Posted on 03/24/2015 8:55:40 AM PDT by qam1
In her breathtaking new memoir, Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World published Tuesday, Leigh Ann Henion, 37, writes of the birth of her 5-year-old son Archer: “I love and marvel over him as if he were my own heart pushed into the world and, still beating, set on top of my chest. Yet I cannot help but mourn the loss of something I can’t quite place. I have an inner emptiness—literal and figurative—that I’ve never felt before.”
What follows is a raw, sometimes gut-wrenching account of the dark and lonely place Henion finds herself in as she cares for a colicky, wakeful baby. Eventually Henion, a travel writer, realizes the only way out of her identity crisis is to leave her home in Boone, North Carolina and venture out into the world that once provided her so much peace and purpose. So shortly after Archer’s first birthday, Henion embarks — sometimes alone, sometimes with her husband — on a two-year trek around the world (with some stops home in between).....
Yeah, missing two years of your 5 yo son's life isn't a big deal, huh. How much more of his life is she going devote to herself before he's 18? Hey, he'll be old enough for boarding school next year and she'll have even more time to find herself.
“Sounds like she never ‘bonded’ with the kid to begin with.”
I was told how to bond with my daughter when she was born. A good friend said have the baby handed to me first. Hold them out in front of you and stare into their eyes. When they scream, you’ve bonded and you can hand the kid off to the mom. ‘
They can never bond with anyone else.
I remind my kind, decent, overachieving, good little rule following, God fearing Christian girl about this. She is horrified.
I predict fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, gluten intolerance, and many other crazy woman diseases in her future.
That husband needs to cut his losses now and run. The good solid judicial sodomizing he is on the fast track to receive will only be worse the longer he stays.
She could have went to church
I ditto your response. It wasn’t until I became a Mom that my life finally made some sense. Then when I had my conversion experience and came to know God my whole life made sense. Being a mom is one of life’s greatest challenges and it can bring both joy and sadness, but knowing God brings peace and purpose.
FReeper's were rolling!!
Ha!!
It all sounds very overwrought, but putting aside her self-actualization claptrap, she went on some trips. Okay, they were “special” trips, but she could have gone to Mount Airy for the Andy Griffith Festival or to visit her mother in Florida.
I “abandoned” six children (with their father and grandfather) and went to Europe with my mother for a week in 2002. And just last summer, I went to Mint Hill, NC, all by myself for a weekend. Shoot me.
Sorry, I was curious.
I didn’t read the article but my first thought was “I wonder if there’s God on her life?”
I don’t see that your two short trips over a period of 12 years is comparable to her who-knows-how-many trips or for how long (she was a bit unspecific) over a period of two years. Imho, mothers are important, and this kind of article seems to attempt to discount that. It may be that she did have postpartum depression, I don’t know.
My first thought was, “Did she really leave her baby for two years?” The article provided the information, “No, she did not.”
No worries..Curious Tax-chick!!
Do we want to say that a father (grandparent, aunt) can’t take care of a young child for a week? Suppose the mother was in the hospital for (period of time). Suppose she had to care for a sick parent.
Either we have to say that it’s catastrophic for a child to be separated from his mother for any reason, or we’re simply judging one individual’s reason as insufficient by our personal standards, which we can certainly do if it makes us feel good about ourselves, and she probably doesn’t give a hoot as long as it generates traffic for her article.
Fortunately I read the comments before pushing. Inner emptiness is a sad thing. Children may not fill it but God can.
Here’s the problem:
“I love and marvel over him as if he were my own heart pushed into the world and, still beating, set on top of my chest. Yet I cannot help but mourn the loss of something I can’t quite place. I have an inner emptiness—literal and figurative—that I’ve never felt before.”
She sounds very depressed.
This thread was rolling along just fine, and then you had to up and read the article. Next time you take it upon yourself to actually read what everybody’s up in arms over, keep it to yourself. Now I have to google “tiny kitten pictures” to clear my head.
LOL, just kidding. Well, not about the kitty pics. I think that’s a pretty good idea. :) And btw FRiend, I hope you’re having a wonderful Spring day.
Oh, you're no fun, anymore. ;)
One year old. The bitch “ had to find herself” after his first birthday....
My son wanted to go to App because it is my alma mater.
It has a reputation as a weed school. I wasn’t willing to pay out of state tuition.
When I was there, it was hippie Vietnam vets and rednecks.
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