Dear Amy: I am a 55-year-old married woman with a very good life, friends and family. I wanted children, but a long list of life events and illnesses led to that not happening. I have learned to live with it, but find that at this age I am saddened by the loss.
I watch the children of my friends and siblings graduate, get married and have babies. I joyfully buy gifts and attend their events, but I can’t help feeling robbed and left out.
In my heart, I feel I don’t have value in the world without my own children, even though my head tells me that’s not so. Any ideas for how others have dealt with this? — Going Solo
Dear Going Solo: Loss is part of the human condition, and one element of modern life is that we tell ourselves that it is possible to bypass grief when what we have to do is learn to live with it.
You sound like a balanced person who has faced the reality of childlessness with grace. At the middle stage of life, many realities and regrets take on new resonance, and your burden now is to experience these losses and regrets — and still choose to live well.
Of course it is not too late for you and your husband to have children in your life — through mentoring, fostering, adopting or maintaining close relationships with young friends or family members.
However, raising a child might not put a stopper in that sense of loss you feel. Parenting is not all birthday parties and graduation ceremonies. It does not offer any guarantees for fulfillment. Any parent who is being honest will say that being a parent is different from what they expected, and many parents have regrets about their own choices.
A book you would find helpful is “Complete Without Kids: An Insider’s Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance,” by Ellen Walker (2011, Greenleaf Book Group).
Dear Amy: I know this doesn’t seem like such a “problem,” but it seems big in our house.
My daughter just graduated from high school and is enjoying her summer (she does have a part-time job). We disagree about curfew. We think 11:30 on a weeknight is late enough (given that others in a household my daughter might be visiting might have to get up early).
We’ve agreed on 12:30 on a weekend. She has said that everyone else gets to stay out until 12:30 weeknights. I think this might be true, but it doesn’t mean it’s OK.
Do you think 11:30 is unreasonable? She’s about to go off to college, so soon she’ll get her freedom anyway. Are we holding her back when we shouldn’t be?
She pulled the “I’m an adult now” argument, but we shut that one right down? — Puzzled Parents
Dear Puzzled: Your daughter has succeeded in promoting this as a problem in your household to the extent that she has you worried about when people she is visiting might need to go to bed. That is none of your concern.
In my household, we set a curfew based on how late we parents are willing to stay awake on a work night.
Your daughter can set her own schedule at college.
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