The death of your 'dream child'

October 25, 6:50 PMFamily Grief & Bereavement ExaminerCarol A. Ranney

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C Ranney

At the first moment that one knows that parenthood lies ahead—whether through birth or adoption—the ‘dream child’ is born.  You envision him or her, still many months from being born or coming home, and imagine the child that will be yours.  You envision how he will look, how she will act.  You begin shopping in the baby aisles, choosing the clothes and accessories that your dream child will wear, the toys he or she will play with and enjoy.  Dad pictures his little football sidekick, watching the games on his lap.  Mom pictures the fun of combing hair, choosing outfits, and sharing everyday wonders.

As time passes, the ‘dream child’ is revised to fit reality.  The girl is a tomboy, the boy is studious and fascinated with science, not sports.  The adaptations parents make are mostly unconscious—for each part of the ‘dream child’ they let go of, there is a delightful reality to take its place. 

If your child develops a disease or is born with a disability, the struggle is much greater to adapt to the new reality.  Learning to care for a child with health issues or a disability has been compared to traveling to a foreign country where everything is different, and an entirely new set of skills is necessary for you and your child to survive and thrive.

If you have experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, mourning the ‘dream child’ is much more of a reality, and much more painful.  Not only must you relinquish all the delightful and exciting aspects of the ‘dream child,’ you must also relinquish the reality of a living child.  The parents' grief and mourning for this child is as painful as mourning a living child, but they may receive very little support from society, for whom the child often “wasn’t really a child anyway.”

Throughout childhood, the revision and relinquishment of the ‘dream child’ continues, as the child becomes a young adult and makes his or her own choices, sometimes greatly at odds with the hopes and desires of the parent.  Recently my 17 year old daughter announced that she doesn’t “want to live here anymore,” and intends to move out on her 18th birthday.   It’s hard to reconcile this with the bright-eyed toddler who came to be my middle daughter.  Whether your child “comes out” as gay, drops out of school, leaves home prematurely, becomes addicted to drugs, takes his or her own life, or any number of other controversial choices, the death of the ‘dream child’ becomes painfully real and sometimes final.

Difficult as it is to accept, our children can be molded only to a certain extent.  Those tiny beings wrapped in soft blankets are not “blank slates”—far from it.  They are little people, anxious to grow up and to let us know who they are.  Our love, guidance, teaching, nurturing and discipline are essential to their maturity and well-being, but in the end, our grown children will make their own decisions.

Even as they go out on their own and make choices that may literally mean life or death, we are still their parents.  Our prayers will follow them where we cannot, and our love that lets them go can also remain a haven they may someday return to.

Support Resources:
MISS Foundation:  Miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death

The National Stillbirth Society

Broken Hearts, Living Hope: free support for bereaved parents (download a subscription form from the website, or email your name and postal address from the web site)

 Special Child:  Disability Awareness

United Cerebral Palsy Association

Parents of Suicides

Parents: the Anti-Drug

Parents of Gay Children

Team Hope:  Parents with Missing Children