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

Actually I suspect most people feel their life is better and more fulfilled for having children but you can't talk about that!

Not me - I have never regretted having them for a second, they are my everything and my life is so much better for having children

I don't have suffocating worry.
They have turned out fine.
I moan but I wouldnt be happy single either.

It's a mistake to judge parents by MN. Those of us with decent kids wont obviously post here.

I haven’t read the thread and really don’t care if mumsnetters without kids want to post that. However, I remember when someone from that section posted a thread about why people have children in AIBU. None of the answers were good enough for her. She was very nasty to people about having children despite everyone being polite and respectful.When she was pulled up for it, she ran back to mumsnetters without children telling them she had been bullied ‘for not having kids’. 🙄 She wasn’t at all. She was being horrible about children and to parents on the thread, telling them their reasons for having kids didn’t make sense etc and rightfully got told that she was being horrible. MNHQ had to get involved, there were so many deletions, mainly OPs posts. I’m not sure if it got taken down in the end or if it’s still up. I do think there has been an increase in child haring threads since the board has existed which is a shame as I was one of the posters who added my support for it when it was requested.

Not at all. I was an only child which I hated,it wasn't deliberate. I vowed from about 13 I was going to have 6, I got pregnant at 18,that bit wasn't planned, got married this was the 1960s. I wasn't a heavy drinker, have never got drunk. Never felt that I was giving up anything. I trained as a nurse when she was 2,had wanted to do that since I was 8. Had 4 DKs,2 miscarriages and an early menopause. Maternity leave in the 70s 80s was 6 weeks after birth,not like today.

I was 21 when I had my first. I wasn’t in to anything people my age were doing and was pretty miserable before DS came along, so I’ve never mourned a life I never enjoyed.

That’s not fair. @KimberleyClark is talking about a current thread on the clearly-named ‘Mumsnetters Without Children’ board in which a few very self-righteous parents have arrived to say it’s in bad taste to have a thread about moments of relief at not having children on a parenting site. One wants to close down that board.

Yes, I was thinking of that thread too!

Personally, as someone who was contently childfree till I was 40, and then had a child, it makes sense of a lot to read some parents’ responses to me as childfree and then as a parent of one child by choice as stifled expressions of their own regrets or mixed feelings. Some of it was certainly a (possibly unconscious) anger at being reminded their choices were choices, and that they could have chosen an entirely different life, and some of it was that my life looked suspiciously ‘easier’ to them, both as a non-parent and then as a parent of one.

This was obviously a tiny minority of people, and generally not people I knew well, but my impression was that they were people who hadn’t thought of marrying and having children as a choice, just ‘what you do.’ Being reminded that they didn’t have to do any of it by the presence of someone who’d suited herself, annoyed them.

Maybe stop worrying about how people you don’t know feel about having kids?

No idea if some people regret their children and don’t admit to it.

I know for sure that I don’t regret my children and I’m as sure as I can be that my friends don’t regret theirs. We do all have worries about the world we’ve brought them into, it seems so much worse than when we had them.

I think some people will always want to think others regret things in their life as it makes them feel better about their own, whether that’s having children, not having children or just about anything else. Those people aren’t usually happy with their choices or what life has dealt them. I think the happiest people are those who just crack on with their own life.

I mourn the life I gave up but that is not the same as regretting having kids.

Oh another child hating thread on a parenting board… 🙄🙄🙄

Love my kids more than anything in the world. I have never regretted having them for one second.

And I enjoy my life.

No, I was desperate for children by the time I was a teenager. I knew I was made to be a mother. Sorry that sounds so twee. I do suspect more people regret them than we think though.

However, I do regret who I had children with, I do sometimes think if I could go back I wouldn't do it and would have waited for my now husband before having kids.

It isn’t just losing your old life. Children bring a suffocating worry. The dread of something bad happening to them can be overwhelming. And it never ends. I know several people whose adult children have broken their heart. For example, I know a couple whose adult son killed himself, another couple whose daughter died from alcoholism, and another whose adult son is a homeless addict with mental health problems. I also know a couple whose son has very bad autism and won’t leave the house. They are terrified what’s going to happen to him after they die.

The happiest people I know are all childless or single or divorced. Every friend I’ve ever had with a husband and kids has done nothing but rant about either the kids or the hubby. None of them seem genuinely happy (though many will claim to be).

Sometimes I think I wish I’d waited til later to have children, done a bit more with my life first and also wish I’d had them with someone else - not my exh.

But then I realise I wouldn’t have had the same children if that had happened and I just can’t imagine not having the exact two children then that I have. So then I don’t regret it at all.

I’m not sure people are ashamed to say they regret having children, more that others are more likely to shame them for feeling like that more so women.

I think total regret is more common amongst men, the number of uninvolved dads lends itself to that line of thinking.

I think some parents feel regret when their kids are little and very demanding. As they get more independent life is far easier, in my experience.
My closest, oldest friend is childfree. Her life looked very different to mine when I had a young child. But now, in our late forties, there’s nothing she does that I can’t do too if I want.

Sure maybe some but how do you know a lot?

When people say that, I wonder if they have kids with special needs and that they are saying that they have not a second to dedicate to themselves.

I think those who genuinely regret it all the time are few and far between. It’s completely normal when your toddler is being extremely difficult to think ‘if I was child free I could just sit watching telly and not deal with this’, but I don’t think that equals regretting becoming a parent. It’s normal to think about the road you didn’t take sometimes.

I think that regret, like other feelings, is complex and something that you can experience in fleeting moments or for brief periods of time. It doesn't have to be a permanent state and, in most cases it probably isn't. I think it is probably true that most people, on balance, wouldn't choose to erase their children if they could go back in time and start over. But a significant number probably experience moments of regret, or at least wonder about whether they might have been happier if they'd remained childfree, during times when parenting feels very challenging.

What happens when your kids grow up and leave home?

When I feel fleeting regret, it is not because I haven’t had the life I wanted. I very much have had the career, travels etc. It is that when things are hard now, having kids feels very stressful.

I never knew how difficult some of the early young adult years could be when they have been facing struggles at university. That has caused me more stress than the previous 18 years put together. I wish I didn’t care about them and could leave them to it. But I do take on their worries and do still want to support them. At moments like this I think how life would have been easier without them.

However, I had wanted children since I was young and actually it has healed many of my sadnesses about having had a shit childhood myself. So overall, no regrets. But at stressful times, I do feel that way sometimes.

I think it’s fine to have moments of regret and pining. That’s human nature.

I think both sides romanticise tbh. I’m childree by choice and my life is different of course from when I headed into my 40s but the core principles of not being tied down by responsibility, ability to continue progressing your career and travel freely still remained. Even if I have less energy to enjoy them! For a certain number I’m sure they wonder whether they did the right thing not having kids but then they are also def people who have kids and it’s maybe not what they expected re behaviour issues/non stop costs and they will be wondering if they would have been happier with those childree core principles instead. It’s just human nature I guess, when things are going well for both types, they were be totally adamant they only ever feel one way!