I realised too late I don’t like parenting

If you've read my posts you will see I have mentioned people with sen children or children such as you describe. I said there are people who have difficult children and they devote their lives to them without saying they hate parenting. In fact they are the parents who rarely complain.

Agree. I can think of no worse nightmare.

You get home knackered and gasping for a cuppa and a sit down, but you have wet togs and towels to deal with, and hungry/ hangry children mithering you for food...

@kate592

YYY to "differently hard" :-)

I think there's a wide gap between parents finding it hard most of the time and realising it isn't for them.

In between the hard times there are moments of real joy that can make it all seem worthwhile or give you a little strength to keep slogging on.

Those who realise it isn't for them will normally cut their losses and move on, just trying to do their best with what they have to offer until things get better.

Of course there are people who keep on doing the same thing in hopes of a different result, but I don't think every miserable parent falls into that category.

You are in the trenches.

I don't know anyone who feels parenting is anything but an endless, thankless, and exhausting slog until children get to at least age 6 or 7.

Accepted & as the saying goes,each to their own. I find young children fascinating, innocent,hilarious, non judgemental, inquisitive, challenging & excited about life in general. Most of all they are family. Oh to see the world through the eyes of a child 🤗

I don’t need to add to my comment, it’s mine. You are free to share whatever your experience is (and you have). I canvassed my friend group, most said they would probably have still done it, but that doesn’t mean you enjoy parenting. Especially of young children, who by their nature are repetitive and therefore boring to many adults.

Why not add to your comment and loads of people love parenting. I do and so do my friends. We have had a night out where the subject came up 'would you have had children if you knew exactly what it entailed' & not one of the group said no. Many yearn to be parents and don't get the chance.

Vergus · Today 10:41

But my point is, you are not alone x All mums feel like shit and if they tell you they don’t they’re most likely on antidepressants

I didn’t!

But then there’s just one week shy of 9 years between ours 🤣

Honestly, 4 and 1, don’t know how people do it.

Oh dear how terribly difficult it must have been to have high flying, motivated kids who threw themselves into things with enthusiasm. How about you imagine for a tiny second that you had kids with a different temperament or who had learning difficulties, who took years to get out of nappies night and day, who required multiple agency interventions, appointments, assessments and gave little back in terms of company, laughs, shared interests. Do you think maybe then it might have been a tiny bit more problematic?

You’re always going to get a mix of opinions, that’s the point of a forum. I’m pretty sure if you polled the world’s parents they wouldn’t tell you the servitude and shitty bottoms are their best bits. Most parents love their kids, loads absolutely hate parenting.

I don't like parenting either - and I have a husband who does almost all the work. I do love my children though, and I've enjoyed it a lot more the older they've become. I feel like I'm actually good at dealing with the problems presented by the older ones, and don't have the stamina for the younger years.

Absolute nonsense. I love being around children. Teaching them, nurturing them & helping them when they are sick is second nature to me. Please don't tar all parents with the same brush

What a wonderfully positive post. You sound like an amazing mum.I treasured every moment too. There is nothing more beautiful than when your child hugs you out of the blue & says I love you mum. It makes it all worthwhile.

I sincerely hope that isn’t true.
I had my four within six years and honestly treasured every second, even the difficult times.
We had just enough money to get by but they were the most precious years of my life.

That is a tough stage - hard to get any time for yourself. I’m a bit further down the line (10 & 8), and whilst this stage is easier in terms of my own time, I’m actually mum’s taxi now. I had to be at a swimming gala at 0730 this morning, and I’ve taken the other child to his tutor. Then things like food shopping, washing and cleaning up. All very calm, but way less together. The stage you’re at now is the one I miss the most.

OP my children are exactly the same age and it is exhausting, relentless and thankless. I often dread the weekends because it it is such hard work and that’s with my husband equal parenting too. It is easier one on one with them but it’s just about getting through each day and each week at the moment.

Your parents sound wonderful. I would love to have adopted a child.

When I (rarely) complained to my mother about being stressed or exhausted she would answer me in the same context as I have posted here. I never thought for a minute she was lacking in sympathy or trying to make me feel worse. It actually had the opposite effect on me. I'd go back to parenting my children with only the positive aspects in my mind & how blessed I was to have them. One great piece of advice she gave me was to never battle against what you have to do for your children day to day. You have to submit yourself whole heartedly to the role of being a parent always putting your children first. Once you have accepted this it becomes second nature and you lose any feelings of resentment of everything required of you.

You are not being unreasonable at all. I have two adult children now and if I am honest there were a about 3 or 4 quite nice years when they were between 6 and 10 where parenting had its rewards but babies, toddlers, pre-teens, teenagers and young adults was all really hard in my opinion just in different ways. I often think parental love and all the instance on the joy and it being worth it must be some kind of Stockholm syndrome we develop to cope with the utter evisceration of our lives when we become parents.

I'd always been good with teenagers but found dealing with the ups and downs and stresses of my own teenagers lives really hard. I hit perimenopause as they were mid to late teens and that was not a good situation. I left home at 18 and was more or less self sufficient from that point on but these days its fairly normal for your children to be still hugely dependent on you into their 20's and even beyond, not to mention the fairly blanket expectation these days that grandparents will provide free childcare or will be on hand to give large amounts of financial assistance and then they make you feel like shit when you can't do it because you literally don't have the money and you can't do the free childcare because you still need to work to survive because everyone else gets loads of help from their parents and they don't seem to appreciate you have much less than you might have had if it weren't for helping them so much already.

My kids are basically good people but its so hard and life is very tough and unforgiving these days. I do think if more people really knew what it was actually like and how thankless a task it is and were not swayed by rose tinted visions of family life then far fewer people would have children at all, its already happening. I had dreams for myself but I felt hollowed out by motherhood and in the aftermath of that and menopause I still feel like I am trying to figure out who I was and what might be left of me if anything and I'm already an old lady!

In the past it might have been easier because our options in life were pretty limited and making a lifestyle choice not to have children was very rare and probably quite a privileged choice. Now its something anyone can choose and with so many other options with what we can do with our lives its literally a no brainer that more and more people are choosing not to have kids.

Yes, it is absolutely. I was adopted as was my late DB, and to my parents, we were the gifts that they had dreamed of.

But - as we were adopted from different parents, we were quite different children, my DB a lot more fragile mentally than me. His teenage years were quite literally like having Kevin the teenager times a thousand. My parents loved him very much, were willing to do anything to help him and of course they did up until he passed away aged 34 from cancer, but if they'd had a crystal ball before adopting, it might have been quite interesting what they'd thought.

Yep, a relentless chore is an accurate description.

OP, you aren’t wrong for calling parenting out as the hard slog that it is. Yes some find it rewarding, but often suspect those are a certain type of person, think primary school teacher etc. Particularly if you are/were creative, kids are hard to manage as they require a huge amount of your time and energy, which leaves other areas of your life feeling pretty barren and empty. Everyone will be crying ‘it gets so much easier’, I’m not sure that is necessarily true I think the phases are different.

To call 30 odd quid for a 50 minute swim session cheap is absolute peak Mumsnet middle class privilege