To ask if you were happier before you had kids?

[violator]

Just wondering.
It came up in conversation with a friend recently and while we danced around the question it was quite clear that we were happier before we became mothers.
Are we alone in this?

I would say the two are just very different. As a young single girl it was great but also stressful at times. As a married middle aged woman of teenage daughters I love them absolutely, they make me feel more complete as a person but God it's hard work at times!

Much more anxious now - really constant anxiety about them - so it's difficult to argue that I am happier but it's also sort of irrelevant isn't it? (Unless you're talking about depression in which case not irrelevant, but I don't think you mean that!)

Logically the idea of a person happy with their life choosing to damage their body with pregnancy and labour, spend months of sleepless nights and being absolutely at the behest of another person.... Its an odd choice isn't it? It doesn't shout 'happiness' "to me!

But then, the biological impulse is strong if you have it, so I'd say fulfilled rather than happy? Definitely feel more fulfilled now. (although have just Google exact meaning of 'fulfilled' and a synonym is 'happy' so I'm obviously talking crap!)

Tough one... My two DC literally feel like extra limbs/part of me - I don't ever stop thinking about them or loving them.

However, I probably enjoyed my life before (but wouldn't say happier) but it is non stop - tantrums, washing, physically, tiredness, no freedom.

But then.. Just one kiss and you're the best mummy comment and I melt again. Grrr.. Cannot decide

No. I wasn't happier. I often felt in drifted and enjoyed life but with having kids I never wpuld have realised that I could love so deep or become so much more confident. I'm a much more happier me post kids. Yes it's hard and it's sucks at time but iv never felt this level of contentment or happiness before

I thought I was happy before. Now I'm even happier - best thing I've ever done.

I am happier now, but more stressed out and in worse health

Definitely happier since having kids, but I did manage to do a lot of things when still child free; I was an older mum. I'm a good deal tireder now though and I have a lot more worries, but I wouldn't be without my two DDs.

No, I'm happiest with the kids despite having radically underestimated the amount of labour involved in having three of them

I am much happier with kids, but strangely much more stressed, tired, and put in the uncomfortable position of being giver at times that I want to be the taker!

So it's a bit strange that I'm happier. But I can't deny that I am.

I'd say I'm happy in a different way now. Yes I miss freedom and full nights of sleep but I felt like something was missing before, like I was just 'ticking over' and going through the motions. Now I feel like I have a deeper purpose. Also my DC are only 2 and 4 months. Once they can wipe their own arses and snotty noses I'll feel much better

I couldn't have children but wondered if you feel that since having children, you have managed to retain any of your old self, or do you find that has been submerged 100% by being a mother? There are lots of threads on here where the DW talks about the DH's hobbies but I don't see many DWs talking about having their own hobbies or interests. Are they all cast aside to be a 24/7 mother? If so, I wonder how you adjust when your children grow up and have flown the nest?

Maybe I'm just not maternal. I adore my DS but find life relentless.

I know this is a zombie thread, but it is a question gets asked a lot so I think people should relax about the length of time since this thread was started.

It would be brilliant if the Op came back now, three years later, to say whether she still feels the same. I know for a fact that I didn't really feel any closeness to my first child until he went to school. It bothered me hugely, because I worried how about I didn't have that falling in love straight away type feeling. I have an illness that makes the younger, dependent, sleep thief age bracket very gruelling. I think I'd have found it hard anyway, but that made it much, much worse. I knew I loved my child from the point of view that I would fight fiercely for him and if anyone harmed him I'd rip their heads off! But it wasn't until you went to school that I found a real, deep, lasting connection.
You just thought I would have got wise to it but my second child, but I worry about all the same things and when my second child starting school again, I felt very much in love with them, from an emotional/connection/understanding – relationship point of view. Now I realise it's all completely normal, I think half the population fall in love straight away at birth, and the other half grow into a deep enough relationship that they feel 100% love towards as time goes on. Both are normal and both are fine! But I suspect only one of them troubles the parent

No. My DS is the best thing in my life and brings me infinite happiness. Life is different, yes.