To wonder how life changes with children?

[Justanamechange2]

I’m in my early 20s, in a long-term relationship. I’m at that age where I’m starting to think more seriously about the prospect of having children, in the nearish future.

It’s made me wonder: does life feel more fulfilled and exciting again with children? Does Christmas become more exciting again? Do you have more fun with birthdays, holidays, etc? I fully grasp the idea that things would become much more hard work with children, but surely in a rewarding way. Do you enjoy and appreciate life more, or in a different way?

I’m very interested to hear different views!

It’s very hard to explain how your life changes until you actually have them. Unless you have tonnes of support or paid help your life literally is not your own once they are here. The baby stage in my opinion is easy, yes they are very needy and you don’t get much sleep but they don’t argue,give you attitude or demand your attention at all times like older children,babies to me are like a slow ease into real parenting. I have a pre teen and a baby so two very different ages and both have different needs which can be relentless, but I’d rather deal with 3 babies than a sulky, argumentative 10 yr old. Sometimes I would love to go back to before children just so I can be selfish and think about myself, do what I want,sleep when I want and not have to constantly think about another persons needs! It’s not as simple as take a break from them because even then you feel guilty or you miss them or they are on your mind.

There are pure moments of joy and happiness and it does give your life focus and some things do become magical again but my god it is hard work!

It's very complicated yet very simple.

Having children changed me and my life and the life of my husband in a moment.

I don't think either of us would have thrown ourselves under a bus to save each other but once our son was born we both would have done so in an instant.

That's soooooo hard to explain.

For us our fabulous, selfish, self absorbed lives changed. We loved him so much we were dizzy with delighted glee at what we had created.

Even through the tiredness it was great.
We just couldn't believe that we had made this incredible human being.

We are very comfortably off so everything financial was easy and we had a good relationship borne out of a good few years of a selfish marriage having ironed out a lot of creases.

However, 3 children on, still a great husband, I do my best, it is not easy.
Children create new creases in a marriage, ones you can't even imagine.

Children are the most wonderful and hardest project you will ever take on.

You just love them so much and want the best for them.

It's exhausting but exhilarating.

Their success and happiness is your happiest moment.
Their pain is greater than any pain you've ever known.

This can be exhausting. So fxxxing exhausting. So hard on your relationship with your husband or partner.

Wonderful but very very challenging.

The most realistic thing I can say is you'll no longer be (name) anymore and although you'll get your identity back, you'll always be (baby name's) mum above your name for a long time. Effects of this will be lessened if you have a genuinely helpful DH and friends going thru sane thing. And lots of parental support

Wait until you're older and have done stuff with the freedom you will never see again.

Being a parent means never putting yourself first. It means arguing with someone to put on their shoes. It means clearing up sick, pee and shit. It means getting up at 4am because "the birds are awake mummy". It means spending all your money and time on someone else.

It is great a lot of the time but if I hadn't had nearly 20 years as an adult to please myself I'd be mightily hacked off.

I love them more than anything but the flip side of that is that I worry about them and being a good parent ALL THE TIME. Never thought I would be so knackered and ground down, it is utterly exhausting and no end in sight. I enjoyed the baby stages even though the lack of sleep was so brutal. Mine are 6 and 3 now and both still tantrum and fight all the time. It is relentless. Be very sure you want kids and are as ready as you can be, live a little first.

Does Christmas become more exciting again? Do you have more fun with birthdays, holidays, etc?
Yes, I suppose so. We visit Santa and go to parties, put out carrots for the reindeer, play with toys, go to the beach in the summer, etc. It’s a different kind of fun though. The old fun - where you got drunk and went to adult parties and spent the holidays relaxing - is totally gone. There’s no point in going abroad because you can’t enjoy the nightlife. You can’t have a duvet day or binge watch Netflix. You can’t spend the bank holiday in the pub. Basically you might as well take everything you currently enjoy, throw it in the bin and learn how to enjoy kiddy things.

A colleague of mine described having his son as ‘like that falling in love feeling but forever’.

How I think it changes life:
You get superhuman mum efficiency skills
Your friends will find you smug or unbearable
Your friends will seem smug and unbearable when they too have kids
Things need a lot of planning
Theres a lot more mess and a lot more life admin
Much of which generally females are expected to do
Money is much tighter for 15 years plus
Your career and prospects and pay and pension take a substantial hit generally speaking if you are female due to structural inequalities
But you don’t notice this until later as it seems the sensible choice
Its massively exhausting and massively rewarding, much like other types of unpaid care work
Somebody cries every day for the first 7 years or so

I sometimes fantasise about faking my own death and starting a new life somewhere nobody knows me, but just when I think I've reached breaking point one of them will do something so fucking adorable that it melts my heart.

This.

Worry about them forever. DS1 ADHD, DS2 Asperger's. DS1 is independent, about to get married, DS2 not independent, don't know when he will be - I worry all the time that I will die before he's ready to do it himself. Slowly getting there, but it's scary.
You never know how your children will be and you can't compare them to everone else's. Having children absolutely means that you never come first while their little, but it may also mean that that's forever.

I would say, don’t have children unless you want them so much you will be unhappy without them.

Children make your life worse in every way except the fact that you get to have children. If that makes sense. From the time you have a child your life is about what they want and need, not what you want and need as it was pre children. So it all depends on whether your desire for children is enough to make that sacrifice worth it.

Very little of parenting is about magical moments like you see in the John Lewis ads. It’s mostly much more mundane than that - both the good and the bad.

Sleep deprivation is the worst part of the early years imo.I think I had pnd from it and I used to cry every time ds woke me in the night,several times a night.I remember leaving hospital after the birth around 6pm thinking I'll go to bed around 9pm im tired then realising omg it's not up to me anymore it's up to the baby! I'm fine now but shudder at the memories.I love my sleep.

I sometimes fantasise about faking my own death and starting a new life
I sometimes fantasise about walking out in front of a car so I can get knocked over and taken to hospital for a rest. I literally don’t get five minutes to myself. Exhaustion and resentment has destroyed my marriage.

Yes life becomes more fulfilling and you will likely experience a love more intense than you could ever have imagined. Christmas will be more exciting. It can be the best thing you have ever done.

You will also be broke, possibly knackered and will never again have a single moment where you don't have the overwhelming burden of responsible for another
life. There is no 'off' when you have kids.

Holidays will become much less relaxing!

Look into the cost of childcare and make a realistic plan for returning to work / sharing the domestic chores. Having kids shines a huge, glaring light on gender inequality within your relationship and within society and it can come as a big shock!

The love you will have for your kids is
Unimaginable but it is hard: it is exhausting and mundane and a slog never ever ever switching off, never getting to be selfish with your
Time or money. People say babies are hard, I say toddlers are awful, people with teenagers tell me that’s the worst.

My advice is have children if you want them they are a blessing but my god live some carefree selfish years first!

Having kids shines a huge, glaring light on gender inequality within your relationship and within society and it can come as a big shock!

I’m stealing this sentence- never a truer word written!’

I think life should be fulfilling and exciting before/without/beyond having kids. Going into have kids expecting them to do that, to make holidays or occasions or something magical or give life fulfillment, is a recipe for disaster both for the potential kid and the potential parents. Get a solid foundation of satisfied happiness before adding the chaos of kids, as lovely and their own unique type of happiness they can bring.

As a previous poster said - babies don't really care and older kids have their own opinions. My mother was Christmas-obsessed, and my siblings and I learned early to play along even while miserable. It may have been magical to her, but going through her motions wasn't for us - it felt like loud pageantry. My oldest started to complain about the Christmas decorations in town when he was 6 - he just did not get it and thought the lights and all the people/pictures of people dressed up, his words, "in the Christmas costume" were all a bit weird. I have changed how we do our holidays time and again for them and I consider a holiday or birthday a success if there isn't a major last minute stressful change in plans or someone getting really upset over something I didn't foresee being an issue. I find far more joy and 'magic' in daily life.

The early years are intense and full-on. Even with my spouse has taken a large chunk of the childcare, and having my studies/work, I feel I was pretty much absorbed by family care and logistics until my youngest was nearly 5, and coming out of that was almost as hard. Part of that was probably having my kids young and being a couple years into premature menopause and coping with close family deaths likely made it worse, but another part is that as intense as the early years are, they're often more contained and controllable than later. Now, I'm constantly being caught off guard, constantly having something new to deal with and figure out, and more and more often new things that I can't actually do anything about for them or even when I can, it's in their best interest for me to step back. I can't just distract them anymore, a cuddle doesn't make it all better, almost all of my kids are now physically stronger than I am, and things seem to be changing now more than ever.

I do appreciate and enjoy my life in ways I didn't before, but I wouldn't say it was more, just differently to before or would be if I didn't have kids. Change would happen either way, that's life, I think kids just make that change really fast paced at times. I could not have predicted a year ago large parts of what my older kids are doing now and I doubt we will be where I think a year from now. I have no idea how I would live life otherwise, but I think my fulfillment and excitement in life comes from moving forward towards goals and betterment -- and should not be placed on another's shoulders, especially kids.

They are fabulous. I had mine in my mid 30s and couldn't recommend it more highly! I am tired ALL the time though- even though I have an amazing partner who does at least half of the work. I do have flashes of envy when I see friends going on a holiday with just their partner or friends, or spending a boozy Sunday in a beer garden.

My advice is to enjoy the hell out of your 20s and wait till you are really really done with nights out, travelling, freedom etc before you have kids.

I love my kids to death and cannot imagine my life or future without them. But...
I HATE Christmas now. I hate that I have to wake up early to do stuff, presents, cooking, etc. My ideal Christmas would be to get out of bed at noon and throw some takeaways that I got on Christmas eve into the microwave and eat what I like
I HATE holidays now. I hate that I have to get up to do stuff, take the kids to breakfast, go sightseeing, get in the pool (I hate pools), find stuff to occupy the kids
I HATE that I have to get out of bed on a Saturday or Sunday morning.
I constantly have to be a good mom to my amazing kids and my life will never be my own.

The only thing that makes it worth it is that I REALLY REALLY like my kids. They are pretty cool and we get each other.

I'm actually glad that I didn't read any of the 'why did you chose not to have kids' threads. I may have decided otherwise. I'm glad that I had no idea about how difficult it could be. I'm really glad to be the mother of my kids. :-)

I think it depends on a variety of factors. For me the most important factors that can influence how you feel about parenting are:

The level of support you receive from your partner and extended family.

How good your life was pre-children.

Your personality (do you like solitude/lots of down time, does incessant chatter irritate you?)

Your child's temperament (this one is luck of the draw).

Finally - your expectations. I had high (unrealistic) expectations of motherhood. My mum was/is an amazing mother and I always just assumed that like her, having children would be the most amazing thing I ever did and that it would complete me in the way she says it did her. I failed to take into account that my upbringing/lifestyle/ambitions were nothing like hers and the fact that I'm nowhere near as nice/kind/patient as she is. Needless to say I was brought down to earth with a bang when DD1 arrived and I was absolutely stunned to find that I hated being a parent! I love her but hated the role. I still struggle a few years on if I'm honest and I even threw a second DD into the mix . There is joy of course - I think they are the most adorable humans on the planet but for me the little snippets of joy do not outweigh the sheer drudgery/stress/irritation/anxiety involved.

If you're only in your early twenties I would strongly advise you to wait but I could be completely wrong and you could be like my mum and relish the role! That's the thing about parenting - you have absolutely no idea how it's going to affect you until it's too late

Thank you for all the responses - particularly the raw, realistic descriptions of how your life has changed.

Someone asked if I don’t feel fulfilled and excited with my life as it is - it’s not that, as such, but more like a PP said: I feel like I’m just floating along sometimes, and don’t really know my purpose.

The descriptions of the effects of sleep-deprivation made me shudder. I can already relate to the PP who said she cried every time her baby woke up in the night. I’m someone who feels depressed, drunk and bad-tempered if I get less than 6 hours sleep... you’ll all be laughing at me, I’m sure! But seriously, how does anyone cope on 2 hours of broken sleep for months on end? Did you not end up ill, with a weakened immune system? What support did you get through that time?

I love having DS. Massive sense of love and purpose and fulfillment, also lots of adorable and/ or hilarious moments.

We left it till late 30s. It really helps to have a bit more money, have made some headway in your career, and have spent a lot of time having fun.

If you have a fixed idea of what a holiday must look like to be relaxing, then holidaying with a toddler is probably going to be hell on earth. If you are prepared to go at their pace and look with their eyes and find that interesting, then it doesn't have to be that bad.

This. I'm gradually convincing DH of it I think... Holidays are the hardest part and the place where it's most obvious what you lost. I normally have to think hard about whether on balance I actually enjoyed myself or not.

You can't do anything spontaneously any more.

We managed (as DH work is flexible and i am a SAHM) to arrange one day off a week together without DS. We were both scared of the drudgery of never having any time off together.

We have a babysitter and go out one night most weeks. We like evenings at home together too so once DS is in bed things aren't too different (except the exhaustion from getting him there).

Ultimately you can't really know, you just take the plunge if you want it enough and then you learn to adjust...

Re. sleep deprivation. You just find a way to cope. Day time naps are sometimes possible with a first baby. You get used to it. I'll never forget the first time my baby slept through the night. I woke up feeling so weird! You'll be fine op, you'll find a way.

@Cyclades1

I like how you broke it down like that!

I have a very emotionally supportive partner. He is always patient, empathetic, and my shoulder to cry on! However... his effort with housework, is another story. I can see him not quite pulling his weight when we’ve got a child! Things could change by then, however.

People I’ve worked with (alongside children) have always said I’m so patient and nurturing with children. I think I’m just soft. But to be honest, sometimes when they all bombard me at once, fussing about silly things, I just want to say “stop talking and leave me alone!” But on the other hand, children can be so lovely, as individuals. It’s nice when I get chance to sit and chat with a child, without any fussing and interruptions! This is where the idea for only one child comes in....

About the sleep-

All babies are different. Two hours is quite bad. If you're lucky you can get them mostly sleeping through by 3 months.

Your body adapts to some extent. I also became awesome at dealing with jet lag after DS baby experience!

You can catch up during the day if you're on maternity leave. Though it may be sleeping on the sofa with a sleeping baby on top of you! Ultimately the baby needs more sleep that you- the difficulty is if they're the type that will only sleep in a preheated or carrier (DS I'm looking at you). Even so you learn to find ways of making the catch up sleep possible.

*pram. Not preheated. Autocorrect is not my friend today!