I never felt that bond with my daughter either. First because I really didn't want kids because I never related to them & even though they are your own, I don't believe that the motherly instinct is real......I always fought to be different than my mother. I didn't want to be that helpless female that she was, totally dependent on my father for everything. I wanted my degree & my career more than I ever wanted kids.

If it wasn't for my parents stepping up to do the care for her while I went on with my degree & engineering career, I probably wouldn't have had her in the first place (that's where I was at at that time of my life...it's definitely changed from then).

I never related to kids so I never related to my own daughter either. I had pushed away my parents because they embarrassed me to death so having close touch to my own daughter wasn't a natural feeling for me either. H related to kids better because he was the oldest of 4 & knew what to do with kids while I had been an only child & never was around babies & never had the desire....I was happier playing baseball & football & cowboys & climbing fences & trees than playing dolls with the girls in the neighborhood.

However as my daughter grew.....I was always the one there to help her fight her battles, always the one to support her during the difficult times. Turned out I'm sure that her dad has Asperger's & he was never emotionally connected to anyone even though he did a lot of care for her when she was first born....I was the one who fed her at midnight before I went to bed so she wouldn't get hungry through the night & wake up crying. I also made sure that even with my engineering career that I was at all her activities to support her. Even at 6 months old, I had a front pack with her in it while I carried a 40 lb back pack when we went backpacking into the Sierra's. She went with us everywhere & was involved in everything we did as a family....I related to her as another person, never as a baby or any of those things that mothers seem to do with babies. There were times when in college I would take her with me (I had her 10 months before I graduated with my BS) to the computer labs I had to go to & I would take her with me to choir & all my music rehearsals at church. So I was always with her when she wasn't with my parents but I never had the desire to touch & hug.....that just wasn't part of what I was made up like. But she always knew that she could come to me with any problem or anything that she needed support with & I was there & she could always call me at work with any problem. In our final home, I worked an hour away from home so I could never just come home in a hurry but was a call away for support.

I don't think that the bond that is so talked about by so many women is really necessary to be a good mother.....but being there for the support & for their problems & to be there for them to talk with & to understand what they are going through is the most important part of being a mother. My mom would listen but I knew that she had no idea what in the world I was talking about because she had lived such a sheltered life & had never experienced so many things that I was having to figure out.....I promised myself I would be NOTHING like my mother but ended up making my whole other set of problems with my way of living MY LIFE trying hard to be NOTHING like my own mother who I never respected for the way she was even though she was physically always there because she never left the house unless my father was there to drive her.

It's strange because I thought my daughter would end up more messed up than she is...her only issues is not finding a guy who is wants to get married & she refuses to have kids if she's NOT married & all the fighting that we did in our marriage gave her the wrong picture of what relationships should really be like & the personality of my H left me with nothing else to do other than fight him as he was always making stupid decisions or doing something that would end up needing me to get us out of the mess he made.

You said your youngest child is ASD? Have you ever wondered if you had ASD (Asperger's) also....you do know that it's something that is inherited. Part of the symptoms of that is not being able to be emotionally engaged with those around you & maybe you feel more of a connection with your ASD youngest child because you do relate to her on her same level?......just a thought & that would give some explanation as to your behavior with your oldest daughter also.

You don't have to do the hugging thing but it's important to be there for them to talk to & to be there at their activities to show them your support. I always thought that my daughter was closer to her Dad....but I'm the one she NOW communicates with. She hates talking on the phone but she always texts me. I left my H 7 years ago after my mother died & I could finally escape the bad marriage. I promised I would never say anything bad about her Dad to her but I did give her the facts of the things that he did/does so that if he lies to his parents about his actions at least she will know the truth....but there is no judgment....just the facts about actions. He hardly ever communicates with her. I have become the sort of stand in grandma for her BF's kids who she is a wonderful mother to. Interesting as my daughter is as good with kids as I am bad with them.....so it's not something that she learned from me & I didn't damage her to mess that ability up......I enjoy making & buying things for them & I ended up helping my daughter out with her car problems last year. I went through major depression in her senior year of high school to the point of having many suicide attempts thinking it was the loss of my career but now realizing it was the trapped feeling in the bad marriage I couldn't escape from as he fought getting any divorce & any division of property & divorce in California cost more than the money we didn't have any more after my engineering career ended when aerospace crashed in California around 1994. Even though I was home then & helped the kids from her high school get to the school that had the ROTC program....my depression kept getting worse & the more I didn't have my career to escape to from the marriage, the depression grew to the point I couldn't control it any longer & just wanted life to end.

I survived it & have been able to express how sorry I was for putting her through that & have talked to her some about it but it's hard because I don't want to put blame on her Dad but it's been only last year that I discovered the reasoning behind his behavior & have been able to share a little of what had been going on with facts, not judgment wording either & I know that understanding what helped me with the why & also helped my anger level become more rational.

In other words....sharing some of the information about your depression with your oldest daughter can help her also understand what was going on in your life. That may not happen when she is this young....but there will come a time where understanding what you were going through will help her connect with you & also better understand you......as you continue to be there to listen & to talk WITH (not TO) her.

Hope some of this makes sense...but you are NOT ALONE in not having that motherly instinct.....not all women are born with it & environment does make a difference also. If I wasn't fighting the situation I was in & the approach my H took, I might have had a closer feel toward my daughter but when I fight, I turn against what I am fighting about because I don't want people making me something I'm NOT either & I don't want them making me into something that I fought so hard NOT TO BE all my life.

I don't believe that all children who grow up in difficult situations end up damaged.....then are many who are resilient & who end up NOT being hurt....we only hear the HURT stories & not the successes.....but you are making an effort to talk & be there with her at this point. It's never too late & things do change over time & just because you weren't there when she was a baby doesn't mean that she will be destroyed especially if she does get the closeness from her Dad, or like my daughter got a lot of the closeness as a baby from my own parents (who were so much different by the time they were grandparents vs what they were when they were my parents). My daughter was close with my Dad.....& I never felt a close feeling to him EVER. He was always just someone who was in my life because he was my Dad.