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

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?".

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.

Yes, we talk about it on here, anonymously. But did you notice that the women interviewed for the BBC article that the OP posted to start this thread - all refused to be named because of the fear of repercussions.

Sometimes the whole thing reminds me of the TWAW thing in that you can be villified and canceled for speaking out.

I dont know there's much about motherhood its really 'taboo' to discuss now. We are a pretty open society. This forum is a very good example.

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?

there is a big taboo about saying you don't like it

Depending on how it's said, I really disagree. Sure maybe not "I wish I never had my dc" but it's not taboo to say "I'm finding my toddler unbearable". There's literally a new thread with almost that exact title every day. Remember the cutted up pear?

It's almost more embarrassing/awkward to say "Well I find my toddlers really easy and parenting is an unmitigated joy, it's just about having a good routine" - one (justifiably) gets tomatoes thrown at you if you say stuff like that on here. Not that I ever have, because mine just don't seem to need sleep haha

Edit to add - not just toddlers, there's also an "it's a nightmare parenting teens" thread very regularly

"I'm curious about this idea of society being "honest' about it. There is no conspiracy. It's hard. Really fucking hard sometimes, often the hardest thing women do. It usually gets easier. And most consider it worth it."

Well, there is a big taboo about saying you don't like it, so I don't think we can rely on what people say. Is that not a type of conspiracy? The demand for women's silence about their suffering in case it upsets others.

And so many women are shocked by how having children is so all consuming, it can disappear you and they didn't see it coming.

Then there is the bit about what type of creatures we are. Anthropologists say we have brains geared for shared parenting, yet many of us do it with little help, in isolation and are judged on living up to that. This is why it takes us to the edge of our tolerance and beyond, yet we must stay silent and continue for years like this, ideally with a chippy voice and a smile.

The nuclear family model is an ideology we are living inside, but are made to believe is the norm (often through ignorance).

Nobody can ever fully know beforehand, though. You cannot 'inform' yourself of something so deeply unknowable. There is almost no way of knowing how things will unfold. Much is luck. We can make a rough guess, but nobody can know how their pregnancy, birth, post natal expwriences will be, how easy/hard/healthy their baby/child will be, what cicrumstances will play out with work, partner, health, etc.

Roughly speaking, many motgrrs feel some kind of regret, at some points, and despair, and boredom, because parenting can be indescribably hard work, but generally most consider this is outweighed by joy, love, hilarity, companionship, etc. And the positives tend to increase as children grow older, which is why older women are often both trying to help younger women by pointing this out and recounting their own experiences. Sometimes circs are very very hard, though, for sure. All sorts of things can happen. And then we try ro do the best we can and hopefully women are supportrd and helped when yhey need it

Everybody's life is different, though. We can't account for curveballs. That goes for almost any decision, of course.

I'm curious about this idea of society being "honest' about it. There is no conspiracy. It's hard. Really fucking hard sometimes, often the hardest thing women do. It usually gets easier. And most consider it worth it.

But the playing, the craft, the play parks (god I hated play parks), the role play etc. It was all so dull to me. And then felt awful as you are supposed to love it.

Haha yeah I hate this stuff too! When my eldest turned 4 she started crafting without needing help - we have all the stationary stuff in low drawers and she's allowed any paper or card from the recycling box - she just makes a thing and then I say well done and it keeps her entertained.

She was the clingiest, most anxious and sleepless little thing for years. If DH so much as sneezed or a fox yelped in the garden she'd be inconsolably crying. As a baby her naps were exactly (to the minute) 9 minutes long and she'd wake up screaming. It was just so, so, so hard. Someone upthread mentioned dc being peeled off her for nursery drop offs - my dd was the same and I had to get dh to drop her off because I just couldn't bear it. We had to co sleep with her as her little hands would grasp out in her sleep and if a human wasn't clutched she'd wake up screaming. Zero interest in teddies or dummies or comforters...

She's a delight now!

I very much wanted to out my dc in childcare! I felt guilty about it, felt an awful woman for wanting to return to work. But honestly childcare was so much better for them than me. I did not enjoy small children, not just the sleep deprivation and the tantrums. But the playing, the craft, the play parks (god I hated play parks), the role play etc. It was all so dull to me. And then felt awful as you are supposed to love it.

I like work, with my spreadsheets and adult conversation 😂.

Yes, most definitely. Having to work full time, run a household and look after children is a very tough call. I think many women would actually like to step down to P/T work or even give it up entirely for the first few years. But can't.
You don't realise how all consuming having a child is until it happens; nor how much you really don't want to put a very small baby or child into day care; you want to be there yourself. Having too many competing demands or responsibilities can really ruin your enjoyment of all of them.

I’ve also jus realised that when I was in the trenches I used to hate people telling me it gets better!

I am not the mother I thought I would be. I remember being furious and angry so much of the time. Turns out I hate craft, not even the mess, I just find craft boring! And a lot of playing with small children is dull and frustrating.

The career thing is interesting, because I would never want to just stay at home with children, even if it made things easier. I went back to work after 6 months and 8 months each time, mostly for financial reasons, but I loved it (was ashamed to admit that). I worked full time for most of the time, although had a couple of years part time. Even if it was financially evened out I think mothers would be more likely to give up careers, because of the assumption of maternal instincts.

I definitely struggled at work when they were small, but it was somewhere I felt in control. Now I struggle with my career as my dd goes to a specialist provision l, which is 10 miles away with no transport. So I have to pick her her a few times a week in middle of afternoon. When she was out of school for 18 months I was lucky my employer allowed me to wfh. 75% of mothers with SEND children and of leaving work because of the needs of their children.

It really depends, doesn't it? Some women struggle with serious mental health conditions that mean the stresses of having children are too much. Or they may have children with serious health conditions or disabilities that make life feel unbearable. I can understand women in those situations feeling like they wish they'd never had kids, because they just can't cope.

For the average woman with healthy children, though, I would have thought it would be quite rare to have serious regret, or to want to walk away.

I do think that expecting women to work a full-time job and carry the almost full-time stress of being a mother (because let's face it, even with great husbands women generally shoulder more of the practical and emotional load) is a lot, and could burn many women out.

I think society needs to get to a place where raising children is considered to have (monetary) value to society, and people are actually properly remunerated for parenting well - although I'm sure figuring out how to judge 'well' might be quite involved!

But in that case, only one parent would have to work in order to be financially 'okay', and mothers could go back to work and leave the father to be the main parent, or stay at home themselves if they wished. There would also need to be protections for the parent if a couple splits up, of course, to help them re-skill and get back into the workforce when they wish to.

As it is however, having children is very much an emotional and financial burden and hindrance for which there is very little social reward. Which is probably why so many people are choosing not to have children now.

@InvisibleDragon i relate so much to your post … it’s so very refreshing to read a post that’s so real.

Like you, I’ve exposed a side to myself I didn’t know existed. I believed I was quite an easygoing, relaxed sort of person and I’m not; I am tense and prone to irritability.

So often on here work is pushed as the answer: you’re fed up parenting? Work. Maternity leave not what you’d hoped? Work earlier, work more, the answers lie in work. But that means doing two jobs. I was honest with my school and said I’d rather do less well than a lot badly. I think even three days would be a struggle for me just now.

My DD loudly rejects DH in the morning so I don’t get a lie in. If I forced it I’d just be lying awake listening to her screaming for me so I don’t bother. It means I’m permanently knackered though and that doesn’t help with my moods or my response to noise (I nearly lost it Sunday as DH put UB40 on Alexa while the TV blared and a toy was going off; didn’t bother anyone else but it felt like torture to me.)

Arrghhh. So many things … small and inconsequential in themselves but they build up. I worry so much my children’s core memories of me will be this snappy irritated woman while they remember a lovely gentle and fun dad … and yet personality and temperament wise DH and I are quite similar, I’d be interested to see what he’d be like after years of broken sleep and dealing day in day out with the demands and relentlessness of toddlers.

One thing I will say is I’m in a better place now ds is at school, although I do miss him. Having a three/four year old at home combined with a one year old was HARD.

A very interesting article!

Will try to write some quick reflections, but currently in the trenches with 2 small kids, so may not make it without interruptions!

@AgingLikeGazpacho I hear you so much on the high needs, sensitive kids. My 3yo DS sounds very much like your DD - colicky, car hating baby; terrible separation anxiety; very clingy, anxious toddler; appalling sleeper. It was utterly, utterly relentless. I held out hope that my baby who "hated being a baby" (as ppl here like to say) would become an easy breezy toddler and it did not happen. Instead, I had a really tricky toddler to deal with who still did not sleep, and I was already totally depleted from the first 18 months of parenting.

Also, I now have a 6mo DD who is just a regular baby and the difference is ridiculous. She is still up multiple times a night and prefers to be settled by me. But she doesn't cry all day, you can put her down for a bit, she will sit on the floor and play with stuff while I do something, and she is actually soothed and distracted by a singing plastic otter with a flashing light. My son would never.

I also find the inability to focus on anything without interruptions extremely frustrating. I actually have a thread in parenting a few weeks ago about my DS and his constant interruptions (Tell a story about a monkey Mummy. Mummy why did you say that? Mummy what's that sign? Why is it there? Tell the story Mummy!) Not being able to control the focus of my own attention is very irritating - particularly when either there is actually a cognitive task I need to do and am unable to; or when I am interrupted 3 levels down into something I already didn't really want to think about.

I absolutely don't regret having my children and I think they are wonderful. But:

• DS has at times taken all the resources I have and then some for months / years at a time. Giving more than I have to give because there is no alternative is brutal.
• Parenting has exposed things about myself and how I respond to prolonged stress that are not attractive and are not the person I want to be. I am a snappier, shoutier parent than I thought I would be. Sometimes I feel somewhat disengaged from parenting because the alternative is to be unhelpfully furious. And sometimes I am furious anyway. It does not help. I am working on being more present and less furious, but it is slow going. I didn't expect that parenting would take me to the absolute limit of my ability to regulate my emotions so frequently and I dislike being confronted both by my limits and by the reality that one of my children is much "easier" than the other.

Some more general reflections:

• I think as a younger woman I expected that I could "have it all" - a career that I love and children. It is actually difficult to do both well and I think this is not fully understood pre-kids. Yes, you can put your kids in childcare. But it is expensive and comes at a cost to your relationship with them (some kids skip happily into nursery. DS was peeled off me screaming for 18 months). Yes, you can take a step back from full time work, but that has a cost in terms of your financial independence, pension, career opportunities, personal fulfilment and opportunities for your children. You can try to find a balance in the middle, but if your child is waking 4 times a night you are probably not killing it at work. You cannot have everything - you have to pay the piper somewhere.
• The maternity/paternity leave split in the UK definitely loads the work of parenting on the mother. When one parent takes the bulk of leave (and this is the only thing that makes financial sense for more families) they naturally become the parent the child feels most comfortable with. And that takes a long time to equalise.
• Several pp have asked about what the useless dad is doing (or similar) in various scenarios. The answer is often holding a child screaming "Mummy! I want Mummy!" Or peeling the child off mummy. Or cooking the dinner / emptying the bins/ cleaning the toilet while mummy looks after the kids. Or taking the child out so mummy can catch up on work. Or arguing with mummy about how to deal with the latest behaviour issue.

I feel this to some extent.

But otoh just because a father walking out is wrongly (sometimes) more accepted doesn't mean the consequences should be necessarily seen as less. They can be devastating, especially for boys, and also for girls. Paternal abandonment is sadly standard for many species, and the fact that human fathers are more wired to bond is part of what makes us human.

Love that song BTW 😢

This.

My dd once threw a cup of water at me (from those water dispensers) at a very posh/middle class toddler class 😂. Amongst many other stories of her being a terror. She’s now one of my favourite people to hang out with (she does have stroppy teenage moments too!)

Some really thoughtful contributions on this thread on what is clearly an emotive subject.

I have found motherhood has often pushed me to my emotional and physical limits. There have been times when I have fantasized about a guilt free hospital stay just to get some respite from the relentless slog of it. I have questioned my life choices, my parenting ability, even whether I'm actually a decent human being when I've been tempted to get on a train and disappear.

But, and here's the important bit, these feelings have always passed - the circumstances that triggered these emotions turned out to be a temporary phase - sometimes a ridiculously long, soul destroying phase - but still temporary. I can only imagine what it feels like to never have this weight lift or ease despite your children growing and changing as their needs evolve. For mothers who never feel this relief or are unable to appreciate some of the positive trade offs that come with motherhood and only experience deep resentment, I think it's really important they have an outlet to talk about their feelings without fear of judgement as this is a huge burden to carry alone. It's good we're talking about it here as a feminist issue but on a practical level I think women really need professional support to reconcile these really difficult, often shameful, feelings and limit the risk of any long-term psychological damage to themselves and their children.

DH sort of said something similar once.

I took the children on holiday with my friends from my NCT course, which meant that for four days, DH woke up when he wanted to. He lazed around in bed, he ambled around the house eating what he felt like eating, he went where he wanted, he watched what he wanted to on TV, he went to bed when he wanted to.

Then we came back and of course he missed us and of course it was lovely to be reunited but there was a grain of truth in his ‘haha so you should do that more often!’

When I first went to university, I came home for a long weekend earlier than anticipated because of a funeral and I remember I loved the luxury of my home compared to the halls of residence, the comfort of my own bed and own things and I wondered ‘why did I want to leave?’ But of course there were good things about university, it’s just I had to adjust and adapt.

I think I have to my children now. I don’t have that same desperation for time to myself I had once, when ds was a baby I had a fantasy of a nanny, I love them so and am so proud of the little people they are. But toddlers are HARD. My little one won’t always be a toddler though. I have to remind myself ds was really hard work as a toddler and now is very funny and clever and kind; he is incredibly determined (I really genuinely admire that aspect to his character) and brave - has done activities for children twice his age involving climbing and riding.

My little DD had definitely hit a weird combo of terrible twos and threenager and I have to be honest, as much as I love her it’s sometimes a struggle to like her when she screams NO MUMMY NO at me, or slaps at me or orders me around. But I am sure she will come through this too, we will get to the other side. She was such a lovely, smiley baby and younger toddler that this scowling, angry little person is hard to adapt to.

I definitely did have regret, even if it wasn’t permanent. It certainly lasted over 10 years. I felt completely trapped and hopeless. Yes it had a negative effect on me, but I don’t think it’s that easy to switch it off.

I am in a different place now, but as I said, I know I would have had a better life without children. Because everything is better without children/teens 😂. I know when I go away with just my DP I have a much better time than when I do with whingy teens who constantly argue!

My post was not aimed at anyone personally. I'm basing it on my own reflections and experiences.

I know it must be tough having both a full time job and having children too...especialy if your partner is not pulling their weight.

Not sure if you are suggesting I'm not containing my feelings because I'm discussing them on here on an anonymous forum. I find it a fascinating topic and seems like a good idea to discuss it.

I agree that feelings are fluid, I think we all know this. But this is the same feeling about broadly the same thing - the constant responsibility and work of motherhood when you'd rather be doing other things.

For me, it's not necessarily regret that I feel as that doesn't serve any purpose other than making you feel even more stuck. I'm able to look the situation in the eye and see what I'm up against.

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).

To my mind 'regret' is a permanent ongoing condition that one actively fosters in one's mind..and I cannot see the point or purpose in it? What does it achieve or change?

I think we all sometimes imagine the pathways we didn't take; the jobs we turned down; we imagine how our lives may have worked out differently if we'd done this rather than that. I don't think there is any escaping that whatever you do in life.

Sometimes we just have to take a leap of faith and have trust.....Decisions and commitments are risky because you have to live with the consequences; but not doing something because you are scared of making 'a wrong decision' can also be paralysing...and you may still well have to live imagining what it would have been like if you had done it.