Tackling Regret
Posted: August 31, 2007 at 2:45 pmI’m working on Chapter Eight in Lifegivers for the birth/first parent blog. It will be two days of talk on the subject because the chapter is so long. And so heavy. And mostly overwhelming. Regret is often feared. Even though I’ve written about it before and how it’s not so big and so scary, people freak out when you talk about birth parent regret.
And so, in conjunction with the chapter review posts on Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be talking about how birth parents in today’s world (which includes closed and open adoption mothers and fathers) are dealing with that regret, how the adoptive families involved with such people are dealing with it and how it doesn’t have to be this huge, scary thing that sends everyone running for the hills.
A quote to get some minds going:
Regret is no stranger to birthparents. It is, of course, a reality for everyone, but it is an especially common and prominent companion for birthparents. It may be as modest as a sporadic twinge of forlorn longing or as oppressive as a lifetimes of relentless remorse.
-James L Gritter, Lifegivers
So, no, I don’t want to hear, “Oh, I have no regrets.” Look up the definitions. If you’ve ever wished that things could have gone differently or that your child could have been present on x-day or that their birthday wasn’t such an emotional drain, you’ve experienced some form of regret. We train people to think that regret is totally negative, something to be avoided at all costs. I come to argue that regret, while not always a pleasant feeling, can motivate us in better directions. Regret doesn’t have to rule our lives; sure, it’s present but it doesn’t have to take over every aspect, every corner, every nook and cranny.
It’s such a big topic. There’s so much to say. So much to learn. So much.
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
I like your nudge to help us put regret into perspective.
A questionnaire recently asked if I regretted being a mother ever. Do I? No, I honestly do not believe I do.
But do I regret that we waited ten years before pursuing adoption? Do I regret the amount of time we had to wait for our son to be born? In a way, yes. Because I wish we’d had him sooner to be a part of our lives! Yet I can’t truly regret starting it all when we did, because he might not be here with us now – our perfect child!!! So it’s a shame we weren’t all brought together sooner, yet that 10 year abyss of childlessness sure gave me time to prepare to be a better mother!
So, based on a the once-in-a-while wistful feeling I get when I think of all the time I spent without him, I must confess that I have had regrets! Yet they’re not negative – they enhance our special time together now!
Sorry – I rambled. Your post just made me feel a need to say this. I couldn’t ignore it…
I like what you said. Your right, regret is viewed as a negative emotion. I think as an amom, when I first started into the world of adoption I hoped for that. Crazy. Its simply not natural.
Somehow, when a mother who has lost a child to adoption claims to have no regrets, I wonder how that can be. I wonder if she is mired in denial. I wonder if she needs to believe surrendering her child to adoption was “for the best” whether it really was or not. I wonder how a mother can NOT wish that either things had been different or that she had more faith in her own abilities and made the decision to parent. I wonder if a mother with no regrets even acknowledges her connection to her child.
Even if a woman truly believes that she could not have mothered her child well, wouldn’t she regret such a situation? She could accept that she had picked out parents for her child that she believed in, but still wouldn’t she regret missing out on mothering her child?
Do women who express no regrets rationalize their decisions to survive their loss? I wonder. Is living with regret too difficult and uncomfortable for some women? How can any woman lose a child and not regret the loss? I think it unnatural not to have deep regrets. But, does it conflict with our ideas of getting on with life and not holding on to difficult feelings?
Many adoptive parents seem uncomfortable with the regrets of birth parents and some choose to discount regretful feelings. They want and need to believe that they are the parents destined to raise a child that they adopted. Regret is a normal reaction to the loss of a child.