Grief & Loss - Parenting (Phase Two)
Content warning: This blog discusses sensitive subjects including child loss. Reader discretion is advised.
Grief can be a heavy topic. If you are finding yourself being weighed down while reading, or if it’s feeling like a lot, it’s always okay to take a break. Come back to it later, space out the times you come to read about this, and check in with yourself about how this topic is making you feel. Take care of you.
“The biggest challenge I faced, and still face, was sheer exhaustion and mind-numbing fatigue”
Shortly after I started writing the previous parenting post, I realized that this topic is way too big for one summary. Here we are at phase two - once our children are brought to us however they arrive, we learn how common it is to experience simultaneous and contradicting feelings. The joy of being a parent, living the parent life, may be overshadowed by struggles to bond or anxiety and shame around parenting choices. Worries about losing our kids or leaving them too soon can result in an ongoing, baseline of grief as we learn how quickly time really does go by. One glimmer of positivity I have seen a few times over my research, is the concept that grief doesn’t have to equal being sad. We can still experience joy and gratitude while grieving.
The art of parenting naturally involves loss on a regular basis. We lose a bit of ourselves a little at a time, even with the best efforts to maintain our own identity we are forever altered. We experience loss of expectations on a regular basis, as our children make their own decisions about what to wear, what they are willing to eat, what sports they play or won’t play, or when they decide to go in a really different direction with their lives than what we imagined.
The onset or diagnosis of a disability can bring with it a loss of normal and loss of expectations. Parents are left to support a new version of their child, while navigating complicated systems and managing their own feelings along with those of their families, friends, and kids.
Guilt and blame in situations of childhood injuries can complicate grief, and parents may struggle to access emotional supports for themselves following a child’s injury (Kornhaber et al., 2017). A study of parents of children who experience burn injuries concluded that “parents of burn survivors have low levels of resilience and experience significant psychological distress” that makes them more likely than the average person to experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (McGarry et al., 2013, p. 1119). Another study found “Co-occurrence of complicated grief with major depressive disorder and PTSD is also common” (Shear et al., 2005, p. 2601). Recognizing the links between our experiences and our long term mental health can help us when we take the steps to access supports for ourselves and validate the experiences of our loved ones.
Sometimes parenting brings big heaping mounds of grief with the death of a child. This can last a lifetime, always existing under the surface, coloring every other experience forevermore. Having to answer the popular question, “how many children do you have?” becomes complicated and loaded.
Shamayim “Mama Shu” Harris talks about her loss on All There Is with Anderson Cooper:
'That night was one of the roughest, nights. I really didn't think I was going to last overnight. Literally, I thought I just wouldn't be able to make it. You know, I thought that maybe my heart would stop. I don't know. I couldn't function no more. Wouldn't be able to eat. I didn't know what was going to happen . . . And so, it actually happened to me. And it was even, the pain was worse later on. It didn't get better. Like, the first year is just horrible, just a realization that my kid got killed. Like, I actually lost my two-year-old son. He was actually hit by a car holding my other son's hand. And yeah, it just got worse. And what I mean by getting worse, it seems like that first year, it's like almost the first of everything, you know, the first birthday, the first holidays, these first things that you just notice that somebody's missing.”
Mama Shu goes on to explain how she lives her life now: “every single thing that I do right now is grief. This is grief. It just looks beautiful. And that's the way that I look at it.”
Mama Shu lost her 2 year old son, Jakobi in 2007 when he was hit by a car, and she lost another son, Chinyelu in 2021 when he was murdered. Her step-son, Pili, was also murdered in 2015. She has since created a tribute using her grief as motivation, cleaning up her community and building a beautiful village with a park dedicated to Jakobi.
One thing I’ve learned is that we can’t compare our grief. Instead we can accept the grief of others as well as accepting our own. While our journeys are unique, we can find comfort and connection when we hear the stories of others, and when we allow ourselves to open up about our experiences. It can be hard when hearing about big loss to carry on with our lives, to enjoy moments when we know pain could be just around the corner.
Foreboding Joy
“If you’re afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy - if you find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop - you are not alone. It’s called ‘foreboding joy’ and most of us experience it"
~Brene Brown, Atlas of The Heart
Foreboding joy is a really interesting concept that seems to come up when people have experienced grief. Sometimes we become so used to grief that we are afraid to accept the positive parts of life because we are constantly on the lookout for the next sad or scary thing. Brene Brown found that 95% of parents who were interviewed have experienced the phenomenon of foreboding joy. How does she suggest we combat this? Practice gratitude. I’ve got a whole lot to say about practicing gratitude, which will be coming in a future post. The basic idea for now though, is that when we can stay in a present moment and lean in to being grateful for what we have, we can experience a deeper joy.
The Empty Nest
As children turn into youth and into adults, parenting takes a new turn when we experience newfound independence whether we want to or not. This can be a really tough phase of life for many parents, who may struggle to find their new normal and grieve the loss of their prior identities, while also feeling the loss of seeing their kids every day.
Parenting While Grieving
In my grief research, I came across many instances where people have shared their experiences with parenting while going through major loss and grief. Divorce or the loss of a partner or loved one can flip a world upside down, and a parent can be left to take care of children while struggling in their own grief. There is a well of resources on this subject, so I will share some of them here rather than trying to cover it all.
There are several All There Is with Anderson Cooper podcasts about this experience, available here.
Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant also tackle this topic, with Sheryl sharing her journey after the death of her husband (available at the library, on audible, or wherever you buy your books). There is also a whole website with resources available here.
Allison Holker discusses her life in the year following the suicide death of her husband, Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss on the Viall Files podcast, available here.
Parenting is the journey of a lifetime, with ups and downs all along. While we each walk our own path, we may be able to find connection with others when we focus on connection rather than comparison. Grief and loss are inevitable in life, and when we recognize all the ways this impacts our well-being we can turn it into shared moments and larger tributes that help a whole community.
If you are struggling right now, please reach out to Distress Centre at 403-266-4357 to talk to a trained volunteer, reach out to friends or family, or get connected to a professional counsellor. It’s so important to take care of your mental health, just like you would your physical health.
Contributed by Ellery, BSW Practicum Student
Resources
Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the Heart. Random House.
Cooper, A. (Host) (2024, January 24). Mama Shu: Turning loss into love [Audio podcast episode]. In All There Is with Anderson Cooper. CNN Audio. Mama Shu: Turning Loss Into Love - All There Is with Anderson Cooper - Podcast on CNN Audio
Kornhaber, R., Childs, C., & Cleary, M. (2018). Experiences of guilt, shame, and blame in those affected by burns: A qualitative systematic review. Burns, 44, 1026-1039. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2017.11.012
McGarry, S., Girdler, S., McDonald, A., Valentine, J., Wood, F., & Elliott, C. (2013). Pediatric medical trauma: The impact on parents of burn survivors. Burns, 39, 1114-1121.
Shear, K., Frank, E., Houck, P. R., & Reynolds, C. F. (2005). Treatment of Complicated Grief: A Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA : The Journal of the American Medical Association, 293(21), 2601–2608. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.21.2601
Photos from Unsplash.
