My mum advised me to never get married or have kids

[Lowlandsea]

Throughout my life my Mum has advised me to never marry or have kids.
If I want an easy life then not to bother. Having kids isn't what it's cracked up to be. My life will be over, it's constant stress, I won't get any time to myself and it's expensive.
I have always liked the idea of having kids but because of her advice, I've always had that at the back of mind. I've always trusted her judgment, is she just looking out for me? She knows me well, we're very close, is she trying to stop me making a mistake?

Conversely When we strive for the optimal life we end up unhappy and unfulfilled. The more we commit to "loving others as myself" The deeper our fulfillment. Children are hard work. They are wonderful too. But also they are not just another consumer product that must fulfill our expectations. Children are a vocation. Marriage is a vocation. Celibacy is a vocation. And jobs and careers are vocational too. Love your mum. As others have said She means the best but she is clearly wounded in this area. You are not your mum. Maybe your wonderous parenting and live for her will bring her anew perspective one day.

I very much regret all of my marriages, my husbands were 100% useless and awful.
However I realise this is because I used to have such low self esteem I always picked anyone who showed me any attention because I thought I wasn't worth anything more.
Having had therapy I realised that marriage isn't for me, I don't really like men very much and am on the asexual spectrum.
I would have loved more than one child had I been with a wonderful man like my grandfather but of course trying to raise a child with a lazy deadbeat father was very hard and difficult to enjoy.
My advice to you is to really think about whether you want children, if you are completely ambivalent about it then motherhood is probably not for you, you need to really want a family and be unable to see your future without children.
And secondly be choosy and very very picky, don't allow a man to love bomb or sweet talk you into a relationship, or just fall into one with the first person who comes along. He must be worthy.
Kind, hardworking, a responsible adult, fun. Don't take second best.
i can tell you being alone if far easier than being with a selfish and lazy man.

Sage advice!

@Fowles94 do you think all those elderly people were childless by choice?

I’m not - fertility issues. I do worry about loneliness in old age but I’ve seen enough lonely old people with children to know they are no guarantee of anything in that regard. There seems to be loads of people on Mumsnet who are LC or NC with their parents.

My mum said the same to me..my parents had dreadful marriage, mum was awful to us and my dad, it wasnt nice at all. She died last week.. alone, she drank its so sad..her choice. Im 48, i never married no kids mainly because i was affected by my childhood...it took many years to unravel the damage. Your mums projecting her regret and is utterly selfish. Ignore her its your life.

my Nan loves the thought of me having a baby one day, having great-grandchildren. However, my mum has told me she doesn't want grandchildren

@Lowlandsea, does your Nan know how your mum feels about this?

I would feel that me having a child would piss her off almost and Id feel like I couldn't turn to her

That is so sad. But in the end, it's your life, not hers. Sorry if this sounds brutal, but your mum isn't going to be around for ever. Once she's gone, how will you feel if you've sacrificed your own chances of parenthood just to please her, and you find yourself faced with a lonely and childless old age?

@FlurryKnox I'm repeating what over 50 elderly people have said to me, should I tell them their own feelings are wrong?

@SerenDippitty I know each of their individual stories thank you, if your looking to correct someone you are correcting the wrong person. Unless some one has mentioned your individual situation you don't need to reply.

@frazzeledmum123
What im trying to say is, I think OP that it very much depends on your wishes and your support. I come from a large, family centred family and my dh does too, his is smaller but with support from Aunts, grandparents, great Aunts etc Family is all I care about, its everything to us so I could not be happy without kids.

I think I have always wanted what you have. My family is very small, I only have contact with mum, brother and nan. The rest of the family members have always been distant, Dad left us etc. I try to focus on appreciating the family I do have because they do mean everything to me, as I have been looked after and brought up well.
DP also has small family that are nowhere near us.
I know that if we did have children, we probably wouldn't have support from family. This thread has made me realise this is an important thing to consider too. So many things to consider and I really appreciate everyone's POV.

@Fowles94 it's sad if people regret not having children but not as sad as people regretting having them in my view.

If the regret is because they are lonely then, sorry, but that is selfish. You should never have children so you don't end up lonely. Quite likely not to work anyway. Children can move to the other end of the country or abroad, they could fall out with their parents or even die before their parents.

My neighbour where I used to live was 93. She had had 4 children but they were all dead. She did have grandchildren but only one of them ever saw her and that was not very often.

Me and DH are in our 60's and don't regret our choice to be childfree. I do sometimes worry a bit that I will end up lonely if DH dies before me but that is more because I am a worrier. I can't change anything so what will be will be.

We have quite a lot of childfree by choice couples as friends and they all say they made the right decision. They range in age between 30's and late 70's

@Sissyjd
My mum said the same to me..my parents had dreadful marriage, mum was awful to us and my dad, it wasnt nice at all. She died last week.. alone, she drank its so sad..her choice. Im 48, i never married no kids mainly because i was affected by my childhood...it took many years to unravel the damage. Your mums projecting her regret and is utterly selfish. Ignore her its your life.

That's so sad I'm so sorry for you. I hope you managed to move on from the damage. My Mum brought us up well but I don't believe she was or is a natural mother.

Well, your mother is right in one way. If you want an easy life with less stress, don't marry and have kids. It's hard work and very stressful for many (although not all). If I had my time again, I wouldn't marry and have kids either, although I love both my adult children to bits.
Also, I wouldn't want my own son or daughter to go through what I did, including miscarriages, a seriously disabled child and eventually a divorce.

But you are different, you can choose. Your mother advises you from her own perspective. You can listen and then make your own decision, ignoring he words if you think you want your life to follow a different path. That's fine too.....

Looking into my crystal ball 🔮 I predict that child-free by choice couples will increase in number, birth rates will drop exponentially, governments will panic and start looking for ways to incentivise women to have more babies.

@TrishTeres
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Love your mum. As others have said She means the best but she is clearly wounded in this area. You are not your mum.

I believe my Mum has always looked out for what is best for me and I agree she is also wounded. I have always gone from "I'd love Kids" to then thinking about what my Mum says "Don't have them, be free, have a good career, have a boyfriend, have a nice home etc" but ultimately I know it's my own choice. I didn't seriously consider kids until I met DP, and reached my age of Mid 20's.

Maybe your wonderous parenting and live for her will bring her anew perspective one day.

Really good point to consider, I'd never thought of this. Sometimes I see a really soft side to my mum and I can imagine her being loving towards a baby and I do wonder if she'd soften up if I had one.

If you want an easy life then kids not the way to get it!

It's bloody hard work for most, like you wouldn't believe. Even harder if you don't have family support. Even harder if your partner is lazy or leaves you. Even harder if your children have additional needs. Even harder if money is tight. Even harder if you are juggling it with work or are a sahm not through choice. Even harder if you're one of the many mums who get mental health issues during or after pregnancy.

It's great too, never felt love like it. But fuck it's HARD.

Never enter into the marriage contract. Not if you are a woman with a good job and maybe your own savings. It is legalised theft. Many men are deadbeats, a few aren’t. You can try to pick wisely but people usually conceal their true nature. Kids are lovely, hard work but worth it. In the end, what else is important in life?

But often the worth of doing something is actually inversely proportionate to the effort and hardship endured.

What does it mean to me directly that my parents had seven children? Errr - it means I exist. I am the youngest. It means that my offspring exist too! Can't think of any "plus" bigger than that one for me or them!

As someone else has said - our parents can make very different "grandparents" . I used to feel astonished watching my parents loving my nephews and nieces. We were loved but treats were given very sparingly. I am so so glad they got that chance to be different and I got the chance to see them that way

@catspyjamas123

It's highly offensive to childfree women to suggest they're not doing anything important with their lives. I'm sure Theresa May, Helen Mirren and Mother Theresa would all agree that there are equally, if not, more important lives to live.

@ScubaSteven

Well the different paths in life can't really be compared because you can't ever have balanced view - having one option completely taken away by missing the chance can skew your view.

Knowing what I know now I'd choose parenthood every time, but I've accepted that other areas of my life are now limited. Before I had children I didn't want them and I had very different ideas, so if my mum had said that to me I might have listened and then I'd have missed out. I think it's the hard route but with the most rewards (that don't always seem like rewards until you have the luxury of retrospect).

Your mother has done the most unfair thing to you by saying this, if you have children then on the bad days (and there are plenty) when you feel regret then you'll always have that voice in your head telling you that you were warned. That's massively unfair, and most parents have pangs of regret sometimes particularly in the early days when it's exhausting and overwhelming.

I think you should talk this issue through with someone who can offer you support (a professional) just because the ramifications from what's she's said are big. No one has the right to tell you that you should or shouldn't have children. The fact that she's your mother has given you food for thought when actually it shouldn't but it's easier to brush comments like that off when they come from someone who isn't as close.

Maybe she said it from a good place but it wasn't kind of her.

I disagree. There is relentless pressure on women to have children. Society constantly tells us we won't be fulfilled without them. It's taboo to say that not everyone enjoys motherhood - you will almost never hear anyone admit this IRL but, when people are anonymous, as on this thread, lots of people do say they have regrets.

What would really be unfair would be if your DM felt that you would regret having kids, but didn't warn you. That's not to say you should follow her advice, but she has done a brave and difficult thing by telling you

@FlurryKnox

I worked in elderly care for years and it was when they got to that age they regretted no loving family.

You realise that having children is no guarantee of having a 'loving family'?

God, not this crap again. I work with the elderly too. Some have wonderful support from adult children, but lots are neglected or bullied by them. And even more have children who love them but whom they rarely see.

And what kind of selfish fucker brings another human being into existence, to act as their carer in old age? Have kids if you want to have kids, OP, not so they can wipe your arse when you're 90.

@MrsNoah2020 Agree completely - I've never understood people who have children for that sole reason. If the average child costs you £250,000 over your lifetime, you could easily hire a professional arse-wiper for that money to be at your beck and call 24/7.

I am not quite following Lowlandsea I thought you had adopted after finding you were unable to have children? (BTW we conceived naturally after 7 years trying with the help and guidance of Natural Fertility expertise (Napro /Lifefertility)

@DoTheFoxtrot what I said wasn’t intended as a slight to women who don’t have kids. I agree their lives can be just as fulfilling, maybe even more - it depends on the person.

I suppose what I meant was having children can be hard at times - it definitely has been - but on the whole for me having them has been worth it! I love them. If I hadn’t had them I’d also be happy. But regretting having your own kids is a terrible thing.

@catspyjamas123 you said Kids are lovely, hard work but worth it. In the end, what else is important in life? And you don't think that sounds like a slight to women who don't have children?

Oh for God’s sake. Are people just looking to take offence? I’d say that having kids has been very hard at times and I have had to give up career opportunities I would have like to have had. Particularly as one of my children has had particular health problems. I have justified this to myself by thinking that in the end the kids must be the priority because in the end, if you are a mum, they have to be. That doesn’t take anything away from the people who don’t have kids. I admire colleagues who don’t have kids.

If you want to take offence then do so. I’m not here to argue.