To ask if it is really THAT hard to have kids?

[zebra1304]

Spending Christmas with my partner's family. We don't have kids but I worked years in child care. Not saying it is the same but I do have some idea of things. Day 7 here... and all I can hear is how bloody difficult/expensive/tiring etc etc to have kids. Is it really that hard? If so why people keep having them ? I mean why don't they stop after 1 or 2.

I find it stressful but then I am in a situation which no professional would work in.

The PND was hard, the lack of privacy is hard, only having one pair of hands is hard the constant futility of your effort is hard. And yes it’s expensive for the first 5 years - until school.

It's all relative and it's all different at different ages. You might have a baby which sleeps through the night no bother but turns into a holy terror at age three, you might have a baby who never sleeps who turns out to be an A grade pupil and is good as gold as teenager. My personal experience is that it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and I have worked in a very stressful environment for many years, gone through various tough times in my life with divorce and bereavement but trying to cope with months of post natal depression and baby who sleeps a maximum of 4 hours out of 24 has had me at breaking point. I wish you the best of luck if you do decide to have children yourself and hope that you do have an easy time of it.

I’m childless (not entirely by choice) and I don’t get what it’s like - but I constantly want to scream at colleagues who go on and on about how hard it is, how those who aren’t mothers can’t possibly understand, etc etc. I have a chronic health condition which brings constant chronic pain, which means I don’t sleep much, am totally worn down, and my health isn’t great. There’s no understanding or allowances given to me, but god forbid if wee Jonny sneezes, and they have to leave immediately - and take a week off for it. Of course, who is left to cover, but those of us who are childless...

Ok - this is probably just a moan about how shit my colleagues can be, but I am fed up of being told I’ve not experienced real love; that they commit all of their time and efforts to their kids - and not to work; and how could they possibly do one moment of overtime.

Anyway - if you’ve chosen to have children, then there must be some joy in it, or why do you do it? I don’t get the constant whining.... why do you have more than one, if it’s quite so bad?

Exactly Holla. Parents don't have the monopoly on tiredness, stress or responsibility. I know some parents are well aware of that but the competitive martyrdom from the others is hard to take

Well yeah dickheads can have children too

Depends.
Imo it gets harder & more expensive as kids get older.
At Christmas for a small example, present pile looks smaller but costs treble what it did when shopping for toddlers or young kids.
I was working In a job where during school holidays every penny plus, went on childcare.
I stuck at it but it's really expensive.

Raising children... definitely I found a breeze (even with the no sleep) as kids were younger. Now as hormones are kicking in, & honestly it's a different set of challenges the world they are growing in with social media etc it is very very hard.

Why not stop at 1 or 2?.... because despite of challenges & hard work it's all worth it, the love you feel for them makes is indescribable

It is a lot different having your own because it's 24/7, you don't ever get to clock off and your running on very little sleep for a couple of years. Every child is different, my son was a dream up until shortly after his 2nd birthday, he is a handful now and it's exhausting!. Sometimes parents won't speak to another adult for days at a time so love a good moan when they have a grown up to listen too.

Don't agree with it being expensive though raising children is as expensive as you want it to be.

I think parents can moan about it, because when they've done a full days work they don't get to go home and throw themselves into the sofa with their feet up for the eve.

The expectation is that you do everything and have DC and still do everything!

It can by physically exhausting with young ones, and mentally challengng, and not having timeout at all,like you get at work,where you can completely stop and have a proper break where there's no demand on you.

Having total responsiblility for a fragile little life trying to make sure they thrive and spending the rest of your life worrying about them and remaining on call 247for whatever emergencies crop up.

Adored the babies, toddlers and childhood, adolescence,like pp said, totally other ball game, especially with stalking and sexting and internet porn and creepy paeds on line. So much completely open to abuse now, its growing and growing and girls getting taken advantage of with nude pics being circulated and receiving penis pics!!
Hard work!