Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it's not the end of the world if you can't have children?

336 replies

Jaygee61 · 13/02/2018 12:36

I speak as one who couldn't. Ttc for 10 years. It broke my heart. But I healed. I have a different perspective on things now. I feel there were worse things that could have befallen us, being diagnosed terminal cancer (OH did have cancer but it eas treatable fortunately) motor neuron disease, being paralysed in an accident. We live lives of joy and dignity.. We have created a great marriage and I'm proud of that. I love spending time with my nephew.

But society seems to view being childless by choice as a fate worse than death. Something not to be accepted but fought against at all cost. . If you're not prepared to go to any lengths to have a child you can't have really wanted one in the first place....

OP posts:
FluffyWuffy100 · 13/02/2018 16:23

@tangledyarn well I can't think of any situations where having children can reduce an already stressful or tiring situation?

Caring for elderly relatives? Going to be worse if you are worrying about not seeing your own children, or rushing home and then looking after them.

Stressed at work? More stressful knowing you have children you need to provide for so if you can't cope and end up quitting they will be impacted.

Sick? Worse to be sick AND look after children / worry about the impact of your sickness on them.

Job on the line and need to relocate? Uprooting your children from their friends and schools and your family support network? Harder than moving just you and you and uour partner.

Oh for sure having children makes happy things even more happy, but certainty they don't make stressful situations easier.

Nataliemith · 13/02/2018 16:29

I find it upsetting that those who have children are coming into this thread about infertility saying how not having children isn't the end of the world when they have children themselves. They can't even know what it's like when they haven't been through it themselves.

openbluewater · 13/02/2018 16:32

The problem is Fluffy,for each of those things there’s an unspoken meaning, isn’t there?

You care for elderly relatives and wonder who will care for you.

Stressed at work? With no children you know fine well there will be no state help if you do quit or lose your job. No ‘excuse’ to step back or reduce hours.

If you’re very unwell, it’s unpleasant whatever the circumstances. But the implication it’s worse when you have children - because it impacts on them too -ergo your life as a mother has more meaning.

Needing to relocate - your friendships, roots, friends and family matter, they matter so much.

The problem is there has long since been an idea of motherhood as something sanctified and holy (as can be seen from the Virgin Mary) - unselfish, warm, loving, giving and nurturing. So much of the time, people attempt to imply that one can’t be these things without motherhood.

tangledyarn · 13/02/2018 16:34

Yes of course, but the point which I made earlier on was that sometimes the reasons people aren't able to have children are v connected to those things. I cant have children because I have a number of chronic health problems which lead to exhaustion amongst other things, being unable to work as much as I need to leading to financial strains. Saying well you would be really tired and skint if you had kids is no comfort to me at all. I really dont have rose tinted glasses around having children, if I did I would just crack on..its because I do know how tough it can be that I cant do it.

Thehogfather · 13/02/2018 16:34

nati just my observation but I think when people have fertility issues they understandably get wrapped up in how life would be perfect if they could only have a baby. And then because life is never perfect they aren't prepared/equipped to initially deal with the fact that baby or not, life can still be hard.

I think too if you conceive easily people are very keen to tell you all the bad parts. But nobody sensitive would focus on the hard stuff to someone desperately trying incase it came across as consolation.

I read a post on here about educated, mc mums reading all the right books, doing the full research, going to the right classes etc during pregnancy, and then finding it hard to come to terms when parenting a newborn didn't go to plan despite perfect preparation. Whereas having not gone down the perfect pregnancy route, or expecting parenting to be perfect, I found those difficult patches more expected and thus easier to cope with. And I think the same logic applies to fertility issues versus easy conception.

Leiaorganashair · 13/02/2018 16:41

We suffered a family bereavement a couple of years before I had DD. I was single at the time, early 40s.

DB phoned me every couple of days after I went back home. Before this we had spoken on the phone once a month or so. He said he was suddenly struck by how he and DSis had kids to preoccupy themselves with, while I was coming home to an empty house every evening. The flip side of that is it was easier for me to get away fast when the bereavement happened, even though I was the one with a 12 hour flight, because they had the kids. There are two ways of looking at every situation. I don't agree that rubbish things are easier to cope with if you don't have kids.

FluffyAnimalsRule · 13/02/2018 16:50

I understand that really your question is about being judged by society.

But...

The title is about it not being the end of the world if you can't.

The fact is, for some people, it is. I tried to have kids for 10 years. Early mc, three rounds of IVF, got pg with twins who i lost in late pregnancy because my cervix opened early for no apparent reason. Just unlucky.

I know that for me, if i had not gone on to have a child, my life would have been over. i would have struggled with depression forever and my relationship would have ended because neither DH not i could cope with where we were.

Not a single person had asked us if we were planning to have kids or put any pressure on us. it was all coming from us and our own personal desires and feelings. And lots of other bad things had happened in our lives that could have broken us but never came close to feeling like life was over.

I now have a DD through IVF and another miracle DD who was naturally conceived. But i know, without any doubt, that for some people it IS the end of the world if you can't have children.

SoozC · 13/02/2018 17:01

Being childless when you don't want to be does feel like the end of the world, ime.

I've been ttc for 2 years with one miscarriage to show for it. The whole thing consumes me every day. I'd give anything not to be feeling like this.

It's even worse when you meet people who ask if you have kids and when you say no they ask if you want kids, if you'd have them in the future, if you're trying, as if it's any of their business. Even worse if people start to say how lucky we are not to have any because of x, y, z.

I wish society was different, that there wasn't this expectation that all women want kids, or all couples will eventually have them. People need to be able to be more open about infertility and miscarriage but that won't happen until the expectation that a woman wants/will have kids is gone.

MadMags · 13/02/2018 17:03

Are you consumed by it because it hasn’t happened for you, if that makes sense?

SoozC · 13/02/2018 17:04

Well, yes, I wouldn't be consumed by infertility and a miscarriage if they hadn't happened to me.

SaskaTchewan · 13/02/2018 17:05

They can't even know what it's like when they haven't been through it themselves

Of course they can know. They might very well have gone through the infertility phase themselves, and spend years believing that babies would never happen. Just because things changed eventually, pregnancy or adoption for example, doesn't mean they are ignorant.

We go back to people who believe, wrongly, that their life will magically change because a baby appears.

openbluewater · 13/02/2018 17:05

I had a colleague like that Sooz

‘Oh you’re so lucky going home to peace and quiet.’

Curlywurlyquerly · 13/02/2018 17:07

YANBU and i speak as a mother of several. It’s overrated.

openbluewater · 13/02/2018 17:08

Christ

Leiaorganashair · 13/02/2018 17:09

I did not believe my life would magically change because I had a child. Spoiler alert, it didn't.

I did desperately want a child. I tried to come to terms with it never happening before I had DD. Comments like "at least you have freedom," "you have godchildren, you get the best of both worlds," "life must be soooooo much less stressful" made it worse.

tangledyarn · 13/02/2018 17:09

curlywurly Have you read the thread? Theres a lot of people here who are really struggling and distressed about their experience of childlessness. Thats not you..thats fine but im not sure "its overrated" is helpful at all.

openbluewater · 13/02/2018 17:10

I’ve seen insensitive comments in my time but some of these are unbelievable.

Leiaorganashair · 13/02/2018 17:10

curly you are exactly the kind of insensitive knob I am talking about.

tangledyarn · 13/02/2018 17:11

open Agreed. I really hope some of these posters aren't around people in real life struggling with childlessness.

SoozC · 13/02/2018 17:11

Oh that's okay then, I was thinking it was an amazing experience to give birth to your own child and watch them growing up. But now I know it's overrated I can live happily knowing I'll probably never experience it. That's my mental health instantly improved.

FluffyWuffy100 · 13/02/2018 17:13

@openbluewater interesting post, quite thought provoking

SaskaTchewan · 13/02/2018 17:14

what do you want people to say? Honestly, when someone tells you they are in the middle of a fertility crisis and you have a baby, what exactly do you expect them to say? Suck to be you? Too bad? You don't know what you are missing?

There are good points of not having children, there's only so many "I am so sorry for you" you can come up with. There are opportunities opened when you don't have kids, it's not life your life must stop.

MadMags · 13/02/2018 17:14

Sorry @sooz I meant had you always wanted desperately to be a mother or was it when it didn’t happen naturally that it became all-consuming?

I’m wondering, I suppose, if it’s easier to be philosophical about it if it isn’t something you always yearned for.

fluffiphlox · 13/02/2018 17:15

I don’t have children, never wanted them. (And I’m easily old enough to be a grandmother now). You can live a perfectly useful life without them. Am I allowed to ask why people really, really want a child or children? I understand the fact that they do but not the ‘why’?

YodaIsDead · 13/02/2018 17:15

Agree with saska