and die for them. They are my immortality, my past, present and future. They are a piece of me I'll leave with the next generation and the one after and so forth as my mother, her mother and much more before them did. That's the true definition of human immortality - our children. We live on in them as they pass a piece of us forward as we have those before us. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
General Discussions
The Watercooler
Do you secretly prefer one of your children over the others?
Top