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

'Living life to the full' can also mean experiencing the full range of human feeling - from the darkest caves to the highest peaks, and everything in between.

Of course, there are some who must carry a heavy additional burden if they have children with life long or ongoing special needs. One cannot plan for this in advance.

I don't think anyone suggests that being a parent is easy or that it never involves struggle or deep frustration......though perhaps if one expects a life free from any of those difficulties then the thought of knowingly entering into a life that involves any of that would seem like madness.

This is so true I think, and I have really appreciated your take ShortShrift.

Different people have different things they want from Life (and that's totally fine ofc). Some people might want an easier life and some might want other experiences.

To use an analogy... when I got broken up with for the first time I was utterly devastated, I'd been with the guy for two years and we had been totally in love. I stopped eating and lost heaps of weight in my misery... and someone older said to me that he'd never been in love with anyone his whole life and no one had with him. It just never happened to him. He'd never had that mind warping feeling where you're crazy about someone and all pop love songs are about you. Some people go through life never having experienced romantic love or heartbreak. That's probably a lot easier to live with but I'd rather have had both than neither. But I completely get that many people would rather avoid the one to prevent the other.

So by that analogy, I'd rather have had all the shit that comes with motherhood, even including having come close to death in childbirth which took me years to get over psychologically, but also the everyday literal shit in nappies etc, than not experience any of it at all.

(I'm not saying the two things are the same, I'm just making an analogy with any big life experience that someone might choose to avoid)

What's the matter with wanting to be a grandparent? Wanting something isn't the same as putting pressure on someone else to provide it.

Or is this another feeling that women aren't allowed to talk about in public, not even anonymously or in general terms?

What's the matter with wanting to be a grandparent? Wanting something isn't the same as putting pressure on someone else to provide it.

Or is this another feeling that women aren't allowed to talk about in public, not even anonymously or in general terms?

Isn't that to assume that your children, in their turn, want or even can have children? Having children so that you can enjoy a grandparenthood that may or may not happen seems to carry a fairly big risk of a) disappointment for you and b) undue pressure on your children.

I think part of the problems of feminism (I am a feminist by the way) is that it has focussed on 'women can do everything that men can!" and pays less attention to "there are some things that only women can do". Bearing children is a uniquely female experience (which is not the same as a universal female experience). And women, en bloc, are different to men en bloc. We are much less often violent, for one thing. Much more collaborative.

Even feminism was created within patriarchy, and bears its hallmarks, i.e. the presupposition that what men did (politics, war, industry, academia, art) and had (physical dominance, sexual freedom) was inherently valuable and desirable and women should have access to it, which implicitly supported the patriarchal assumption that what women did (childbearing, care-giving, community-building, crafting, story-telling and oral history transmission) and had (endurance, longevity, freedom from overriding sexual instincts) was weak, valueless, trivial.

A new feminism would lean into our sex-specific strengths I think. Not be afraid to call out the predominantly male behaviours which have led this world into the shithole it is in and look to predominantly female needs and strategies to repair it. Whilst STILL recognising that sex-based traits (not sex itself) are on a bell curve, and men can be nurturing and collaborative, and women can be aggressive and risk-taking, and to allow for that in the system by enabling choice. But not by refusing to recognise that in general, there are strengths to women that men overall do not have, and risks to men that women overall do not present.

Basically a feminism for women, for the first time, as opposed to striving after the right to play with the men's toys on the men's field by the men's rules. Feminism should start with the question "what kind of world works for women?", not "how do we enable women to function in the world built to serve men?".

I 100 percent agree that parenting is harder than it was in my parents generation ( they raised me in the 70s and 80s). We had no wider family support but kids really did entertain themselves. From a very young age you just went out all day playing with friends in the neighbourhood. We free ranged far and wide. My parents did not have the burden of organizing and supervising our leisure time or friendships. There were no ‘play dates’ to arrange. They occasionally took us for bike rides or day trips. But that was it. I did one hobby once a week for a while my dad took me too. But apart from that, their free time was theirs. It was not spent ferrying me around.

Homework was less, none in primary and by secondary you were expected to organise it yourself. No school app for parents to check. Kids now do far more at school far younger than we did. The grammar they are expected to learn in primary is absurd. I’ve never even heard of the terms DS was expecting to learn. No bloody endless dress up days in primary either or endless school communications.

There is far less support and far more burden and pressure on parents, and on kids too.

Isn't that to assume that your children, in their turn, want or even can have children? Having children so that you can enjoy a grandparenthood that may or may not happen seems to carry a fairly big risk of a) disappointment for you and b) undue pressure on your children.

This is spot on! Time and time again, I see women wrongly thinking that 'feminism' and 'empowerment' is women aping mens' bad behaviour and lowering ourselves to their standards, instead of expecting men to rise to meet feminist standards.

See: Ladettes, women consuming porn, women going to strip clubs, etc.

This is what I feel conflicted about.
I recognise the truth of what you are saying, on a psychological and mythological level, about the centrality of the mother-child bond.
But it conflicts with my feminist political beliefs.

Why should mothers have the risk of this burden of entrapment, when fathers don't have that? Why should society judge men and women by different standards?
How can the psychology and the politics be reconciled?

@Shortshriftandlethal
You may even find you really enjoy being a grandparent.

Yes, that is why being a mother is worth it, even if it is crap. Because being a grandmother is wonderful!

@Shortshriftandlethal
You may even find you really enjoy being a grandparent.

Yes, that is why being a mother is worth it, even if it is crap. Because being a grandmother is wonderful!

I think my dc wanted me more because I tried harder to understand them. It’s still the case with my dd and her dad. Like I was furious and tired and strung out, but I was also trying, reading, finding out how to do things. He would try one way and if it didn’t work, get cross and blame her (or me).

He still seems to see her preferring me as some magic, instead of it being that I am the person who champions her, who tries to understand, who made myself an expert in autism and her autism. I threw all the parenting rules out the window and didn’t care what I was supposed to do. That’s why she prefers me, not some magical bond.

I failed to breastfeed both of mine too. I genuinely felt claustrophobic feeding my son, I would get this awful, panicky feeling. With dd it was because of medication I was on.

I have said a number of times to other women that I don’t love being a mother and that I’d be happier without children. Usually they think I am joking or exaggerating for effect. I’m not.

There is stuff on Facebook about this article and not a chance I’d comment there in my name. Partly so my children never see (although the young people don’t do Facebook!) but also the judgment from friends and family.

The book Matrescence is really good on this. The maternal brain doesn't 'shrink', it reorganises. It's about composition, not overall 'size' (and a small brain is not necessarily a dumber brain in any case, how reductive).

Hey to all the high needs baby mums appearing! My first was like this - literally could not put her down, give her to anyone else, do anything that wasn't directly interacting with her without her screaming. Slept in 40 minute intervals for over a year. I swear by the end of week two of her life I was just utterly bewildered by the level of her need. I remember saying to my partner "but, but, but I CAN'T just not sleep!" almost indignantly, like I could submit a complaint to the manufacturer. Turns out I could, and did, for years.

Strangely, I still absolutely loved being a mum, possibly because it WAS so extreme - our bond was intense and all consuming and transformational, all things I have craved in various forms throughout my life. But oh my GOD it was hard. Torpedoed my relationship too, because he was so obviously hating it while doing far less of the actual graft (not really his fault, she absolutely wouldn't tolerate him and I couldn't stand hearing her scream for me), and I ended up feeling his dissatisfaction and his needs were just additional demands I didn't have any bandwidth for.

Second baby was an absolute revelation that I hadn't been crazy or weak or failing. She wasn't all easy (had a lot of trouble with breastfeeding) but... she'd sleep for hours together at night, not needing to be touching me. She'd let other people hold her. She'd lie on her tummy and later sit on the floor and play by herself. I could LEAVE THE ROOM. And I suddenly realised this is what most mothers got and was just "wow". We had not been on the same playing field AT ALL.

I think part of the problems of feminism (I am a feminist by the way) is that it has focussed on 'women can do everything that men can!" and pays less attention to "there are some things that only women can do". Bearing children is a uniquely female experience (which is not the same as a universal female experience). And women, en bloc, are different to men en bloc. We are much less often violent, for one thing. Much more collaborative.

Even feminism was created within patriarchy, and bears its hallmarks, i.e. the presupposition that what men did (politics, war, industry, academia, art) and had (physical dominance, sexual freedom) was inherently valuable and desirable and women should have access to it, which implicitly supported the patriarchal assumption that what women did (childbearing, care-giving, community-building, crafting, story-telling and oral history transmission) and had (endurance, longevity, freedom from overriding sexual instincts) was weak, valueless, trivial.

A new feminism would lean into our sex-specific strengths I think. Not be afraid to call out the predominantly male behaviours which have led this world into the shithole it is in and look to predominantly female needs and strategies to repair it. Whilst STILL recognising that sex-based traits (not sex itself) are on a bell curve, and men can be nurturing and collaborative, and women can be aggressive and risk-taking, and to allow for that in the system by enabling choice. But not by refusing to recognise that in general, there are strengths to women that men overall do not have, and risks to men that women overall do not present.

Basically a feminism for women, for the first time, as opposed to striving after the right to play with the men's toys on the men's field by the men's rules. Feminism should start with the question "what kind of world works for women?", not "how do we enable women to function in the world built to serve men?".

I think part of the problems of feminism (I am a feminist by the way) is that it has focussed on 'women can do everything that men can!" and pays less attention to "there are some things that only women can do". Bearing children is a uniquely female experience (which is not the same as a universal female experience). And women, en bloc, are different to men en bloc. We are much less often violent, for one thing. Much more collaborative.

Even feminism was created within patriarchy, and bears its hallmarks, i.e. the presupposition that what men did (politics, war, industry, academia, art) and had (physical dominance, sexual freedom) was inherently valuable and desirable and women should have access to it, which implicitly supported the patriarchal assumption that what women did (childbearing, care-giving, community-building, crafting, story-telling and oral history transmission) and had (endurance, longevity, freedom from overriding sexual instincts) was weak, valueless, trivial.

A new feminism would lean into our sex-specific strengths I think. Not be afraid to call out the predominantly male behaviours which have led this world into the shithole it is in and look to predominantly female needs and strategies to repair it. Whilst STILL recognising that sex-based traits (not sex itself) are on a bell curve, and men can be nurturing and collaborative, and women can be aggressive and risk-taking, and to allow for that in the system by enabling choice. But not by refusing to recognise that in general, there are strengths to women that men overall do not have, and risks to men that women overall do not present.

Basically a feminism for women, for the first time, as opposed to striving after the right to play with the men's toys on the men's field by the men's rules. Feminism should start with the question "what kind of world works for women?", not "how do we enable women to function in the world built to serve men?".

This is what I feel conflicted about.
I recognise the truth of what you are saying, on a psychological and mythological level, about the centrality of the mother-child bond.
But it conflicts with my feminist political beliefs.

Why should mothers have the risk of this burden of entrapment, when fathers don't have that? Why should society judge men and women by different standards?
How can the psychology and the politics be reconciled?

This is what I feel conflicted about.
I recognise the truth of what you are saying, on a psychological and mythological level, about the centrality of the mother-child bond.
But it conflicts with my feminist political beliefs.

Why should mothers have the risk of this burden of entrapment, when fathers don't have that? Why should society judge men and women by different standards?
How can the psychology and the politics be reconciled?