To be a parent or remain childfree?

[MiddleLane]

I'll try and cover this as briefly as possible!

I'm 35. DH is 40. We are financially comfortable and very happy together. I admit I love my clean, tidy house and ability to please myself. We have lovely holidays and can be spontaneous with cinema/restaurants/day trips/weekends away. Life is peaceful and I love my hobbies.

I have zero experience with children. No neices/nephew's or anything, so I've been unable to foster any meaningful relationships with kids. Perhaps because of this I find all kids rather intimidating!

I don't actively dislike children at all (though lots in supermarkets tend to be loud and unruly!) but I've never thought 'I must be a mum'.

Since I turned 30 I've tried to decide whether to try for DC or not. My DH is on the same fence; happy to try, happy to not try. Neither of us feel broody.

I suppose right now I'm happy with how things are, but I do feel sad at the idea of never having a family. I think about Christmas and the future and perhaps all the romanticised ideas of family life.

I realise you have to sacrifice a hell of a lot to bring DC up. Once you've had them I'm sure it must feel like you'd never be without them; but would you say your life is much improved with your DC? I worry about the world and our society too, the stress of growing up in our social media climate worries me as does the impact of more children on the environment.

Yet...I don't want to regret not having kids.

What tipped the scales for you into deciding to have DC, or deciding to remain childfree?

One last bit of info that's quite important; I know I do qualify/would need IVF due to a medical condition, it would be unlikely but not impossible to fall pregnant naturally. So deciding to try would mean the added stress of facing potential infertility.

It seems sensible to think 'Well it may not happen, so if I'm on the fence, then why try?'. But this nagging idea of regret still gnaws at me.

Sorry for the length of the post

I read a book once that said having children is like getting a tattoo on your face - you need to be really damned sure it’s what you want before you get it done as afterwards there’s no going back

@BetweenTheMoon it's so sad that you feel this way, your poor children. Try as you might it's likely they'll pick up on how you feel about being a parent as they grow older so please do what you can to minimise the impact on them

@justgotbanned is your post for real? You didn't children but had one because your DH wanted one! Not surprised you ended up divorced. What a terrible reason to have a child.

Your godparents gave back a child they were meant to adopt because they didn't bond after TWO DAYS!!!!! Sounds like the child had a lucky escape.

Then you spout rubbish about the OP thinking if she doesn't have children she won't have grandchildren. So what? Grandchildren are not some wondrous gift. They are still children who can and often do cause grief, hassle, cost money etc.

There is no guarantee if you have children they will also have children. More and more couples are choosing not have children. Also your children could fall out with you, move to the other end of the country, emigrate.

I love Christmas with my DH, my parents, my siblings. It wouldn't suddenly become so much more magical if there were children involved in it. For every wonderful magical family Christmas with children there must be far more families arguing and wishing Christmas to be over.

@mydogisthebest yes my post is for real, I'm speaking honestly like I thought you was supposed to do on here. I ended up divorced because my husband was a drunk, who despite telling me that he wanted to be a "family man", was in the pub whilst I was in labour. But thanks for the judgement 👍

Adoptions can and do fail. Maybe do your research on that one too before you pass comment.

Just because you have a nice Christmas, doesn't mean everyone does. Again, I was speaking from experience of my godparents. The OP has asked for views, and that was mine. I would respect your view just as much as I do of others on here, shame you can't do the same. I thought it was mumsnet, not attacknet 😳

@justgotbanned yes of course adoptions can and do fail but after TWO DAYS! For goodness sake how can you tell after 2 days whether you bond with a child or not? It obviously takes time for the child to adapt to different people, different home etc and for the adults to get used to the child.

They sound like the idiots who had my rescue dog before we saved him. One couple had him a week, one couple 3 days and one couple 1 night. I didn't realise some people give up on children so quickly and easily.

Also of course not everyone has a nice Christmas but that is true of childfree couples and couples with children. How does having children make Christmas so wonderful? I would have thought it just makes it more stressful.

@mydogisthebest and now you're calling them idiots without ever meeting them or understanding their personal situation. What a lovely person you are.

@toadabode don't feel sorry for them and me. Turns out I'm actually a bloody excellent mum and have incredibly happy kids.

It's not binary, you can miss all those things and still love and be a good parent.

I did think I should type 'but obviously now they are here I love them' but stupidly thought I could share my honest feelings without someone trying to make me feel shit about it but seems not.

Only you can know OP. I didn't want kids really, wasn't and never have been broody. But what I did want was happy family christmases, a full house, people to look after and truly love. Naive, yes. Because obviously it doesn't always end up like that. But that's what I wanted, because I had a shit, shit childhood, and so decided to go for it. It's just something that, as hard as it's been, and as much as I've sacrificed all the superficial stuff, for me perosnally I would it over and over again if it meant I get to keep living this life with them. Kids aren't for everyone, but personally they saved me.

justgotbanned

I’m sorry but to me you sound like an unhappy single mum & you’re trying to cope with your life by saying “but look at my unhappy godparents!”

Your god parents have no idea if they’d have enjoyed the reality of kids. My friend had 4 years of IVF to get her baby and she has told me if she had her time again she wouldn’t have had kids. Heck you only have to look at this thread to see how many people regret it. I’m not close to either of my parents and if I ever had kids they wouldn’t have much contact with their grandkids to be honest so that’s no reason to have kids!!

Hi @MiddleLane

A couple of years ago at me 39, partner 43 we decided to let nature take its course as we just could not decide whether or not to have kids

Naively I went with it for 2 reasons. Firstly, due to my age I thought it may not happen or take a while and secondly we thought we'd always regret it if we didn't have any.....

I got pregnant in the first 6 weeks of trying and three years down the line I still massively regret becoming a mum. I just don't get it or enjoy it or feel the amount of love I thought I would that all other mums gush about

It's really sad and obviously no one in RL knows how I feel, I literally just scrape through one day to the next

I hope if you do decide to become a mum, if it works, then you want feel like me.

If I could rewind the clock I totally would x

@Hithere12 wrong again! I'm no longer a single mum, been in a long and happy relationship for many years. I might have started as a single mum of two, but I'm not now!

justgotbanned

You haven’t addressed my point that many people regret it (as shown by this thread) and your god parents whistfully imagining what parenting is like based on things like what they see on Facebook isn’t helpful to OP and pretty irresponsible.

If you're basically a happy person, you'll be happy with them and happy without them. Try to free yourself of the idea that there is one right answer to this. It'll be fine either way.

@Hithere12 Facebook didn't exist when they went through the process! The OP asked for people's views, I gave mine like everyone else has. It's bully's on threads like this which make people regret commenting. It's supposed to be impartial advice, not jumping on other people's views just because you don't like it. I do hope the OP makes a decision based on her own mindset, it'll be their lives who changed, not a load of keyboard warriors.

Awful comment toadabode. BetweenTheMoon was giving an honest account of her feelings, feelings which are shared by many - including me. She's probably a wonderful mum, I can't see any reason to "pity" her children based on her comment.

My children have absolutely no idea that I find parenting so torturous, I will probably tell them when they are adults if they ask for honest opinions on motherhood but for now they think I'm the best thing since sliced bread as I put a huge effort into parenting, precisely because I don't enjoy it.

Not enjoying being a mother doesn't automatically make you a bad parent. It's a difficult situation and judgment from people who can't muster a bit of empathy makes it so much harder.

justgotbanned

Bullying 😂 ok then

IVF is grim. Unless you desperately want kids (which isn't the case), I wouldn't do it.

@YouJustDoYou your post completely resonates with me.

I had a traumatic, unsettling childhood too and although I'm not broody in that traditional sense, I do crave a house full of happy people and others to look after and run around for.

But having children is no guarantee of a happy household and I realise my expectations are likely way off the reality.

I haven't RTFT, but surely you need to consider which regret would be worst; regretting not having a child, or having a child and then regretting it. I think I know which would be worst.

I do crave a house full of happy people and others to look after and run around for

Get dogs or other animals as suits your lifestyle.
That sounds silly but actually it's a very valid way of giving and receiving unconditional love (maybe not cats as some are right bastards...)

What I've always wondered is whether those who regret children when they're very small, are glad they had them when the children are adult. I suspect my parents didn't particularly love having four small children, but now that we're adults, we're so close and I can see how much they get out having us, and my nephew around.

I want that when I'm 60, but I don't want to the children bit first, haha!

Don’t have them unless you feel you REALLY want them. It’s all or nothing. We were the same as you lifestyle wise and it’s hit us hard, we are both drained and stressed.

But, kids are wonderful and give you so much joy. Just don’t believe the Facebook/ instagram posts as they don’t reflect real life at all

I can't believe no-one has come along yet to ask what those without children on this thread (of which I am one) are doing on a site called MUMSnet!

A PP asked how the OP would feel if she was presented with a positive pregnancy test - I used to think about this and my immediate reaction would be utterly horrified and would probably involve vomiting - there was never any doubt that motherhood wasn't for me and I'm now 50 and have never regretted that decision. There is absolutely nothing about pregnancy/birth/motherhood that has ever appealed to me.

One thing always strikes me about these sorts of threads (not so much this one perhaps) but there are often childfree people saying that while they don't want their own children but are surrounded by others (family, friends kids etc) so have lots of children in their lives, as though they feel they have to somehow normalise their lack of progeny. I have very little contact with children - DH has 2 nieces that we see from time to time and they are lovely girls but we don't have a terribly close relationship with them, just bump into them every once in a while when we are visiting DH/BIL's parents at the same time.

Also, and I know this is me being a bit irritable, but the old "it's the hardest job in the world but the most rewarding" must surely get an award for the most frequently trotted out phrase when it comes to having children!

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to trot this out.....

This.