Indiana Mom Reflects on Bittersweetness of Letting Go of Her Daughter’s Childhood

4745 Days Later: Still Don’t Miss Being Pregnant

Back in 2019, I wrote an article about how it had been 2,500 days since my daughter was born, and I still didn’t miss being pregnant. A lot of mothers had encouraged me to take it all in, saying I’d forget the discomfort and someday miss having my very active baby running laps inside my belly.

Well, here we are, coming up on 13 years of not being pregnant, and I can safely say I haven’t missed it once. Maybe that maternal instinct skipped me. But I’m not immune to all the bittersweetness that comes with the milestones.

The Big Leap to Middle School

Last year, when she left behind her sweet elementary school and headed off to middle school, I was worried that the world would swallow her up. It didn’t. She ate the world for lunch. She excelled in her classes, handled school bullies with ease, and charmed her teachers. It really came down to me not wanting her to grow up so fast. But what’s a mom to do?

Saying Goodbye to Soccer

And this past month, she hit a couple more milestones that I wasn’t ready for. First, she made the final decision to quit soccer. That was a hard pill to swallow. She’s played since she was five. We’ve traveled all over, sat through rain, sleet, snow, and blazing heat. We’ve put a million miles on my SUV driving her to four practices a week. We’ve bought every size of soccer cleat from size 1 to size 11. We loved it. But now, we’re not a soccer family anymore. I am proud of her for making her own decisions and sticking to them, but sad that it's over.

That one was tough. But the other milestone gutted me.

The End of Toys: A Gut Punch

This weekend, I told her to clean up the playroom. She took the opportunity to pack up all her toys and asked me to get rid of them.

Throughout her childhood, I had a love-hate relationship with toys. I loved buying them. I loved watching her open the toys I bought. I loved seeing her play, and I loved how much she loved them. And boy, did she love them. What I didn’t love was picking them up.

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The Toy Years: Love, Chaos, and “Toy Jail”

My daughter has ADHD, so cleaning up after herself has never been easy. She’ll be the first to tell you she hates cleaning and thinks it’s legalized torture. She also has a huge imagination, so the more toys she could drag out and use, the better. I spent hours cleaning and making her pick up. My best hack was “toy jail.” If toys were left out, they went to toy jail, and she had to do terrible chores like cleaning windows to pay their bail. Otherwise, they’d go to toy prison, also known as the donation box.

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Boxing Up the Childhood Years

Toys were a huge part of her childhood. We did a purge at the beginning of the year when she decided to let a lot of things go but kept the favorites. But after not even glancing at them for six months, she casually boxed up the Barbies, American Girl dolls, games, crafts, and Legos this weekend and put them in the spare bedroom, where we keep all the “to get rid of” boxes. I looked around, and my heart started breaking. All these toys I spent so many hours cursing were about to be gone from my home and my life… forever. It’s a tangible reminder that her childhood is slipping away. Damn you, Pixar! Damn you, Trace Adkins and your “You’re Gonna Miss This” song! Damn you, Father time!

Saved a Few Favorites

I decided to pull out a few of her favorites and keep them in her memory box. I still have a few of my own favorite toys from childhood. My Susan doll sits in my closet. No one else in the world would want her, but I still love her. Maybe someday my daughter will miss her old toys and yearn for a simpler time. Or maybe she’ll have a daughter of her own to share her toys with. Until then, they’ll be tucked away safely, waiting for a new kid to bring them back to life. <3