If you had your chance to start again, would you still have had kids?

I miss exploring. I miss finding new places and going to them and wandering. I don’t know if I’ll really get to do it again tbh.

I used to feel this way and really regretted having a child because of it. Tne constant worry and I couldn’t understand how parents could enjoy a night out or even if my son went out with his friends I’d be so concerned that something would happen to him.
I used to have such bad anxiety. I considered myself an anxious person etc

but then he got older and my anxiety just like… went away? He looks after himself. I trust he makes the best choices for himself. I don’t worry about him all of the time. Now I live for myself and it’s so enjoyable!

so you will stop feeling this way. From someone who 100% relates to your post.

Your experience of having kids entirely depends on your circumstances.

I’m lucky that I have a supportive husband, four active and relatively local grandparents, a brother with kids of his own who lives round the corner, and sufficiently comfortable financially to afford luxuries like a cleaner and the occasional trip to the laundrette for a service wash when the laundry starts to pile up. I also have a healthy child with no additional needs and who is generally easy to manage.

Yes. I would want to have had my child with a different man... but I wouldn't change my child in anyway, so suppose I wouldn't change even that (very begrudgingly)! I say this as a lone parent. Absolutely love motherhood.

I feel this in my soul. I would miss THEM and after knowledge of them existing I feel I would spend hundred lives trying to find them. But the reality of raising children with additional needs has absolutely desolated my life. I just survive. Someone mentioned the golden years of primary school. I've never known any golden years. Just hell and more hell to come with secondary school. I don't ever switch off. My eldest is 11 and still gets up in the night. My middle one I have no idea what their life will look like if they will live with me and need support. Then what happens when I die.

We had fertility problems (on both sides) that we didn’t find out about until a year after we got married at 32. Our son was finally born when I was 34 and our daughter at 37 after a string of miscarriages. It might not have gone that way had we been able to start trying earlier.

But then, I guess I wouldn’t have the same kids and the two I have are brilliant (most of the time) 🥰

@Chefpig if you do decide you want to adopt, I wonder how feasible foster to adopt would be. I’d maybe post on the adoption boards and find out further information there.

I would think very carefully about adoption. Almost every single person I know who has adopted has children with attachment issues that have resulted in lifelong emotional-behavioral challenges. I know I am not cut out for that. I love my biological son to bits but it has been very difficult dealing with issues that arose from his ND. Fortunately, he's on medication now that has totally transformed his ability to manage life with severe ADHD and I am so relieved. It was really affecting my mental health at one point and the thought of living with that anxiety long term doesn't bear thinking about. I know lots of childless older women and they have such good quality lives. I don't say this flippantly because I know it is not the same at all but a pouring your love into a dog or cat might help you whilst these biological urges are still strong. They will pass eventually.

No.

Not being funny, but 14% is very clearly a minority.

Do you think minority means a tiny, inconsequential number? It doesn’t. It just means less than most.

49% is technically a minority.

14% is very clearly a minority.

For it not to be a minority it would have to be 51% who regret having children ( if you are dealing in whole numbers).

Bloody hell, you are living the dream! I have literally had escape fantasies about having a life like this .

I am a 28 year old fence sitter, so not exactly the main audience of the thread, but still. On the one hand, I would find raising a child very rewarding. Seeing them discover things, making friends etc.

On the other, me and my partner both have ASD/ADHD. I have historically worked in a school as a TA and know how exhausting it was supporting the higher needs SEN children. Not their fault of course, but I struggled to look after them in the time slots I had them in. I would really struggle to have kids like that. As both me and my partner are neurodivergent, there is a higher chance that could happen to us. This and the likely outcomes of climate change are making me lean towards no.

Yes

I really feel for you. If you are academically fairly bright and show no “obvious” symptoms, all it takes is something overwhelming to realise you are neurodivergent. It happened to me too when I tried teaching.

Sorry I missed a word, I meant tiny minority! The PP was saying 1 in 20, I meant not as vanishingly small as that

I think there will be a lot who say they don’t regret it if it’s a stark ‘regret / don’t regret’ but still find it very hard and not totally enjoyable.

I totally love my kids but I definitely have moments when I miss my old life or where the reality of having kids falls very short of what I had hoped for.

If it cheers you up my dc are both teenagers and push me to do more exploring, going to places and trying activities I would probably not do otherwise.

Not on my own though, if that’s what you mean!

I do relate to what pp say about the worry. I think you just aim to give them the best experience you can and have to accept that the rest is outside your control.

It depends, would I get the same child?

DP and I weren't planning on having kids, we were planning on being child free.

DD happened anyway.

If I had my time again, I'd probably still want to be child free, but at the same time I can't imagine a world without my daughter in it. I wouldn't want to be a parent to some future hypothetical children, but I would want to be if the child was DD.

Not sure that makes sense really.

I suspect many people wouldn't admit to it though so probably higher in reality

Yes and I would still have them at the same age (I’m 27 and have three). We are done having kids now and the original plan was to have more of a gap between the first two and have the last one a bit later - but that didn’t happen. I’m pretty happy with being done before 30, and it means I can work on my fitness and body now (which is going pretty well).

I am happy with them and I knew I always wanted children from a young age. I looked after my nieces and nephews a lot growing up and when I met my husband I knew I’d found the right person.

Also as DH jokes, by the time we’re 50 we can just change the locks and go back to partying.

I guess that’s it; I’m never going to have the freedom again to drive to a little coastal town or a new city and wander and explore.

It is a tiny thing and I wouldn’t have that experience back if I had to hand my children back - but I am conscious in a way I wasn’t before how much I’ve lost as well as gained.

Yes for me, but then I always wanted them.
but I can’t pretend that having kids hasn’t completely changed who I am, changed my priorities, my personality, my social circle, my body, my mental state and my finances and my freedoms for the worst. All of those things have been severely impacted by having children.

Yes, in a heartbeat. They have changed my life completely but I am a better person for that experience.

Yes, my daughter is great. I wouldn't choose her dad again though. I wish I'd met someone else, I probably would have had more than one then.
But she wouldn't be her without her dad!
Life is a lottery isn't it.
Some breeze through parenthood, I always found it a real struggle, however your support network make a big difference. Aforementioned partner is lazy and selfish and my parents have never been very hands on with DD despite her being their only grandchild.
I wouldn't say being a single mum is much harder than having a useless man around.
Having a first child in your 40s will be a big shock to the system but it is at any age.
The hard years are 100% worth it when you get your own little best friend to get to know every day.
That sounds ridiculously twee, but it's how I see it 🤗

I had DS late (39) and I actually think that's the best way. Do all your partying and traveling while you are young and fit.
Retire once they are financially independent. Perfect 👌