'Like a trap you can't escape': The women who regret being mothers

It’s similar from parents with toddlers or those with very biddable teens giving their ridiculous views (usually recommending authoritarian parenting) for 16 plus - like that’s going to work.

I’ve seen friends go through hell with difficult teens and deal with it so carefully and admirably. And no shouting at them and grounding them won’t work - if only it were that simple 🙄.

Same. I have been on a few threads in parenting where women with no children are dishing out really bad parenting advice. I would rather have fathers on there as they have way more of a clue about parenting than women who dont like kids, don’t want them and think children should be hardly seen and never heard. They often espouse the tough love approach or even abusive parenting methods like shouting or spanking. It is horrendous.

Mulling this further, while I do not regret having my kids, I do have an adjacent regret and that is related to my youngest with autism who is struggling into adulthood. I’m worried they will never be able to live independently.

So while I do not regret having them, they are amazing, loving, and beautiful and will love them until my last breath, I do wonder if I’ve done this child a disservice bringing them into a world that is both hostile and extremely difficult for them to just survive in. Thriving and succeeding is out the window, I’m afraid.

I wonder did I bring a child into this world who is going to have mostly suffering and pain with only flashes of joy here and there? And what happens when me and DH are gone? How will they get on? I feel perhaps I was selfish having them.

The article doesn’t really speak to that.

I think it’s worth adding that sometimes the regret isn’t for the life you’ve lost but for the burden of guilt, and worry that you have to carry forever. From the moment you become a mother, grief shadows happiness. The potential for catastrophic loss is always present, and lesser, but more persistent, is the nagging worry of getting it all wrong.

I have one dc who moves easily through life, and one who has struggled through every phase and on occasions begged me to end his life. My regrets are for my selfish procreation, and the trap for me is the awful paradox of loving him too much to let him go.

I really agree with this, I have felt this pretty strongly for a while. I've seen that on the Parenting board, and even in Breastfeeding, where you'd think surely it could be a place for just mums.

The MN without children board is frequently visited by mothers berating women who chose not to have children with comments like "you've never known real love" and "it's the most profound thing you'll ever do" without pausing for one second to think how those comments impact on women like me who are childless not by choice

it's not a one way thing

i find this thread really sad tbh. women who regret motherhood really do need to be recognised and given support and a space to talk about but as we've seen from this, it's immediately drowned out by all kinds of other issues around motherhood

Also you can’t know. Your child may turn out to be an interesting lovely person who enhances your life and the world generally or the baby could become Nigel Farage or god forbid Andrew Tate or a manosphere man. Massive regret for those mums I imagine.

I expect its a bit 'good news bad news'.

One of the worst things about MN is the childfree board.

I do NOT mean women struggling with infertility or that women who aren’t mothers whether through choice or otherwise are not welcome. They are.

But the clamours for a board for women who don’t want to be a mother and are content and indeed vocal and proud about that choice has led to regular and triumphant appearances on threads where mothers are struggling for a whole load of reasons. I think it’s one factor (of many admittedly) that has really changed the feel of the place for the worse.

There was a scene of this in Bridget Jones. Played for laughs but still.

Twice in my life I have been there when a mother cries in anguish at the regret. It’s actually extremely upsetting and I remember both times very clearly.

As I said earlier anything great comes with risk. You can play safe and never risk it. That’s a valid choice. But then you potentially miss out too in ways that can’t be put into words. It’s whether you choose to throw your hat into the ring and take the risk or not.

Ha, we cross posted and yes I completely agree with you. My post echoes a lot of yours.

There's an important reason it's taboo to express regret over children: it is extremely painful to know your mother regrets having you.

This is true now because it’s weirdly been portrayed as the 1 life choice that never comes with any risk of regret. Which is irrational if you think about it.
There will be some who do regret and while I’m not saying celebrate it, I am saying there should be ways to openly recognise it as a risk abd pathways to get help. We have recognised that for adoption- for the mother and child- there is a psychological fallout and help is developed and on offer. There should be similar for regret as well. A lot of the hurt on the child’s part comes from the social view that only a monster would regret becoming a mother and if their mum isn’t a monster, then the child wonders if they are unlovable, a bad child.

The regret exists and causes more damage when it is bottled up, kept in the closet the way things are now.

You cannot possibly have any actual insight or understanding not being a mother yourself. Please keep your thank fucks to yourself I’m sick of hearing it.

I think you can't keep a feeling like that a secret between you and your therapist. Children are sensitive and they know.

Where we can break down the taboo is by helping children (including adult children) understand that your mother's feelings about having you don't define you.

I'm thinking of my mum for eg. (I'm taking her out for lunch later). She had me and my sister as a single mum and was in a continual state of overwhelm, and my DSIS had additioal needs. When I went to boarding school it was clearly a huge relief to her to have one less kid to worry about. I actually didn't take that personally because if I'd been someone else, a boy, whatever, she'd have felt the same, so it wasn't personal. She did her best really.

She was so open about her regrets! When my DSIS turned 20 and still very much had the additional needs my mum used to say "what have I done to deserve this, if I'd done a murder I'd be out of prison by now." !!

She also cautions against buying too readily into the "village" idea that everyone will pitch in. "The message we get generally is, 'We'll all be here to mind the baby' - but people often aren't - it's your baby and you'll be responsible for them," she says.

I don't regret having my kids - but the above quotes from the article were definitely resonant for me. We've had almost no help from anyone and it's been bloody hard. My DM is the only one who's provided any practical support to us as parents and she lives 100 miles away. There are many people now for whom there is no village at all - and that goes double for anyone with a disabled DC or one with SEN. There's no help, there's no respite, it's just relentless.

I see...yes, in therapy that's different. And certainly therapists deciding that makes someone automatically dangerous would be very wrong.

Thanks @Kingdomofsleep for thoughtful and sensitive posts on this issue.

I don’t regret becoming a mother because I really do love them and I have an eye for the long haul if you like. I know I will want family around me as I enter my autumnal years (I’m probably already in them!)

But having two very young children has been very gruelling and for me not enjoyable at all. That isn’t meant to sound disparaging about those who do love it but I am constantly faced with nonsense about ‘when I am in my 90s I will revisit this’ and sepia photos of a woman with toddlers and babies around her. If I get to my 90s and I am confronted with a two year old screaming inconsolably because she wanted to wear a top she had as a six month old and no longer fits, I’ll be pissed off in the extreme: it is bad enough experiencing it once but not a second time!

Honestly, my regret is having two. I don’t know if I can honestly call it regret as if an angel from god visited me now and asked if I wanted to return one, I couldn’t, but if I’d never met them, but knew how having two would be, I don’t know if I’d make the same choice.

That is what confidentiality between you and a therapist is for. The sexism comes in when a usually male therapist decides expressing regret means you are a danger to your children.

That’s why women are afraid to speak up.

@Carla786
But I don't think Marie was saying that the brain pruning thing means mothers become less intelligent, and I don't think that's what the study was saying either.

Yes, I agree. I read this study too with a skeptical raptor eye. Grey matter volume isn’t a proxy for intelligence or cognitive ability or executive functioning. Yes it affects all that, but we have grey matter way beyond what is needed for daily functioning and decision making. So the loss of grey matter is not to be read as negative.

Secondly, the researchers mapped that the female brain undergoes changes “re-wiring” to prepare for motherhood. They mentioned the human brain undergoes a similar process during puberty, preparing a child for adulthood.

This tracks with psychological studies as women do feel differently and think differently from how they were before during the transition to and into motherhood.

What men do is part of the problem. Having a child is something you do with a man (other than in very rare occasions). It would be interesting to read how many of the women feeling trapped had a child with not a good father. Then we would be able to talk about how much and how often what men do is relevant here.

Women who regret motherhood/find it constricting aren't necessarily being 'pick-me girls'- at least some of the regret seems to come less from the kids themselves, and more from societal effects, unsupportive partners,,work difficulties etc. We know those things exist due to sexism, and that they CAN make motherhood restricting. That doesn't mean it's inherently restricting etc.

I agree that too often discussions of the difficulties/regret etc take a nasty turn, though, and I'm sorry you've experienced that. .

There's an important reason it's taboo to express regret over children: it is extremely painful to know your mother regrets having you.

I agree women who do regret need support, but the taboo isn't just therr for sexist reasons

I think there was a shift culturally with one of the waves of feminism (I never know which is which), where it was thought that if we celebrate motherhood too much then we'd be fuelling the expectation that all women ought to become mothers.

I think it's about 80% of UK women become a mother in their lifetime and that actually hasn't declined with the falling birth rate. But the way popular culture is, it almost feels like one's making a wild and stupid choice to become a mother. You're throwing your freedom away, is the message.

Maybe it's all part of older-women misogyny too, as younger women haven't become mothers yet, and once you become one, you don't feel young any more.

Yes I saw this article yesterday and read it then. It’s been reported before that a fair number of mothers (and fathers) regret becoming parents. This is unsurprising as regretting a choice applies to all choices we make in life. No one goes through life without some regret for some choices. Motherhood is no different.

The stakes are higher because the decision to become a mother lasts for the rest of your life unlike the decision to marry or adopt a cat.

I wish that such regret would not come with the burden of guilt that these women clearly carried with them. The stigma of not being able to express regret over children means it gets all bottled up and yes I do think that can then contribute to poor mental health at any point after childbirth. It’s an extra psychic burden to feel that cycle of I live my child(ren) but I regret having them and I’m mourning the life I could or should have had.

As far as myself personally, I wanted my children and I didn’t/don’t regret having them. But then, I already knew how much work it took because I raised two of my younger siblings as a teenager. Most mothers haven’t experienced a mother type role until they become mothers so it’s a shock.

@LilyYeCarveSuns , I think you're being unfair on MariedeGournay.

I understand feeling concerned about the article, due to your experiences of being patronised. And ofc there's sadly, as we know, a long history of mothers being patronised as less intelligent by sexist men and women too..

But I don't think Marie was saying that the brain pruning thing means mothers become less intelligent, and I don't think that's what the study was saying either.

This article doesn't seem sexist to me. We mustn't assume any article talking about brain changes post-pregnancy is saying it makes women less intelligent

Key Quotes :

But a recent study - the largest to date - indicates that pregnancy has a profound structural impact on brains and offers new clues into the neurological changes in mums‑to‑be.

It suggests that grey matter - the nerve-rich part of the brain involved in processing information, emotions and empathy - decreases by an average of nearly 5% during pregnancy.

But rather than being a cause for concern, these changes may be beneficial when it comes to caring for newborns, say scientists working on the project in Spain.

One of the dozens of women, now a new mum, who took part in the study told us she welcomed the findings and was "tired of pregnant women being infantilised".

"Rather than becoming dumber, we are becoming more specialised for the job," said Tania Esparza.

The greater the changes in the brain, the more likely women were to say they were relating to, and bonding well, with their babies - the team of scientists found.

These might be positive changes when it comes to caring for newborns, says Prof Susana Carmona, director of the NeuroMaternal, external laboratory at the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute in Madrid.

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This could represent the brain "rewiring" or remodelling its architecture to "prime it for motherhood", says Carmona, co-lead of the study along with Prof Oscar Vilarroya.

"I like to use the metaphor of pruning a tree," she says. "Some of the branches are cut to make it grow more efficiently."

Pregnancy changes many organs in the body - the mum's heart can grow bigger, the capacity of her lungs can increase - and so it makes sense pregnancy can change the brain too, Carmona says.

We should not just focus on potential memory deficit, she says. "New mums learn a whole set of new skills."

While the pregnant women lost an average of nearly 5% of their grey matter, it then partially returned - although not fully - by six months after giving birth. In contrast, the amount of grey matter in the women who were not pregnant stayed quite steady.

There will be a small amount of fluctuation in every person's grey matter over time, but these results with a dip of nearly 5% are unexpected, Carmona says.

One of the areas of grey matter with the most pronounced and persistent changes was the so-called default mode network - which is involved in self-perception, empathy and altruism.

Line graph showing average grey matter volume change during pregnancy. Three lines compare pregnant women, non‑pregnant women, and same‑sex partners from pre‑pregnancy through 18 weeks, 34 weeks, one month after birth, and six months after birth. Pregnant women show a marked decrease in grey matter volume to about –5% by 34 weeks, then a partial recovery by six months after birth. Non‑pregnant women and same‑sex partners show only small fluctuations around 0%.
The transformation could be down to the pruning of nerve networks, and changes to blood vessels and cells that support nerves, says Carmona, and could represent the brain rewiring in a positive way.

It has long been argued there is a similar phenomenon seen in adolescence as the brain matures from childhood to adulthood, she says.

A number of studies in teens have suggested a pattern of grey matter thinning through adolescence with a "refining or pruning" of nerve networks as brains mature.

There are also decades of animal research that reveal pregnancy is a time of profound brain alteration for several mammals, adds Carmona.

matter shown in the brain scans

This study did not look specifically at changes in women's memory functions during pregnancy, but, in 2016, Carmona's team carried out a small study of 25 pregnant women and saw no significant change - although evidence from other studies is mixed.

And she says some women do feel more forgetful and she doesn't want to diminish women's varied experiences.

"I was excited by the idea that I could meet a new, different version of myself."

She says it is time to rethink how we are treating mothers.

"They are undergoing tremendous transformation, and we need to approach them as someone who is coming outside of a cocoon and becoming something different."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, author and journalist Lucy Jones, said: “It’s a really exciting time for this emerging science of matresence and patresence - the science of the transition to motherhood and fatherhood.

“It speaks to an area of life which has been very under acknowledged, under explored and under written.”