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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think people who have children are bonkers

752 replies

Ichabod2000 · 12/01/2019 07:05

I read threads like these: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3228427-to-ask-what-s-an-adult-problem-that-nobody-prepared-you-for, and a common theme is the crushing relentlessness and thanklessness of parenting (motherhood in particular).

Why do it? Really? It's largely a voluntary choice, and has a tangible negative impact on your time, finances, career, relationships, and often physical and mental health. Not to mention the huge negative impact overpopulation is having on our planet.

I understand people feel overwhelming love for their children, but this is after the fact - you don't feel overwhelming love for children that don't exist yet.

And people talk about how rewarding it is - but there are lots of rewarding things you can do that don't involve propagating your genes.

I'm at an age where people ask me about my plans for children, and I just can't objectively see an advantage to it. I have a brilliant DH, an interesting job that I enjoy, and plenty of free time and moolah. Why would I make the conscious decision to risk these things I have? Why do so many make that choice?

I think it's bananas, personally, and I wonder if its just me that doesn't get it?

OP posts:
Ahardyfool · 13/01/2019 19:22

@Leighhalpennysthigh Flowers and thank you to you too. In our different ways I think we both know what true pain and anguish is although our circumstances are entirely different.

Port1ajazz · 13/01/2019 19:23

Before all the spelling police start , I meant to say ' each to their own " !

missmouse101 · 13/01/2019 19:28

@stevie69 , such wise words! I felt like that but wasn't mature enough to trust it.

Nearly47 · 13/01/2019 19:29

I was asking the same questions before I haf my children. I felt as if someone wasnt telling the entire story. But decided to have them even though I wasn't in the category of being obsessed with having kids. I was a few years over 30 and it was:
Ok. It's now or never.
It is weird because it does mess up your life in a way. But it is in a good way. With more life. More learning. Richer experiences. Yes more pain, more worries but more love. It's not just how much you love them because they also love you back. It makes your life bigger. I think adopting is maybe a better option if there is not a urge of carrying a baby. But is a great feeling as an adult human to help bring up the next generation and watch them flourish. Few careers can bring that level of achievement.

Bungalowbeth · 13/01/2019 19:33

I have a friend who is a solicitor and she sometimes finds it very sad helping people with no children make wills. Sometimes they have no one to leave their property to and it just feels like after they are gone that’s the end.*

Ffs 😂😂😂 I fully intend on mortgage equity ing my place up to the hilt.

ferrier · 13/01/2019 19:36

I wanted a family .... both now and then they are all adults.
When I was child all the family I had was my sibling, parents, grandparents and a handful of aunts and uncles who we rarely saw. I would envy my friends you had big families as they seemed to have such happy times and a wealth of shared memories. So that's the kind of urge I had ... not to have babies but to make a lovely family.

hcoe21 · 13/01/2019 19:43

People who choose not to have kids are missing the entire point and obviously don’t ‘get it’. But how very strange to post this on Mumsnet?! I don’t want a speed boat but don’t post on a boating forum asking why people like boats? Grin

Rytlock · 13/01/2019 19:45

I said many pages back now thay I believe a lot of the conversation (not just on mumsnet) re having kids/not having kids is used as a stick to whack women with basicallt, your damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And this thread has cemented that for me it has been a fucking depressing read, from one side of the argument I've seen posters refer to people without children as selfish (in my situation it would be very selfish to just barrel on and have kids, I wouldn't be capable of giving them a proper upbringing due to having a disability) that they will die alone, that their lives are devoid of meaning or true love.

On the other side obviously the op kicked it off from bonkers and there's been various jibes about why people have kids.

Be happy in the decisions you make in life, but don't put others down for the decisions they've made in theirs when it comes to something like giving birth that's so deeply personal and a lifelong commitment that to judge someone else for making a different decision just makes you look like a dick head!

Eatmycheese · 13/01/2019 19:45

I honestly do not care what people’s reasons for not having children are. But please don’t tell me you know about being a parent without being one and somehow that informed your decision. Just don’t.
Let me tell you, you only understand what being a parent is when you become one. End of. Being friends with, having siblings or colleagues who are parents no. It doesn’t count.

PositivelyPERF · 13/01/2019 19:48

People who choose to have kids are missing the entire point and obviously don’t ‘get it’.

Lottapianos · 13/01/2019 19:51

'It’s not something you can imagine."

Oh it really really is. I've worked with children for 20 years - that doesn't mean I fully understand life as a parent (it clearly doesnt), but a combination of experience and imagination counts for something . I know a lot of parents know absolutely NOTHING about children before they have them (and for some, that's ongoing), but not everyone makes the decision blind

Stevie69, thank you for your thoughts, I completely agree with you

Leigh! I remember you from your thread about your rude, hurtful, ghastly employee. You handled that situation so well. You're a star. Have a hug x

Eatmycheese · 13/01/2019 19:55

@lottapianos I know you think you understand and know but this isn’t so.
I know you are irked by this but it is a fact. Until you are completely responsible for a child - through birth or adoption etc / then the enormity and complexity of it is not entire. You acquire sympathy or to some extent knowledge but not empathy or experience of being a parent

That’s not to sound critical or patronising just a fact.

caribbean2014 · 13/01/2019 19:57

I am older, I am so blessed as is my husband, we had amazing jobs, traveled the world, lived in other country’s, yet we have four children between us, all are amazing people who do amazing things in life, we have five Grandchildren, it is a joy beyond anything else in life to guide and encourage the little ones at the same time as giving care and support to their parents, we are much loved, we still travel, we still love the best in life, but the very best part is our huge and wonderful family, you really can have success in life and a family, relax, don’t worry so much, have fun, be a kid, I have to go build a den under Grandaughters bed !!!

SerenDippitty · 13/01/2019 19:58

Let me tell you, you only understand what being a parent is when you become one. End of. Being friends with, having siblings or colleagues who are parents no. It doesn’t count.

Equally let me tell parents that you only understand what it is like to live a life without children if you never have children. Being without children for a bit before you had your own doesn’t count.

Vivianebrezilletbrooks · 13/01/2019 19:59

I see we've had the " If you've not had kids you don't know what you're talking about!"
A life without kids is not a life without magic. Magic does not have to come from kids. I'm sure there are parents who would say a life with kids is a life without magic.
People who choose to have kids seem to be the ones who don't get it and are missing the point so I'll agree with PositivelyPERF on this.

surferjet · 13/01/2019 20:00

caribbean2014 What a lovely post, almost brought a tear to my eye.

stopitandtidyupp · 13/01/2019 20:06

@lottapianos I know you think you understand and know but this isn’t so.
I know you are irked by this but it is a fact

But it isn't! I am an example of that. It was exactly how I imagined.

I give up.

stambirk · 13/01/2019 20:10

This is a totally pointless thread though really, isn't it? Because no one who hasn't had children an understand what it means to be a parent. And equally, any one who is a parent can't appreciate what it really feels like to be child free throughout their adult life and all the freedom that it brings.
We all make our choices and for the most part the vast majority of us seem happy with that. Live and let live, and all that.

corythatwas · 13/01/2019 20:11

"Corythatwas - you've lost me slightly with the sex thing but if someone can up to me and told me what an amazing time they'd had in Mingolia, I'd acknowledge knowing nothing about it and eagerly here more sounds great! I'm already imagining actually what a fabulous trip that could be please tell me more perhaps when in rich I could go there!!

I'm not really sure I see your argument though!"

Point was, life is full of all sorts of potentially life-changing experiences, no one person can do them all. It would be silly to think you ought to do something you weren't particularly keen on just because somebody else told you it had changed the whole of their life. I know people for whom foreign travel has literally changed the whole course of their life: they will never be remotely the same people they were before. I otoh am going back now, once my children are adults, to a life that is very similar to the one I had planned before, with the same interests and the same focus.

Besides, the idea that once you are a parent you will know what it's like to be a parent strikes me as slightly odd. You will know what it is like for you to be the parent of your children, not what it would be like for the OP.

SpeedyBojangles · 13/01/2019 20:11

I have three DC. It is hard, but I enjoy being a parent. That's why.

Eatmycheese · 13/01/2019 20:13

@SerenDippitty I don't claim to know (anymore) how a life without children is. Where did I say I did? I cans only comment on my reality.

And @stopitandtidyupp so your hunches were right. So what?
For the purposes of this discussion you are a parent, it's the ones who are saying they know how it is but aren't.

corythatwas · 13/01/2019 20:17

Or to put it another way, I know people who are freer, able to do more travelling, or whatever it is they love, with children, than some people without. I don't think having 4 of us ever held my parents back, from the time when they first went interrailing the length of Europe with a toddler or stuck my carrier cot at the bottom of a small dinghy or towed us behind their skis into the woods.

I was held back because I had a disabled child, but that is not a natural concomitant of parenthood, and in fact (given that the condition is genetic) it could equally well have been myself developing the same disability.

Lottapianos · 13/01/2019 20:21

'Being without children for a bit before you had your own doesn’t count.'

Well said

Thanks for your support , stopit. I'm not claiming to know exactly what life is like as a parent, that would be daft, but I reject the idea that all non parents are totally clueless and have no idea how demanding children can be

stambirk · 13/01/2019 20:26

I used to work in care homes when I was a student, just evenings and weekends to earn money to go out and buy books etc. I never met a person at the end of their lives say that they regretted their decision to have a family and talk about what they missed out on. I did however, meet a handful of elderly people who deeply regretted never having become parents themselves. One lady held my hand whilst she was dying and told me that she'd had a wonderful life, but without children it had been empty and for the most part, meaningless.

stambirk · 13/01/2019 20:28

I used to work in care homes when I was a student, just evenings and weekends to earn money to go out and buy books etc. I never met a person at the end of their lives say that they regretted their decision to have a family and talk about what they missed out on. I did however, meet a handful of elderly people who deeply regretted never having become parents themselves. One lady held my hand whilst she was dying and told me that she'd had a wonderful life, but without children it had been empty and for the most part, meaningless.