To wonder if raising children is worth it?

@Firefly1987 and @HangingOver

I DO see huge benefits to having kids, and I still couldn't make myself want them. So in a way, I think people who want them are quite lucky. Think of all that community they have, via the school and getting to know other families locally. And being able to tell your children about their ancestors, if you knew your grandparents, and passing down family lore. And the times that the family is all home together and you have dinner together each night, and maybe TV/boardgame nights. And fun family holidays. Someone on here said how much more fun it was going to the theatre with her DD than with friends, which made me sad, because I KNOW I'm missing out on the good stuff.

For all that, I simply could not make myself want to do all the endless daily domestic drudgery for years on end, the work and worry and expense, the possibility that things could go very wrong, the hit to my career making me vulnerable to a man...there was just nothing in me that could make myself want all that. But mostly, it was the endless domesticity that killed the whole idea, the constant dressing and feeding and washing and cleaning...I just hated that whole idea. I don't want to cook a family meal every night, I don't want to get kids up and dressed and fed and taken to school every morning, I don't want to do packed lunches every day, and as for all the extra laundry and cleaning and shopping...I wish I could make myself want it but I never did. And lots of extra time spent with family wasn't a plus for me, either.

And it is hard to be the odd one out in society as a CF woman. I know there's a swathe of women who reach 45 without having kids, but I read studies which said only a small percentage of this slice are CF by choice. Which means that about 90 percent of women do want kids, and most actually do have them. And are wrapped up in the wonder of it all, leaving women like me twiddling our thumbs, basically. I expect when I'm older they'll all be wrapped up in their grandchildren, too. Sigh.

Yes, I would give a lot to have wanted them. I think in some ways it would have made life easier and less lonely, if given me a ton of extra boring work.

I think OP, most (though not all) people get to a stage when they want something 'more' than just doing things for themselves. It's like there's only so many trips, theatre, activities, friendships you can enjoy before it gets a bit .... meaningless, perhaps?

Some of us can see the meaning these things have in and for themselves. Why should, for example, going to a dear, familiar place you love, or a place you have always wanted to go, going on a lovely walk, meeting a friend for coffee, sharing dinner with friends, not have meaning because you don’t have children? I wanted children but could not have them, and found your words hurtful.

Well, it depends on what you consider a ton of money - childcare, uniforms, clothes, food, nappies, formula, annual leave dedicated to kids, only being able to go away in school holidays, sick days…the list goes on.

Right, but he still has a massive impact on your life and to say otherwise is just silly. It’s a bit like me saying my animals have little impact on my
life - of course they do!

I'm another one whose kids don't cost a ton of money. It's not obligatory

I think the key here is 'sacrificing'. Society has made you believe that you should in some way be a slave to your children, put them first in all things, give them the best despite yourself being depleted - that's probably what makes it miserable.

If you lose yourself to anything you'll regret and resent it.

I am comfortably off, having had him at 40 when I was quite senior, and DH earns considerably more than I do, having moved fields from the one in which we both worked. Childcare would have been our main expense when he was younger, but he’s not expensive now in his teens. He doesn’t have expensive hobbies, attends a state school, and university is free here, if he stays in this country to study.

I think OP, most (though not all) people get to a stage when they want something 'more' than just doing things for themselves. It's like there areally only so many trips, theatre, activities, friendships you can enjoy before it gets a bit .... meaningless, perhaps? I suppose people think about who/what they leave behind when they are gone - also, what is the point of your hard work if you have nobody to inherit the benefits! Who will remember you when you're gone? What is your legacy ... that kind of thing? Kids are hard work, sure, but they also give your life a totally different dimension - a different sense of purpose, continuity and connection. You have a higher purpose than yourself. You see life through their eyes and it's wonderful. You have so many special times to look forward to. Maybe you are depressed right now? It won't always be like this.

Of course your life is different compared to if you didn’t have a child 🫣 he costs you a lot of money, for starters!

Not sure I understand your reply OP. You want the government of your country to demonstrate their appreciation for your choice to have kids, and stop immigration?

But surely you must have expected SOMETHING out of it, or you wouldn't have done it. Company, laughs, family togetherness? I think it's OK to have children because you want these things. None of us are charities simply having kids for the greater good of society and expecting no positive payoffs!

Of course you don't.
I am saying my kids- mostly- add to my life and make it fun though.
Just like husbands do that for some people, and not for others though.

Yes…I do all those things with my friends. In fact, my husband and I are off to
the theatre today. We’re going to a matinee performance, dinner in our favourite restaurant and staying over in a hotel. I didn’t need to have children to do any of these things!

It is: to be fair for millennia girls have drifted into having children because they can't think of anything better or more interesting to do. Or because their partner/spouse/family bullies them into doing it.

Let's be honest, it's been the default throughout much of human history that the sole purpose of a woman is to produce offspring. So not hugely surprising that a lot of people still carry this mindset.

But in this day and age, with female employment at its highest ever as a proportion of the workforce and more and more girls going into higher education we should be in a better position to push back against this.

Which is one reason is pisses me right off when people start handwringing about how few girls are having babies, like it's some sort of national duty.

It's not our job to cripple ourselves for the demographic good and people need to be open about the fact that having children can seriously curtail a woman's ability to have a fulfilling and economically independent life.

But I don’t ’spend my life’ raising a child. Apart from on maternity leave, which I didn’t enjoy and cut short. My life isn’t much different to how it was before I had DS. He’s a delightful addition.

I agree that the low birth rate rhetoric is intense. It's making me feel very guilty for not having children (even though I would actually like to have them).

This is a sad thread. People regretting having their children and waiting for the "payoff". Why have 2 children if you don't want 1.Being with my ds as he grew up was wonderful and he's the best thing that ever happened to me. We are still great friends and he's 20 now. I think mothers regretting their children and having them for purely selfish reasons are in the minority.. Children aren't born to provide some sort of pay off.

Yes potentially. She didn't use the exact words but it was heavily implied she had kids because it was the "done thing" and unless I really, really wanted to, I shouldn't have them. There's the additional factor of an inherited rare disease in my family. I understood what she meant and I wasn't offended.

I'm sorry yours upset you ❤️

@SlantOfLight I’m an only child and had a fantastic childhood with wonderfully caring parents I’m still very close to in my 30’s. I still can’t think of a much worse way to spend my life than raising a child 🤣

I think it does. My parents sleepwalked into marriage and children because you were supposed to. I’m certain they never had a conversation about family planning, or what kind of life they could offer their children. It’s not their fault — both were dragged up in deprived, dysfunctional families, and had no idea more was required for children than basic food, clothes and shelter. They had no idea how to parent because they were never parented and never really grew up themselves. I was always parentified, and by the time I was eight, I was withholding difficult stuff going on main my life from them, because they just got stressed and did nothing.

It taught me a lot about what not to do!

As long as you’re happy that’s what matters!

I remember feeling like this. It passes, and comes back, and passes again. Mine are 8, 6 and 4, and we’re in a good phase at the moment but I’ve just had a horror 6 months.

Your ages are tough but it will improve. It is worth it. But you’re not alone in wondering if it was all a huge mistake.

I expect this makes a difference. I was one of only 2, with decent parents who had lots of time. Still have a very close and loving relationship with my mum.

I do think, reading this thread, that a huge amount of people who are having children just because its what you do would have been far happier not having them.

Being a mother suits some people down to the ground, it makes others utterly miserable. To some extent thats a lottery.

But we are all brainwashed from childhood into thinking that being a parent is the pinnacle of our life’s achievement. No wonder so many people sleepwalk into it because they can’t about anything else to do.

This current low birth rate rhetoric isn’t helping at all: bullying more women into having kids they don’t want.

We need to do a much better job of educating girls about what motherhood involves and what the alternatives are. So many women would have had better lives if they’d had no or fewer children.

I certainly grew up thinking that, with good reason. I’m the eldest of a large, poor family, born to parents who had far more children than they could afford, economically or emotionally. I’d done too much parenting myself by the time I’d turned 12 to be anything other than perfectly sure that I wasn’t going to have children. I got out of poverty via education, had and have a fulfilling career and a satisfying life, married and lived in various different countries. I was happy. All of my siblings are childfree by choice.

It just occurred to me one day, aged 39, that I didn’t want my unhappy childhood to define me in terms of whether or not I had a child. I reasoned that I was better educated, more at peace with myself, had more money and time and work flexibility than my parents, so my experience of being a parent was going to be different, and that even if it turned out to be less interesting than I hoped, I would still make a decent parent. And in fact it has been interesting, though as a lovely addition to an already good life, not some kind of transformation of it.

Which is obviously not to advocate that other people should become parents if they have no great urge to, only that for me, with one child, born when I was senior enough in my career for flexibility, with a hands-on, fully involved father, parenthood hasn’t been the drudgery I’d viewed it as from outside.