I am so grateful my kids are healthy and alive!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother died as a teen, I played an integral part in raising him and his death shattered me. But I feel the same as OP about my kids today and so do my parents. Pretending those lives aren’t difficult and painful, the other paths, is silly. I am acutely aware of how quickly and randomly it can change and so I spend not a single moment holding back the metric ton of gratitude I feel every day my children are healthy and alive.

So many of the posts and complaints I read on here and marvel at the lack of gratitude. I try to remember that everyone is fighting their own battles but truly, if more people thought like this Op and less like “a boy grabbed my sons shovel at the playground so I told the mom feeding her other baby FORMULA to control her son, did I overreact?” Posters the world would be a better place.

Be grateful, for the roof over your head, for the food in your belly, for the stay rise and fall of your child’s chest as they sleep.

Agreed. OP don't let the negative people get you down.

I have experienced tragedy and I am ever grateful for every day I have with the people I love.


So many people would be better people if they had a grateful spirit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kind of a dumb sentiment and also tempting fate.

It's dumb to be grateful?

I think every major religion encourages thankfulness.

[Anonymous]

Posts like this (not just this post specifically, but posts on FB in a similar vein, etc) always seem to me like they're taking a tragedy and making it about them. I dunno why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tasteless post.

Yeah, I have to agree. Imagine being a parent who's kid is not healthy, or has passed. This subject line it a bit of a slap in the face, albeit unintentionally.

+1. I have a friend with a severely disabled toddler and I always flinch whenever someone says they are so grateful for their perfect healthy baby or something along those lines. I know people saying stuff like that don't have parents of disabled kids in mind, but they are (inadvertently perhaps) using those parents' struggles to make themselves feel better. "Could be worse, I could be you!"

It’s exactly this. It’s a very strange kind of myopia, and it reflects very badly on any adult who says it. Posting it where parents can see this is not a kindness, at all.

Agree. It's like when expectant parents say "we don't care if it's a boy or a girl, it being healthy is all we care about!" Like, ok, what about the babies who are born unhealthy? You're openly stating that you don't want one of those babies. It's tactless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tasteless post.

Yeah, I have to agree. Imagine being a parent who's kid is not healthy, or has passed. This subject line it a bit of a slap in the face, albeit unintentionally.

+1. I have a friend with a severely disabled toddler and I always flinch whenever someone says they are so grateful for their perfect healthy baby or something along those lines. I know people saying stuff like that don't have parents of disabled kids in mind, but they are (inadvertently perhaps) using those parents' struggles to make themselves feel better. "Could be worse, I could be you!"

It’s exactly this. It’s a very strange kind of myopia, and it reflects very badly on any adult who says it. Posting it where parents can see this is not a kindness, at all.

Agree. It's like when expectant parents say "we don't care if it's a boy or a girl, it being healthy is all we care about!" Like, ok, what about the babies who are born unhealthy? You're openly stating that you don't want one of those babies. It's tactless.

What parent doesn’t want a healthy baby? I’m sure even parents of unhealthy babies wish that they were healthy. OP ignore these negative nellies! I am also grateful every day that my child is alive and am grateful for her good health when she is healthy. I cry whenever I read a news story about a child dying or suffering. Puts my small challenges in perspective .

[Anonymous]

Why are you grateful for a healthy kid? I don't understand the connection with Uvalde or Buffalo.

Special needs mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tasteless post.

Yeah, I have to agree. Imagine being a parent who's kid is not healthy, or has passed. This subject line it a bit of a slap in the face, albeit unintentionally.

+1. I have a friend with a severely disabled toddler and I always flinch whenever someone says they are so grateful for their perfect healthy baby or something along those lines. I know people saying stuff like that don't have parents of disabled kids in mind, but they are (inadvertently perhaps) using those parents' struggles to make themselves feel better. "Could be worse, I could be you!"

It’s exactly this. It’s a very strange kind of myopia, and it reflects very badly on any adult who says it. Posting it where parents can see this is not a kindness, at all.

Agree. It's like when expectant parents say "we don't care if it's a boy or a girl, it being healthy is all we care about!" Like, ok, what about the babies who are born unhealthy? You're openly stating that you don't want one of those babies. It's tactless.

What parent doesn’t want a healthy baby? I’m sure even parents of unhealthy babies wish that they were healthy. OP ignore these negative nellies! I am also grateful every day that my child is alive and am grateful for her good health when she is healthy. I cry whenever I read a news story about a child dying or suffering. Puts my small challenges in perspective .

Uh, no. No, we don't. That's you looking at our lives from your perspective. Which has nothing to do with reality. Let me ask you, when your car breaks down, or your washing machine, do you sit around all day wishing it weren't broken down? Or do you take action, form a plan, and follow through? If you spend every day of your life wishing things weren't the way they were, you are highly dysfunctional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posts like this (not just this post specifically, but posts on FB in a similar vein, etc) always seem to me like they're taking a tragedy and making it about them. I dunno why.

Because they are.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s the “how do people go on” comment that is triggering, OP. It’s passive aggressive.

You go on because the alternative is nothing. The alternative is that your loved one’s name disappears or the disease or tragedy that killed them claims another life and another and another.

My children are healthy- one has T1 diabetes which is a 24/7 thing (I’m up correcting a high for him as we speak) but it’s manageable. I thank goodness we have the management tools we do today.

[Anonymous]

There is also an entirely different perspective from some parents of kids with really profound disabilities. I am one of those. My child will end up in a facility with 24/7 care where I have no way to keep her safe and she cannot tell me if something happens to her. Parents like me often don’t want our kids to outlive us. Our worst nightmare is that our children live to be 85 years old in a Medicaid funded facility. Of course, I want her to live as long as she can while I can do all in my power to keep her safe.

My other kid had cancer so I’ve had to contemplate what life looks like without a kid (she is fine now and more than 5 years post chemo). The reality is that my hsuband and I would have gone on in order to take care of our child with profound special needs. It isn’t magic. You just have to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posts like this (not just this post specifically, but posts on FB in a similar vein, etc) always seem to me like they're taking a tragedy and making it about them. I dunno why.

Because everyone is the star in only their own movie. And when things happen around us, we frame it in our own experience. I don't think people who go to a funeral and make it all about them are good people, but this personal thought process I think is very natural. And almost everyone feels it. It isn't any different from 'I'm going to hug my children tighter tonight' after a shooting. When the fragility of our happiness is exposed, it creates anxiety.

I have experienced a lot of tragedy, gratitude for the good, when there is good, is how you survive.

[Anonymous]

As a mom whose child died, let OP be grateful. I am grateful for my remaining children every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a tasteless post.

Yeah, I have to agree. Imagine being a parent who's kid is not healthy, or has passed. This subject line it a bit of a slap in the face, albeit unintentionally.

+1. I have a friend with a severely disabled toddler and I always flinch whenever someone says they are so grateful for their perfect healthy baby or something along those lines. I know people saying stuff like that don't have parents of disabled kids in mind, but they are (inadvertently perhaps) using those parents' struggles to make themselves feel better. "Could be worse, I could be you!"

It’s exactly this. It’s a very strange kind of myopia, and it reflects very badly on any adult who says it. Posting it where parents can see this is not a kindness, at all.

Agree. It's like when expectant parents say "we don't care if it's a boy or a girl, it being healthy is all we care about!" Like, ok, what about the babies who are born unhealthy? You're openly stating that you don't want one of those babies. It's tactless.

What parent doesn’t want a healthy baby? I’m sure even parents of unhealthy babies wish that they were healthy. OP ignore these negative nellies! I am also grateful every day that my child is alive and am grateful for her good health when she is healthy. I cry whenever I read a news story about a child dying or suffering. Puts my small challenges in perspective .

Uh, no. No, we don't. That's you looking at our lives from your perspective. Which has nothing to do with reality. Let me ask you, when your car breaks down, or your washing machine, do you sit around all day wishing it weren't broken down? Or do you take action, form a plan, and follow through? If you spend every day of your life wishing things weren't the way they were, you are highly dysfunctional.

Who said anything about sitting around. Yes when my child is ill I wish she were healthy and didn’t have to suffer. I have had serious illnesses and and have a lifelong chronic illness (with a fairly high mortality rate) and the desire to be healthy keeps me seeking treatment and doing the work to improve and become healthier. Yes I wish my dad didn’t have metastatic cancer and was’t suffering so much from the effects Of radiation. I wish my mom didn’t have cognitive impairment and was actually capable of traveling to see her granddaughter whom she has never seen. And yes before my child was born I wanted her to be healthy and a pray every day for her good health. No I’m sitting around. But of course I wish that the people I love weren’t suffering. You seem strange that you have no wish for your child to be healthy.