[julie23]

this post is mainly for birthmothers who have also raised children....

as i have worked through my "birthmother issues" over the last several years.... i have become really aware of how deeply placing my first daughter affected how i raised the subsequent three....

an adoptive mother posted something about how she was loving her daughter like she was losing her... i think they called it "anticipatory grief"...

anyhow... that struck a chord with me... i've raised my three girls in the shadow of anticipatory grief... i'm sure of it....

I have pushed myself to be the best mom... do everything "perfect"... prove to the world that I am capable of mothering...

i've always been completely freaked out by any sign of distress in my kids... they have all been to the ER for minor bumps and scrapes... i think i've actually taken two of them at different times for sleeping too much....

I think i've lived with a really intense fear of losing them... the whole time I've had them....

honestly, some of this is probably a really good thing... I think my kids have benefitted alot from all the books I have read.. and classes I have taken... I don't think i was well prepared to parent, and i think i've been able to learn a lot of healthy stuff....

also... they do have GREAT lives... their bedrooms are always absolutely adorable.... they have my attention almost any time they want it... i volunteer in their classrooms... we do super duper fun things all the time... from vacations to day trips....

and I think all of that comes from having relinquished... and being completely focused on that never happening again...

and now... here is the crux of this post... my oldest (kept) daughter has recently become the proud new mama of a baby kitten... as she is 17, we agreed to this kitty if she took 100% care of.... both physically and financially...

we adopted this kitty from the infirmary at the humane society... so she has had some health issues... and alot of trips to the vet...

as my daughter has been doing most of this... she has been experiencing alot of the same anxiety and fears in regards to her "baby"... that she has observed in me all these years... I had once shared with her my thoughts about "anticipatory grief"... and I have shared alot with her about the whole birthmother thing... and after one particularly difficult vet experience, she came home and told me "In my psychology class (college level) we learned that children sense their parents fears and have the same ones." (Or something like that.)

she went on to say, that she thinks she is experiencing anticipatory grief with her kitten.... the same panic, fear, and protectiveness she has seen in me..

of course, a kitten is not a baby.... but i have always thought that my reaction and subsequent parenting choices were simply my own... that my daughters would eventually grow up and have their own children, and not experience the same type of fears that I had, because they would not have placed a baby for adoption....

and now I am wondering, if that is just not true.. that simply because they grew up with me "on edge"... being too protective..... too fearful of losing them... if they are going to absorb that and it will become a part of their parenting...

have any of you experienced parenting choices that you attribute to relinquishing.... and now see your grown children making similar parenting decisions?????

j