To think a lot of people regret having kids but are too ashamed to say it?

You haven't met someone who has an adult child with learning or mental disability. Both my mum and my sister worked with adults with severe and chronic mental health conditions. One in secure facility and one in restbight / daycare. The sacrifice, mourning and guilt of those parents is huge, there's happiness and reward too, but it's a difficult side of life to witness and almost impossible to imagine if it's not you.

That’s it though, I was quite late to the party and wasn’t convinced I wanted children, right up to my mid thirties, when I had my first. Had the gym/shoes/wine/dinners. But my kids are the absolute loves of my life, and have been the making of me. Of course it can be tiring and hard, and the path is far from straight-forward, so maybe this is where the perception of regret comes from, but it is 100% worth all the sleeplessness, worry and effort. They’re now mid-late teens, and I have never for one second regretted having them. I don’t want to re-live my twenties and pre-kids thirties. I’m glad my life is different now.

I get this completely. I think you would absolutely be feeling that different sort of ‘regret’ if you did have them.

I mentioned earlier that I don’t regret having my children, and as far as I can tell, neither do any of my friends, but that we all worry about the world we have brought them into. We worry about them managing to buy a house, meeting a nice partner if they want to, the potential children they may have, one day leaving them when we die, anything bad happening to them. I remember an elderly woman that I met in a shop when I had my newborn in a pushchair, telling me that parenting is one of the best feelings in the world but that I will never be worry free ever again. She was very wise! Any worry I feel for me or my partner is different to that I feel for my children, even now they’re adults and teens. The responsibility that I have felt has been all consuming and overwhelming at times and it’s not something I have always cope with well.

I think whatever path we choose or whatever life throws at us, there will always be a part that says ‘what if’, that’s just human nature. Hopefully we all manage to get some joy from life whatever path we take.

I completely agree with everything you’ve written. I adore my children and love them
more than anything in the world, however the worry about their future is sometimes overwhelming (one has special needs so it is different) and it causes a lot of anxiety and stress worrying about what will happen when I die.

I dread to think how old they’ll be when they retire (the one who doesn’t have SEN) and the way the world is now, with so many wars and uncertainty, it’s concerning.

There is a saying, you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child and that’s completely true.

I very much agree with the previous poster who said that some people will be unhappy and glass half empty whatever the case...

Assuming your children are just 'normal' level of hard - i.e. no significant health issues or challenges, and you're financially comfortable and safe in your relationship - there are some of the 'downsides' of having kids that can be reduced. i.e. many women martyr themselves and take on the entire family workload, or decide to pack in their careers, or (the one I'm seeing a lot of currently with friends/contemporaries) sacrifice their sanity and all their free time for 3 months to micro-managing their children's exams instead of just letting them get on with it and hoping for the best. All of these things are choices, and there are different ways to parent.

I am not a naturally 'mum-ish' type at all and maybe as a result have fought hard to maintain my career, my sanity, to ringfence my free time and ensure my marriage is an equal partnership. This doesn't mean that having kids has always been easy - sometimes it's been bloody hard - but I still love them more than anything and wouldn't be without them. And much as I love my career and value it, I don't think it's what I'll be thinking about in my final years/moments.

Regret never makes much sense,as we don’t truly know what the other unlived path was like. It could have sucked even harder.

On the flip side you might not regret something at all - when in fact you should! As in that parallel universe where you weren’t child free you were shocked to discover that becoming a parent was actually the most fulfilling thing ever. Or in that other parallel universe where you couldn’t get pregnant you actually spent all that free time productively and became a published author.

I'm childless/free, but I imagine if I did regret having them I wouldn't ever voice it, not because of some determined stubbornness to dig my heels in, but out of love for the child(ren).

Imagine if you ever caught wind that your mum said this? 💔

I think this is very true. I don't have children and I do feel regret around that. It's a regret for myself that I have missed out on a key life experience and the chance to create another loving bond. It's a selfish regret really.

However I do wonder that if I did have them, I might be feeling a different kind of regret. And that would certainly be related to the future challenges they might face in terms of cost of living etc, and how long they would need to work. There are a couple of threads running currently in which people discus how fed up they are of working. I think life can certainly be a bit of a grind - especially if there is less chance to retire at a reasonable age. Therefore I certainly don't feel at regret at having spared a poor soul this!

I also think about the end of my life a lot. I feel great regret that there will be nobody to love me, but also it gives me a certain kind of peace of mind that nobody will be devastated by my death.

I don't mourn my old life, I enjoyed myself but I am far happier now and enjoy my kids. I'd spend all of my time with them if it was up to me 🤣 I'm looking forward to the future when they are a bit older and we can do different adventures together.

But yes, I think it is normal to consider the grass is always greener, or when going through a rough patch where you are swamped, and then there are the people shouldn't be parents.

Then my two oldest friends who I've known 35 years both chose to not have children. They love their lives and are constantly on holiday. But they are constantly doubting they made the wrong choice not having children, especially as we approach 40. At that point I let them spend an hour or two in my house and the madness soon puts them back to their original choice. They made the right choice for them, I made the right choice for me. I couldn't imagine life without my kids.

My Mum regretted having us and would tell us all the time! she wished she’d never had us, we’d ruined her life, her life was so much better before etc

I have 2 DCs and honestly I’m so happy I had them. I nearly didn’t as I was scared my Mum was right…. Not a day I have regretted them.

This is lovely. I enjoyed my life before dc but feel similar to you in that having a family brought something to my life that I didn’t know or have previously. Children are hard work but I’ve never regretted having mine for a second and can’t imagine doing so. Maybe some people aren’t able to negotiate life with children and have regrets about some of their choices but I don’t know that you’d ever regret bringing a new person into the world.

I think people who have good support networks and relatively easy children will likely have different views in comparison to those with no support networks, higher needs kids etc etc….

l don’t think it’s necessary because people want to have more free time, but the world is a difficult place right now and with that comes worry about how difficult life will be for the next generation. It seems to be getting harder with each generation.

Not sure all of that can be contributed to “regret”. Sometimes it’s generations of abuse playing out, mental heath etc. It’s awful that it’s frowned upon to say you’re struggling because maybe these parents and kids would seek help earlier

I don't mourn my previous life at all, it was fucking miserable and lonely.

I was always out and about (nowhere to go but all the time to get there), with groups of 'friends' (and all the fucking drama that comes with that), dating (god dating was a nightmare), lived in shared housing with my best friend (you couldn't even fart in peace but too broke for anything else) etc... a 'carefree' life 'full of friend' what mumsnet loves to paint as a dream but really a case of 'always lonely but never bloody alone'.

I was wasting my life away, passing time, waiting desperately for something actually meaningful. I got that from my husband and children, a true relationship thats natural and effortless and full of unconditional love. They're the 5 people I like more than anyone else on earth, my best friend and 3 mini mes.

I would never want to go backwards. I feel sorry for people who picked partners that make them feel like they do (because honestly it seem its always due to resentment from unbalanced dynamics more than anything).

Also 65% agree the OP isn’t being unreasonable, on a parenting forum. You can’t argue with stone cold data 😂

No it wasn’t one person as unfortunately lots of the posters on the child free board joined in. It was a shit show. It was a talking point on other sites at the time. I only posted on to say the reasons I had children and was told by lots of child free people that my reasons were not good enough, they didn’t understand etc. One woman was told she didn’t justify her reasons for having children well enough. As if she had to. 🤪 It was really horrible.

The OP then said she was bullied because she didn’t have children and because she was ND. No one knew she was ND. Lots of parents here have ND kids, including me, so it was just bollocks. She was being nasty, her pals from the board joined in, they got caught out and mumsnet had to step in.

I love my kids and I had them young when I was full of energy and enjoyed it but if I was someone who waited until mid 30s to 40 to have kids i honestly couldn't think of anything worse im exhausted all the time and would of hated it. If I didn't have them when I did I wouldn't have them now.

I think some people regret having kids.

I also think some people are unhappy full stop. They will blame it on various things - having kids. Not having kids. Being married. Being single. Where they live. Their job. Their lack of job. And on and on and on.

The fact is they’re just unhappy people and no matter what is happening in their life they will remain unhappy and blame it on this thing or that thing. When actually they’re unhappy because of themselves.

Yep. I’m so glad we stopped at one. We are a relatively high earning household, but raising a child (to the standards I would like) is disgustingly expensive in the UK. I’m not even vaguely surprised birth rates are falling. It’s not about not loving your kid, it’s accepting you are leading a different kind of life, so that you can protect and nurture them. If I had my chance again, I’d be childfree.

I have absolutely zero regrets about having children. If I had to do it again, I would - at the same age, with the same man and would have the same children.

BUT
I don’t have any of the challenges many go through with partners, health concerns (about DC or themselves), educational challenges, job worries, financial stability.
I enjoyed my youth - studied, travelled, partied, so I feel fulfilled from that aspect.

Yeah this. I've regretted having mine at various times but now they are grown up not at all

Although if I had life again I probably wouldn't have ghem

Definitely! I don’t know anybody that regrets having had children

Oh gosh that sounds horrible!

But that’s one person. The childfree are no more or less likely than parents to be unpleasant or mildly lunatic or addicted to online baiting of people.

I mean, I was a childfree adult for 20 odd years without doing that ‘breeders’/‘crotchgoblin’ rhetoric. Then I had a child. I’m exactly the same person, but with a child. I haven’t crossed some Rubicon where I’ve forgotten my reasons for not planning to have a child, or started to feel combative about childfree people glorying in their childfree-ness.

Also the vast majority of kids are not autistic, alcoholic or addicts. That's really a very depressing way of looking at the world.