For those of you childfree , do you regret not having children?

[Seaair2]

Interested to hear from those of you who are slightly older.

I’m mid 30s and I have never really seen myself being a biological parent. I like children, more so in smaller doses! I am open to step children in the future or even adoption sometimes, or being a teacher , sort of feel like my calling is to help children who are already here does that sound silly?

I just don’t think the full time responsibility (obviously this would happen with adoption) is something that is for me. I don’t know how parents balance it all! I can be quite an anxious person and I think I’d be worrying non stop!!

But my view seems to be looked down on in society because it’s still the norm to have children. I wish it was more common for people to be childfree for there to be more balanced views!

I’m obvious a shit mother because I don’t think that the love I have for my children is any more deep / special / mysterious / meaningful than the love that others have for people / animals in their lives.

I don’t even understand how people can quantify that. Who am I to say that I love my kids more than someone else loves their partner / granny / best friend/dog?

The longest relationship that most of us will have is with our siblings, not our kids.

Many people have friendships that last for most of their lives, decades longer than most marriages.

Others devote their lives to caring for animals, running rescue charities etc. They are more devoted than many parents.

To say that one type of love transcends another is just arrogant IMO.

Namechange5575 what a lovely post.

I don't have children. 46 now. Was always ambivalent. The idea of people touching your bump, childbirth, people having opinions on what you do, where you go, what you wear, whether is dinner on the table etc that made me qs it, plus having to get three meals on the table every day for 16 years....it got my back up. It felt controlling. Also I was a DV advisor for many years and one evening after supporting a case in crown court that day, I swore I'd never have children to a man who could drag me through that.

I'm engaged to a man 6 years younger who also doesn't want kids, we are very happy. We will have a lovely house and garden, our cat, we both work full time anyway, I write and play an instrument. I would have been sad if I'd had to give that up. We like our freedom I guess.

I think it was the giving up of everything plus the possibility of having children with the wrong man and then being tied to him that turned me off.

There are plenty of women who don't feel that way, let them have the babies and truly enjoy it. Each to their own.

One of the negative things about having children is that you never stop worrying about them, no matter what age they are. DD is a student, and she rang up in tears earlier on about an exam. As a mother you want to make everything better for them, even when they are adults.

Yes, the worry......I can't imagine how you would ever have true peace of mind again after you've had a child.

No kids, no regrets. Soon to turn 44 and perimenopausal so that ship has likely sailed. That said, I do sometimes wonder if I will regret it one day. But most of my close friends are child free, we have interesting, fulfilling lives (well, in normal circumstances).

I do sometimes think that I’m not a proper functioning adult though - I am single, don’t earn a huge amount, live in rented accommodation. Whereas my neighbours, who are a similar age, have the big house, the kids, the SUV, the weekends out together, and I do feel a bit like I’ve not quite reached adulthood, if that makes sense.

I’m also an introvert and a worrier - not being able to escape noisy small people is actually my idea of hell.

Yes, I think being an introvert and a being a parent aren't going to be happy bedfellows.

I often read about this on threads about introverts where many of them dread the idea of taking their chidren to toddler groups, dread playdates for their children, dread taking and collecting their children to and from school because they might have to talk to someone, dread parents evenings, dread having to take their children to the doctor etc.

Having children does mean that you have to leave your comfort zone, especially when you have to advocate for them.

I'm childfree and in my 30s. No regret here, but I've read a few things from women in their 50s who say that as they've got older they've realised the structure that having children brings. It's hard to understand this as a 30 something, and how your feelings might change.

I also don't understand this point. I'm in my 50s and can't say I miss any 'structure' children might provide. Besides, by the time you are in your 50s, your children will probably be teens or grown-up. How exactly can that provide 'structure' to your life?

I’ve never really seen motherhood as for me. I’m introvert, like my own company and sleep, children tire and bore me and I do not find them cute. I will walk past a playground and be glad I’m not part of it all. I am past the age of child bearing now.

But I agree with a few things PPs have said including:

• sometimes wishing it was something I had wanted as then your path, provided no fertility issues, is set out for you. I think that’s what’s the structure is. Although nothing is a given, you can imagine your child’s wedding or graduation and dream about grandchildren, as well as feel you have put an insurance policy in place for your later years.
• the pressures on modern day parents, somehow it looks more relaxed in the 60s/70s/80s
• feeling like you haven’t really hit adulthood. I don’t need a big house, or a car, or a husband
• I’m always astonished when people say they didn’t realise how hard parenthood would be. It looks unbelievably hard

Having a child is a really good distraction from existential dread and it feels like something to invest in. There’s variety as you move through your child’s life stages. Just little things like how Christmas would evolve as a family. Finding out how your child turns out and thinking ‘I made that’. Many people who live ordinary lives will say their children are their greatest achievement. Having a child, hard as it is, seems to give people meaning. At the least it is the ultimate form of distraction.

If you take a life of eighty years, eighteen years is not such a big proportion, and many people get a lot more out of their investment than they put in, in the end, it just might not seem like it at the time.

Lately I’ve also come to realise how many people actively dislike other people’s children even when they have their own. Also that there are as many ways to raise a child as there are parents, it doesn’t have to be endless play dates with people you hate or mum cliques.

So I can see a lot of the reasons why but I think if you don’t have maternal instincts none of that is enough. It’s too much hard work to be half hearted. I don’t think this decision is ever really head led.

Finally, the grass is always greener and it’s only natural to sometimes consider paths not taken, and not just with regard to parenthood.

@IcedPurple

I'm childfree and in my 30s. No regret here, but I've read a few things from women in their 50s who say that as they've got older they've realised the structure that having children brings. It's hard to understand this as a 30 something, and how your feelings might change.

I also don't understand this point. I'm in my 50s and can't say I miss any 'structure' children might provide. Besides, by the time you are in your 50s, your children will probably be teens or grown-up. How exactly can that provide 'structure' to your life?

Structure is when they are small and at school. You have to put them to bed at a certain time, get them up at a certain time, take them to school or childminder, pick them up from school or childminder etc.

It all falls apart when they are students and home for the holidays though

If that’s ‘structure’ then isn’t that the monotonous, thankless drudgery a lot of parents complain about? I’ll stick to my ‘structureless’ life thanks!

Mid 50s, married, no regrets about being childfree. Mortgage paid off very early. In normal times, lots of travel, no £ worries, just suit ourselves. I see younger colleagues, after the early days of wonderment about having a child, losing themselves quite quickly. They can look worried and drawn, no longer care what they look like, tired, subsumed by arrangements and others needs. I say colleagues, should have added female colleagues, all the blokes just seem to carry on as before. I realise I am generalising but it's rare to see a female who hasn't changed their personality and looks a bit after kids. The pay off of having their kids may compensate, but for me, the thought of having kids was one that filled me with slight horror. (I like babies and children, just not for me.)

Yes it is @Bluemooninmyeyes1.

When DD left primary school and took the bus to high school I didn't miss the daily walks to and from school.

I often read threads on MN where the OP is asking whether she should have a 4th/5th/6th child ad infinitum, and am baffled as to why she would want to be a slave to the drudgery that having a large family brings. Those threads make me want to lie down in a darkened room.

It isn't just the extra cooking, washing, cleaning, running around etc, but the extra emotional toll. Usually these posters have several children with ages in single figures. They don't seem to be able to consider the emtional (and financial) toll that teenagers bring - bullying, friendship issues, relationship issues, pblic exam stress (GCSEs and A levels), UCAS, university etc.

As I said in an earlier post, you never stop worrying about your children, and you are only as happy as your unhappiest child.

I think it's brilliant how society has changed and being child free by choice is accepted far more than it used to be - I think in previous generations it was just the 'done thing' to marry, procreate and remain married no matter what (thinking pre1960s I guess) and to choose child free was somehow selfish (and women in particular were somehow incomplete)

I'm nearly 50 and have 2 adult children who I love beyond measure BUT often wonder how different life might have been. When I was at the baby making stage I didn't really know anyone who chose to be child free, you either had them or there was some great sadness around infertility.

I see so many 20/30s couples who have decided not to have children and they have such rich and fulfilling lives - we were led to believe that the route to fulfilment was procreation!

With the world the way it is now - and knowing what I know now - I think if I had my time again I'd choose to be biologically child free (and maybe foster or similar). Voice that in RL and people are aghast, as though I'm saying I don't love or appreciate the ones I've got, it's not that at all!

A lot of families - particularly in these weird days - seem under such huge stress and pressure, it doesn't look that enjoyable at all. Modern society, technology/social media bombardment, house prices, pressure to have it all and do it all etc etc make it all look utterly exhausting and joyless. I don't envy that particular hamster wheel at all.

And I'm horrified that some people think adult off-spring should look after them in old age.... why? I don't think I'm a bad person for not wanting to look after my own elderly parents. And I really don't want my own kids to wipe my bottom ever!

I've got two and I sometimes ponder that it's like a kind of modern-day slavery.

I think it's brilliant how society has changed and being child free by choice is accepted far more than it used to be - I think in previous generations it was just the 'done thing' to marry, procreate and remain married no matter what (thinking pre1960s I guess) and to choose child free was somehow selfish (and women in particular were somehow incomplete)

Even if they'd wanted to be childfree it would have been difficult unless they and their husband were prepared to abstain from sex. In the days before legal, safe contraception - as recently as the 1970s - having sex meant that a child was likely to come along sooner rather than later. I think we sometimes don't realise how fortunate we are as women these days.

This is such an interesting thread, and I'm really glad it (mostly) hasn't gone the way that most childfree related threads do (i.e. a fight between childfree people and parents!)

It's so refreshing to hear from parents as well as people without children as well.

I don't think I'll regret not having children. I may have periods of sadness about not having adult children in the future (definitely don't feel like I'm missing out on the toddler years at the moment!), but regret is a different emotion altogether and I don't believe I will regret a life that I have no idea how it might have turned out.

On the point @vitalsigns23 made about parenting being easier in past decades, I recently read a piece in the Atlantic which said working mothers today spend six hours more per week on childcare than SAHMs did in the 1970s... So presumably kids were left to just get on with it far more then!

Can't seem to link to the piece but it was called Having It All - And Hating It

I'm a massive introvert and have always wanted to be a mum. It's funny and wonderful how we're all different. Women can do many things.

Glad people are getting better at respecting different women's choices. When someone comes on saying how selfish it is to have/not have children I just roll my eye and switch off. Such a sweeping statement with no real thought.

I'm in my thirties and feel more certain than I ever did that I don't want kids but I'm now trying to figure out how to make sure I turn into the kind of childfree older person I want to be. When I was growing up my parents had a few childfree friends and they were a real mix.

I remember one couple who were my absolute favourites. It seemed as though by not having children they had so much freedom and energy for life - they were always turning up at our house with a couple of suitcases and a stash of wine on the way back from an amazing travel adventure.

However, I definitely saw some couples who didn't have children go the opposite way. I would always dread visiting the ones where you were constantly worried you might get mud on the carpet or use the wrong glass. It seemed as though being so disconnected from young people meant they became set in their ways and old before their time.

So no, I don't worry about regretting not having children but I do worry about making sure that I stay young at heart.

@HotChoc10

On the point *@vitalsigns23* made about parenting being easier in past decades, I recently read a piece in the Atlantic which said working mothers today spend six hours more per week on childcare than SAHMs did in the 1970s... So presumably kids were left to just get on with it far more then!

Can't seem to link to the piece but it was called Having It All - And Hating It

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/having-it-all/488636/

I was a child of a lower middle class family in the 1970s. My mother was a SAHP and I don’t recall her doing what we would now call parenting. Parenting wasn’t a verb then. You were a parent by pro creating and a mothers job was to feed her kids , make sure they were clean and smartly dressed and send them to school and church.

Our mother shopped and cooked meals for us. We had a cleaning lady who did the laundry and did the housework when we were at school. It never crossed my mind to wonder what our mother did all day, but I think she had coffee and lunch with friends.

By the time we were school aged we went to and from school and any other activities ourselves, walking, cycling or public transport. Our family had two cars but it never occurred to us that our parents might drive us anywhere - no ones parents did.

We lived in the suburbs so there was a library, park and an area of countryside all around. We played in the garden or in the street with other children.

We even went ourselves to the dentist, something that would be shocking now.

I don’t remember doing anything WITH my parents, expect some summer holidays to the seaside and Christmas day.

After school we came home, did homework, changed into play clothes and played in the garden, in the park or the street or in neighbours houses. In the winter we watched children’s TV and then had dinner at 6pm. That would be the first time we had seen our mother that day ( our father was around at breakfast ).

After dinner we would wash the dishes and tidy up while our parents watched Tv. We didn’t really see them again in the evening.

Some nights we would go to brownies / guides or clubs at the local high school or churches ( not just “ your” church, we went to clubs at everyone’s church ) .

At weekends we cycled a few miles to the countryside with the children in the street or hung around the local shops / park / street / anyone’s house who would have us all.

By the time we were in high school we took the train into town with friends or did sports on a Saturday. My two best friends at that age had lovely families so I hung around their houses a lot.

By 14 I had a paper round at at 16 a Saturday job.

So My parents are pretty absent from most of my childhood memories. My parents were certainly more detached than most, but I think my childhood was pretty typical for the time, area and class.

My husband was the oldest of 5 children and by the time he was 14, his parents went into town every Saturday and left him to watch the kids and have the dinner ready for them coming home.

Lots of my friends spent Saturday or Sunday at Granny’s, helping her with chores and shopping ( looking back I realise my Gp were in their 60s but they seemed ancient and frail ).

I know this was all a different century but it also seems like another planet, compared to expectations of mothers now.

@HotChoc10

On the point *@vitalsigns23* made about parenting being easier in past decades, I recently read a piece in the Atlantic which said working mothers today spend six hours more per week on childcare than SAHMs did in the 1970s... So presumably kids were left to just get on with it far more then!

Can't seem to link to the piece but it was called Having It All - And Hating It

A lot is expected of mum's these days which is another reason I'm glad I don't want kids. How many times have we seen threads on MN alone eg I have 3 kids and work full time DH does nothing and wants his elderly, sick mother to move in or a woman works, does everything with the kids, husband is out at his 'hobby' all the time, woman works, cares for her sick father, does everything with the kids and her husband leaves because they only have sex twice a week etc.

I think there's so much pressure on mum's today and it is putting a lot of people off, in one conversation I had the other day two women who are childfree said if they were able to be fathers rather than mothers they'd have kids.

I do sometimes think that I’m not a proper functioning adult though - I am single, don’t earn a huge amount, live in rented accommodation. Whereas my neighbours, who are a similar age, have the big house, the kids, the SUV, the weekends out together, and I do feel a bit like I’ve not quite reached adulthood, if that makes sense.

Wow - you sound just like me, and I'm 61!!!! Wondering when I'll ever get there.

CONNIE, my childhood sounds very similar, although we saw more of my parents, either helping Dad in the garden or going for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, or at meal times - we definitely got about under our own steam and I also had a paper round from about 12 - 16. We were also 'latch-key' kids from age 11, as were many of our friends.

One of the things I particularly don't like the look of with regard to modern parenting is the apparent necessity for children to be at organised 'clubs' 3 or 4 nights a week and even on Saturdays, and having to be ferried betwen drama club, football practice, ballet etc etc.

Even if I'd wanted children, I certainly wouldn't want all the paraphernalia of toddler groups, kaffee klatsches, softplay, birthday parties etc etc.

Whatatune

I think there's so much pressure on mum's today and it is putting a lot of people off, in one conversation I had the other day two women who are childfree said if they were able to be fathers rather than mothers they'd have kids.

Yes, I've often thought that I'd be more inclined to have kids if I could be a father. Your career wouldn't be affected, your body wouldn't be permanently changed, you can swan in and out as you please while someone else does the shit work. But that wouldn't be fair to the other parent or the child, and I'm not a complete monster so still couldn't do it, even if it were possible.

I am aware that some fathers are fully involved, 100% equal parents, but in my experience they are vanishingly rare.