leaving child at my parents

hi saisai,

i am not going to say anything earth-shatteringly different from what all the others have said here. if you plan to leave your kid with your parents, you will have to be mentally prepared for the following:

• you will miss your child a lot, so will your husband.
  
• you will miss out on the most precious milestones in your child's life. you have not mentioned how old the baby is. if he/she is very very young (a few months old), imagine having to hear from your parents about how baby took her first steps today, how she got her first tooth etc. well, you could have video tapes, but it is not the same thing.
  
• if baby is ill, imagine the anxiety you will feel and at this distance you will not be able to do anything. besides, if this is going to create a rift between your parents and husband, is all this worth it?
  
• your child might grow more attached to her grandparents' than to you. when you eventually want to get her back, she might be unwilling to leave her grandparents.
  
• after her grandparents time, she might be left rudderless - living with people whom she does not really see as her parents.

think all these points over well and think if you are prepared to face all these situations in future and whether they are really worth it?

also remember many people who have no children would give an arm and a leg to have a child of their own/ adopted child. a child is not a matter of convenience. the child did not ask to be born. it was your desire to bring the child in this world. do you not owe your child all your time, attention and love? the decision is fully yours.

may whatever decision you take be right for you.

 

Hi friends who has posted responsed to saisai's post, till now we have not got any feedback from her, i think she stopped checking seeing all the negetive responses.

 

or may be she is weighing all the feedback she has got, and wants to come to some conclusion before she speaks. let us not jump to any conclusions. give her some time.

 

My very humble opinion:
Leaving you child with his doting grandparents temporarily until you get through the critical stage of your career will most probably NOT damage your child's psychological disposition nor your relationship with him. I have seen plenty of examples in my immediate / extended family and friend circle.
As far as the scathing replies to what is referred to as outsourcing of parenting is concerned, dare I put my 2 p in front of you?
These days I see too much of 'your child,your problem' outlooks. But I feel that in the history of time, parenting has never been the sole responsibility of the mother. Children have been looked after by grandparents,members of extended family, siblings or in unofficial community child care set up by kith and kin when the mother was busy with farm and field work or new offsprings. With sky high birth rate and maternal mortality rate, many children were raised exclusively by grandparents,aunts etc. Many (including my elderly relatives) have fond memories of grandparents and cousins. This, what I think is social parenting is even prevalent in animal kingdom like that of elephants. I think its neither a crime nor absolutely unnatural. (eg: The famous Tamil author Sujatha has written many stories happily and favourably recollecting his young childhood when he was exclusively raised by his granny.)
Coming back to your problem,
I feel that your child being temporarily away from you is better than being raised by you with you stressed out with exams, travel and deplacement or having raised by you with you being bitter about lost career opportunities. Hope you find support here from people with similar experiences or elsewhere in the net.

 

In your example, the parents came home from the farm at the end of the night and saw their child. They were a constant physical presence in their child's life. It's completely different from sending your child away for years at a time, where you might only see him/her once a year on a short vaccation.

As for maternal mortality rates..... yeah grandparents CAN raise their grandchildren in the place of the parents. But you are comparing a situation where the parents are alive and well, to a situation where the parents are dead. My dad died when I was very young, so I grew up without that parent and was raised only by my mom. So yeah, anyone can 'raise' you, but it doesn't take away the fact that MOM or DAD is not there, and the child will always remember that for the rest of their life. I had no choice, I had to be raised with one parent missing.... but it's certainly not a choice I would have chosen for myself. It is absolutely disgusting to me when LIVING able parents pawn their children off to other relatives.

Maybe leaving the kid with the grandparents for a very short time, like 1-2 months is ok. But 6 months, a year, two years.... where does it end? That's a really long time.

And elephants don't drive their elderly parents to doctor appointments, or gift their parents extravagant gifts, or let their parents arrange their marriages, etc. So if parents can think of their children as adaptable creatures like in the animal kingdom, the same parents should be ready to accept the same detached and independent behavior when their children become adults. Isn't that only fair?

 

lol!

......

 

I agree 100%. This is the reason why adoption is so successful but I digress.

I will go nuts here now and please, nobody stop me.

To think of the years I struggled to have a baby. To think of the number of women who cry themselves to sleep every night because they don't have a baby of thier own yet and who long to sooth a crying a child, to be sleep deprived, to be overtired, to give up having a hobby or a job or tidy hair and a tidy house and yet be completely blissful because they have a baby. I can't understand how such people don't have babies and babies are born to those that want to cart them off like unwanted luggage. Where is the justice in this???

OP, why so silent? Were you expecting a thunderous applause for your decision to send off your baby to India since he/she is inconvenient right now? There is not one single support here yet. That may come. Will you use that one or two posts as a lifeline or as just the validation you were looking for and do exactly what you intended to do all along?

The rest of us are telling you not to do this. We have no incentive except for trying to save a baby (your baby) from the pain of separation from his/her mother. Change your mind before you set the wheels in motion and things will never be the same. CHANGE YOUR MIND. Find another solution.

 

I have the same question - just where is saisai? Posted a question, people answered, and she is not posting?

 

I think it is acceptable to leave your child (if healthy) with parents for sometime with frequent visits. Most of us lived with grandparents during first few years of our life and some of us will take care of our grandchildren in future. May be you can help your parents financially or in some other way instead of taking advantage of them. Not every one is financially stable with good visa status. Think about your future first as it will impact your child's future as well. I can understand both minimalist and ASG views, both of you are from different cultures and continents.

 

DNM, second you totally. Besides, it is all about the child's emotional needs. It is all about bonding with parents.