to feel like I really regret having kids

[SoFuckingTired]

I know it's absolutely taboo. Millions of women would kill to have a family. But tbh, its just shit. I have a 4 year old who's being assessed for autism and a 2 year old that doesn't sleep.

I love both my children and would do anyt for them. But if I'm brutally honest, if I knew how shit and sleep deprived it was going to be, I wouldn't have done it.

So fucking tired. Every little thing is an effort. It's just shit.

Yes . I love my kids and would do anything for them but I don’t enjoy being a mum sometimes and would never recommend it to anyone . All the worry that comes with kids is exhausting.

@SimonJT why wouldn't your son have a second parent with you?

This thread makes me sad. Its tough but i dont regret for a second. I dont think it should be normalised to say you regret having your kids.

Love my three to bits, but would I do it again in another life? Not on your nelly.

It’s appalling that in this day and age, women are still Indoctrinated from infancy (‘look at her with the dolly, she’ll be a lovely mummy’ etc) to think they have to have a kid, that it’s the mark of a Real Woman, It’s What You Do, My World, The Hardest Job in The World, makes you a ‘family’, ‘unconditional’ love, a ‘mini me’, etc. When none of that is true. There’s constant articles and the confessions on ScaryMommy, attacks on Childfree women, plus actual ,peer reviewed studies, that all show that choosing to be a parent makes women unhappy. By a huge margin.

Family is what we choose for ourselves. Breeding a genetic offspring does not=‘a family’, it is not unrequited love, it should not exist to provide nursing care for you when you’re old, it is a huge burden on your body and the planet, it will effect every aspect of your life, psyche, finances, future, body and relationships for your entire life, and beyond.

Also, childless and Childfree mean very different things, and Childfree women are the exact opposite of ‘selfish’, people wittering on about ‘I long for my old, selfish life’, nah, having a kid isn’t the most selfish thing you can do. Don’t call Childfree women selfish, or child’less’. Yeah, it matters.

*IS the most selfish thing.

Ffs.

I didn't feel this way after the first or second and I had my first at 16

I was also a single parent for a long time so it wasn't that I had lots of support

I think it's a mix of the small age gap, additional needs a shit partner and being older for me

@DrBendix sure but you (and others) are using it to justify your feelings and decisions. In my opinion everyone should own their decisions - it doesn't matter how other people feel.

This thread is biased towards people with very young children which is a difficult time.
For all the people who feel they regret the decision, there are many many people who don't feel that way.

I had my first at 19, and second at 25. I’m now 38, and they are independent, and I have a life now of- going out, meals, holidays, cinema, museums, art shows etc. I never had this before. So for me, I have no regrets, and if I had my time over, I’d have them at the same age. I still went to university, still carved out a good career, so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out at all. I will be honest and say that friends who in recent years have had their first child and are not stay at home mums, appear to struggle more than I did at 19 with a child, at university and working part time.

I'm with you. I live my children, but I don't like being a parent. If I could go back, I wouldn't have them.

Society makes it so unacceptable for a women to not want children though, it's just what you're taught from a young age, you grow up and you gave children, I certainly didn't stop to question it.

I make sure when my dds talk about having children I say if you have children, not everybody does/wants to/can.

What I'm finding really hard to understand is how everyone can write ..

"I don't regret my children, I love them etc but if I could go back I wouldn't have had them?"

Well essentially what you are saying is, even though you know the love you have you would choose to still not have all of it?

This whole thread makes me sad, I can understand how it could be a burden with special needs children etc and different life situations but I just can't comprehend how anyone would regret being a parent while they are a parent lol.

When we choose to have children we have to accept all different outcomes of what having children will entail.

I can't have anymore after two recent tragedies so I will only have my dd, so I guess I'm cherishing it all in, the good, the bad, and the tiring.

So many posts like ‘this thread makes me sad’, does it aye? Literally every thing everywhere, at all times, Rama it down our throats how women should get pregnant, have a kid, it’s awful but MyWorld, WouldntChangeAThing, etc.etc. . Let women have safe spaces to discuss reality.

I don't know if I regret kids. I love my son endlessly. He is everything to me. I loved him the second I saw his little heart beating on the screen.

But he has complex health needs. I worry every single day. Will he be ok at school today? If he gets a cold will he end up in hospital? If he catches flu will that be the end for him? When I'm no longer around will he be able to look after himself? What will his quality of life be like? Have I done enough - did I get enough second opinions, enough treatments, do enough research, speak to the right doctors, try hard enough for him.
Was I patient enough, kind enough. Was I more of a help to his life than a hinderance?

If I went back to my 22 year old self and could see my life in front of me as it is right now - would I do it? I'm not sure. The stress is enormous.

I say it all the time. I have an adult child with severe autism. Life is incredibly hard. It’s one long battle. I love all my kids but if I had my time again I winked choose not to have any, Our eldest daughter doesn’t want any, probably due to the autism risk and I dint blame her at all!

Parenting is really hard but sometimes it's easy to slip in to victim mode which doesn't help. It's fine to say "parenting is hard and I hate it sometimes or all the time". I'm not sure if it helps to think "No one told me it would be hard, I was tricked, I'm a victim of society". Actually everyone told you it would be hard, you made your choice, you can't blame society.

The bottom line is, if you give in to your base biological urges to propogate your genes, the cost to you personally is extremely high. Similar to those spider species where the male gets eaten by the female after mating.

I'm a parent too so I'm not being judgemental. But I think it helps to be realistic.

Posted to soon, I think it helps to be realistic about what you have lost. Are you tired all the time? Friends drifted away? Bored? Relationship on the rocks? Health issues? Overweight? Yes, children can cause these things, but check the threads on here to see that these issues also affect the child free. Your life, health, body, friend group and relationship isn't going to be what it was when you were 21 whether you have kids or not.

I think the difficult part is the stay at home thing...it can drive u insane!

Im finding things easier now but i have /still think about my parallel life without children. The freedom to do more of what I wanted, leisure, study, art, career advancement, being able to live in a city centre, pension! Omg savings, pensions, a single parent is damn lucky if children dont destroy her financially. 😭☕

This thread really makes me sad too.

Because while I absolutely understand that motherhood is a very hard slog, I am thinking about people who told me that their mother's didn't want them.

• one man told me that his mother called him "cretin". Because she didn't like me.
• one man told me that his mother called his sister "devil's spawn".

The worst mother that I ever met personally, she has one adult son now. His life is a total mess, he has never had a single friend, never had a girlfriend, has the self esteem of a flea , has been in and out of pschiatric hospitals.

Mother's being cruel - is a big problem of society

I regret it all the time. I have 2, 7 and 10. Dd (7) has ASD which overshadows everything. She has violent meltdowns, biting, kicking, punching. I wish we'd at least not had a second. Ds is so chilled out, but unhappy, mostly because he doesn't get much attention because of dd. A lot of stuff has to revolve around what she can manage

I miss so much, freedom, money, career. I wouldn't still be with DH, I know that for certain, so also a decent relationship. And it's not as easy as saying we can split up now. We need each other practically to care for dd. And financially we couldn't.

I love them, but I wouldn't have kids again if I could go back.

I think for me the worst is when people say "oh but it's all worth it". I don't think it is. It's 90% drudgery and 10% special moments. I spend my entire life doing stuff for other people, making food, filling in paperwork, fighting school/LA for SEN provision, cleaning, tidying, doing what other people want to do. And generally there is no thanks, no appreciation, no reward.

I spend my entire life doing stuff for other people, making food, filling in paperwork, fighting school/LA for SEN provision, cleaning, tidying, doing what other people want to do

Same. I barely feel like a person anymore.

@GormlessLeech I don't think it is RAMMED down women's throats that we should have children.

I am child free, and so our many of my friends. I am in my mid thirties. I have never felt pressured to have children.

It is every woman's choice

I was reading something recently which made the case (with some evidence), that there’s a strong correlation between the extremely child centric ways in which we parent, with a measurable decline in the happiness of parents.

Parenting is way more involved than it was 50 years ago, or especially 100 years ago. Children are all consuming in a way they were not before.

There are obviously great benefits to this, but I think it’s not without cost. Including some signs that we are limiting our children’s ability to cope with adversity by constantly helping them through their younger years.

I think people tend to say “oh but it’s all worth it” when they’re moaning about their kids, because they don’t want to sound ungrateful or unloving, and feel bad about moaning. Whether it is actually worth it is a different balance for everyone, as the thread shows.

I agree cruel mothers are a thing and I and many people I know have been on the receiving end of deeply cutting nastiness from our mums. Read the stately homes thread for a start. But - not that it’s an excuse - that may be a thing just because mother spend more time with kids and are more tied down, and especially in the past were more likely to end up as mothers whether they really wanted to or not. It’s not ok to take that frustration out on your kids, but I suspect a similar number of men would the same or worse (and more violent than verbal) if parenthood affected men’s lives in the same way.

I also suspect a lot of older mothers and mils you so often hear about on here, who are extremely controlling of their families, may have become like that through a lack of control in other areas - career, marriage, etc. Again totally not acceptable to be nasty to others, but it’s an interesting phenomenon that may have complex forces behind it.