Gun violence

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j90

New member
I’ve searched the sub for this topic and I’m actually surprised it hasn’t been discussed. My husband and I have a 5 month old and we are seriously considering being OAD. However, I’m scared that something will happen to him and we’ll be childless. We’re in the U.S. so it feels like he could be randomly killed at any point in his life. Or get terminally ill.

How did you all weigh this possibility as part of your decision to be OAD? I’d love to get some perspective.

Edit: I’m not saying I wouldn’t be sad if my child died or that a second would be a replacement. I had a child because I wanted a family. My mom lost a brother young and my husband lost a sister, so I’m unfortunately pretty familiar with child/sibling loss and the impact it has.
 
@j90 I tend to think of it this way:

If I lose my child who’s an only, it’s me and my husband’s grief.

If I lose my child who’s also a sibling, it’s our grief plus another child’s grief and that only adds to my grief as a mother knowing my child is grieving their sibling.

They’re children, not spare parts, so the loss isn’t going to be any less of a crater just because you have another child. Like i said, it only adds to who’s affected by the blast zone, and perhaps even adds the weight and guilt of trying to cope with unimaginable loss while still having to parent and help a child cope too, and while feeling un whole and even unable to parent.
 
@katrina2017 My husband and I have discussed if we’d want another child should something happen to our only (as it pertains to a vasectomy) and the weight and guilt part of this equation keep me in the solid ‘no’ camp. I’ve always thought you don’t have a child to fulfill a role, like fix your marriage or to be a friend to your older child, and for me healing your heart after child loss fits into that.
 
@j90 I actually think about this a lot. Uvalde shooting has really shook me and ever since I’ve been so worried. I considered homeschooling him but I know I’m not equipped to handle that. Overall, what has still kept my one and done decision is the fact that if he has a sibling, they’ll also have to grieve their brother (depending on initial age of course, but they’ll eventually know he existed regardless) and I don’t think I’d be a very good parent to my other child while grieving such a tragic death to my son. I just know I’d fall apart.
 
@j90 I have general anxiety. So this thought happens a lot.

Honestly what helped me the most was thinking about a practical solution. What if I did lose our only kid? This will look different for every family obviously.

For us we'd definitely sell our house and move to state we've never had anything to do with. No memories and we'd likely start to foster. I've worked with that system before and truthfully it's not something I think we could handle while also raising our own child. But it would allow us to make an impact even without a family. It's something we are considering after we retire, but of course our kid would be an adult by then.

It's all about having plan. Even if it's a plan for a grim situation. I don't see it as any different then planning a will or scenarios in which my husband or I am the one that passes early.

Helps to have a feeling of control.
 
@katrina2017 Thanks so much for your comment! We have talked a lot about fostering when our son gets older instead of having more kids. And yeah I am the type to think about and plan for the worst case scenario. Appreciate the insight.
 
@j90 90% of the time when I tell people I'm OAD, the immediate reaction is "but what if she dies and you don't have a back up?" I am constantly pissed off because WHO says that about someone's child? Who thinks that a kid's death doesn't affect the parents if they have other children?? It's a fucked up way of thinking and I hate it.

So no. I don't think about this possibility as a reason for wanting more children. My daughter's death would destroy me regardless of whether or not I have more children. I think it's disgusting that people act like their kids' lives are unimportant if they have a spare child.
 
@michael6 I understand you’re saying these are your personal thoughts, but in regards to OP’s post it seems like a huge (unwarranted) leap from what she asked to implying that she is acting like her current child’s life is “unimportant.”
 
@j90 I agree. I think people react so differently to traumatic events, even completely hypothetical ones / thought experiments, and sometimes we assume so much about someone’s motivations based on how their reactions differ from
our own.
 
@j90 its something i have definitely thought about. but, it came down to- you cannot predict life, so why dwell on the unknown? theres just too many variables to life. years ago i read a story about a family with 10 children and a house fire. 7 or 8 of the children died. my husbands step brother has 2 half siblings that died by the time they were 27yo from heroin. you just don't know how things will ever play out.
 
@j90 This is a serious fear of mine, too. I worry about anything tragic happening to our son. After my FIL (who was a real piece of work) died, DH found a loaded gun in an unlocked drawer in his office. I was beyond livid and ready to cut off all contact with MIL, even though FIL was already dead. DH and I worked through what happened together in therapy.

I am also super strict about carseat guidelines. We had ours installed by a child passenger safety technician and nobody was allowed to move them. I refused to turn DS forward until he reached the height and weight max for his seat. He is 8 years old but will continue riding in a booster seat until he reaches the recommendation 57 inches.

I try to remember that even if we had multiple children, there is no way to replace a child that was lost. It would not matter that we had another child, we would still grieve the same. Yes, it would be devastating to be childless again. But no parent who has lost a child says "At least I still have my other child(ren)."

An elevated level of anxiety is not uncommon in OAD parents. Don't hesitate to reach out for help if you need it.
 
@j90 For us we are OAD for sooooooo many reasons. I have thought about what it would be like to loose our only. And honestly I think if we had 1 or 10 kids loosing any of them would be crushing. The possibility of loosing him is not a good enough reason for me to have more. He is irreplaceable. More would not remove whatever grief I would feel. It would not fill whatever void I would carry with me. We just do the best we can and then hope for the best and have to trust in the Universe. So many things are out of our control. Our child’s ultimate fate is one of those things. So we give him as much love and opportunity as we can to thrive. But for us more children would not help that any.
 
@j90 If I let every bad case scenario run through my head I’d still be childless. We live in a relatively safe community and safe area. Oxford shooting happened 30 mins from me. Qanon dad killing his wife + dog happened 30 mins from me. They were scary situations but when I factor those into how things have been since living here, they are rare and quickly addressed. There’s so much that can go wrong like car accidents are a bigger worry to me than gun violence. I’ve had more instances of almost being hit head on or crashed into than I have encountered any gun violence situations. Suicide, bullying, and so much more are leading causes of children dying. That is why I don’t let one single factor influence our decision to be OAD. Instead I focused on my health and our lifestyle.
 
@j90 To me, there’s more likely to be bad things happening if I had another kid- ie the statistics of me dying due to childbirth (plus I had pre ecclampsia making it more likely to happen again), or having a severely disabled second child that ruined all our lives (no offense meant to anyone with a severely disabled child, but it’s a difficult life)
 
@j90 Would you ever dream of saying to someone who's lost a child "oh well, you've got others". Of course not. Because the logic is inherently flawed. Children aren't insurance policies. They are individuals and the tragic loss of one is terrible regardless of the sibling count.
 
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