To think that the decision to have children is a risk...

[GreenWoodpecker123456]

...because you can never be sure whether you'll enjoy being a parent, what kind of child you'll have etc.

I ws having this conversation with someone and they said it's no more of a risk than anything else in life like getting married or going into a particular career.

I don't agree, because having kids is the one thing in life that you truly can't reverse!

AIBU?

Just because you see a tiny proportion of people on their own doesn’t mean that everyone with children is going to end up like that.
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Not everyone but as this thread discusses no-one knows what category they will fall into. It's not a reason to have them though there are some people I've met who seems to think it should be.

I thought I'd see a few visitors out of two wards though - it surprised me.

The children of very elderly people may well be themselves frail or burdened by family responsibilities, are we expected to pay it back at the same time as paying it forward at the same time as managing our own lives?
As a society we don't have the time, resources or will to support ever increasing numbers of frail elderly people who require 24/7 care.
most of us believe that elderly people should be treated with respect and dignity etc but we don't actually want to spend our own retirement years as servants to our parents

@Heffalooomia

The children of very elderly people may well be themselves frail or burdened by family responsibilities, are we expected to pay it back at the same time as paying it forward at the same time as managing our own lives? As a society we don't have the time, resources or will to support ever increasing numbers of frail elderly people who require 24/7 care. most of us believe that elderly people should be treated with respect and dignity etc but we don't actually want to spend our own retirement years as servants to our parents

True. At least I will expect to not have visitors so will not be disappointed from that point of view.

@FourTeaFallOut

All animals feel like that about their offspring and most would fight to the death to protect them

This isn't universally true. For some animals, offspring become a snack in hard times. Including bears.

In some cultures they practice ancestor worship where they dig up the bodies of relatives and dance with the corpse in a ceremony once a year
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famadihana
In our culture we store them living in old people's homes and visit them once a year☹️
We need to find modern ways of doing things, expecting the children and grandchildren to make regular pilgrimages is not going to work

To me it just sounds like a rather dubious justification for doing things that are actually quite selfish, morally questionable or have negative consequences for other people

That could be the case for some, though my personal regrets include marrying an abusive man and taking too long to leave, getting involved with another who was so different I didn't see his red flags either, not getting a degree when I could have and stuff like that.

I'm my own worst enemy

@Heffalooomia

In some cultures they practice ancestor worship where they dig up the bodies of relatives and dance with the corpse in a ceremony once a year en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famadihana In our culture we store them living in old people's homes and visit them once a year☹️ We need to find modern ways of doing things, expecting the children and grandchildren to make regular pilgrimages is not going to work

That's fascinating...I love reading about stuff like that. Wow!

@CounsellorTroi

Like what? I can't think of any way in which having children makes you healthier, and the data on whether it makes you happier is very mixed, and really not something an individual could make a decision based on

Apparently higher risk of breast/ovarian cancer if you don’t have children. But that would be an awful reason to have them.

I read that with regard to the breast cancer stats, they are affected favourably by having babies younger, breastfeeding the child and breastfeeding for as long as possible.

Ovarian cancer - breastfeeding over 31 months meant women 91% less likely to get it than women who breastfed under 10 months.

if you're drawing up pros and cons lists and seriously weighing them up then actually you have your answer already, you don't want it

Drawing up lists really doesn’t reflect reality, at best it just gets your thoughts a bit organised for a big decision.

It’s total BS that careful consideration means you wouldn’t enjoy parenthood. No one really knows.

I worked with a woman who did not want children - she got pregnant accidentally and was quite far on when she found out - she turned into an earth mother

It is really difficult to assess up front. I pretty much knew from a child I wouldn't have any children of my own. Then when I got to mid 30s I did sit and think about it seriously as it is still outside the norm and I felt I had to give it some serious consideration first.

Decided in the end not to for various reasons and I have not regretted that decision... so far at least!

I was very aware of the risks before I got pregnant. I was worried that I wouldn't like it, wouldn't be very good at it, that the baby could have health problems and how would we cope with that? I had suffered from very severe anxiety and I was worried that having a baby would cause it to reoccur. But I really wanted a baby and so I went for it. Thankfully (and I really am thankful) I've loved every second of it, it's been the making of me. I was even more aware of the risk second time around as it wasn't just my future life i was 'gambling' with but my DS's as well. What if having a second child somehow meant my son's life would be worse off. Again I'm very thankful that that gamble paid off and my kids are very close. It is a role of the dice, as are most things in life. It's just the stakes are much higher when it comes to having children.

@notalwaysalondoner I hope you get them if you want them. Oddly my problem with my DH isn't that he doesn't engage with them, he does. But he had a very ideal version of fatherhood, because his dad was just the fun dad who played rugby and wasn't around much. So he hates all the boring parts and because he wants to be the nice guy and help me, he thinks he's helping by "laying down the law" and "teaching them who's boss". Yeah, problem is if that also involves losing your temper when the kids predictably fail to respond well to authoritarian shouting, then being an absolutely stacked rugby player who suddenly finds himself pinning his 5 year old son to his bed, well, it's a bad look all round. Our 5 year old is admittedly a complete and utter nightmare, but I've lost respect for my DH so much.

It didn't feel like a risk at all to me, it felt like the natural and absolutely right thing to do. If it feels like a big risk then maybe you don't know yourself well enough, you aren't financially set up for it or you aren't with the right person.

It's definitely a big risk if you have a kid with someone you don't know very well and you don't know how you will afford it, or cope emotionally.

What a time to be childfree though!? I mean it’s awesome as it is but with the world the way it is a Childfree status is the ideal situation right now! 🤩

@Graciebobcat

It didn't feel like a risk at all to me, it felt like the natural and absolutely right thing to do. If it feels like a big risk then maybe you don't know yourself well enough, you aren't financially set up for it or you aren't with the right person.

It's definitely a big risk if you have a kid with someone you don't know very well and you don't know how you will afford it, or cope emotionally.

Nonsense -- many of the risks have absolutely no bearing on your self-knowledge, income or knowledge of your partner, and it's pretty demeaning to suggest that anyone who didn't waltz into parenthood with a sense of it being the 'natural' and 'right thing to do' is poorly equipped for having a child.

I might suggest to you that someone who thinks parenthood isn't a risk at all hasn't thought properly about it.

@BewilderedDoughnut

What a time to be childfree though!? I mean it’s awesome as it is but with the world the way it is a Childfree status is the ideal situation right now! 🤩

Because the childfree are magically immune to becoming ill or losing loved ones to Covid, the prospect of their jobs or entire industries evaporating, the discovery that getting a mortgage has become incredibly difficult, and all the other difficulties of life in a pandemic.

I am disabled (from birth) and I think that made me quite driven to have all the normal things non-disabled women have. I went to university and qualified as a doctor, travelled, I had boyfriends, got married and then had 2 children all by my early 30's. I was on a real mission and looking back I realise I didn't really think about it so much. Its very tough now I have two little ones, I worry about the future a lot. My husband is a nice man but I'm not sure I would have married him if I had actually taken my time or felt like I had more choices and at times I feel like he married me to maintain the middle class lifestyle he grew up in but was unable to maintain himself after flunking university. I wish we were more economically equal as that has caused issues especially with who stays home with the kids.

I think many women can be in a rush to get where they are going and its only when you arrive you actually stop and realise the mistakes you have made.

honey So true, I am not sure I understood the value of my choices back then either. Young, quite impressionable - even naive, and yet oddly informed and well educated. We don't always know what we are getting ourselves into...

@Antimacassar Because the childfree are magically immune to becoming ill or losing loved ones to Covid, the prospect of their jobs or entire industries evaporating, the discovery that getting a mortgage has become incredibly difficult, and all the other difficulties of life in a pandemic

We potentially have to deal with all that... but not at the same time as trying to raise and at time homeschool kids! It much, much less pressure for childfree people now. We’re in the same storm but we’re on the easier boat!

Of course definitely a risk. But I like to think the majority of people do manage to raise a decent human being and do enjoy at least some of the time being a parent.

Totally relate to all the posters saying that they have nothing left of themselves after the draining of motherhood. For me, parenthood has come at the cost of friendship. It sounds such a weird, weird thing to say. But it turns out that I only have so much social/emotional energy. I used to invest that energy in my friends and have had good mates all my life (some of them for most of my life). These days I’m running a job, running a house and trying to give two children an happy childhood with an enjoyable/enriching life. There’s none of me left to be a close friend, which is sad really. My friends are still there, but I’m not close to them.

@likeafishneedsabike I relate to this too, I make an effort to meet friend for lunch or get together with our kids but its for an hour, maybe 2 tops then its on to the next thing. It feels like I'm just going though the motions of it rather than enjoying the connection. Its to be expected but its just another thing kids indirectly rob you of.

I had my children young when I could only see the positives and feel the broodiness.

Now, after working in childcare for a few years I realise how many things can go wrong, how difficult some children can be and how many difficulties some children can have etc. If I'd known then what I know now I might have been worried to have children and considered it a risk.

Thankfully, my children are relatively easy children. No illnesses or issues that might need specialist support etc. I am far more thankful these days than I was back when I had them for that.

Having children is a risk, maybe one of the biggest we make - but it is one of the most rewarding decisions too and now two of mine are adults I appreciate them far more than I did when they were growing up. I still have two that are under 18 and it won't be long before they are grown too.

[quote BewilderedDoughnut]**@Antimacassar* Because the childfree are magically immune to becoming ill or losing loved ones to Covid, the prospect of their jobs or entire industries evaporating, the discovery that getting a mortgage has become incredibly difficult, and all the other difficulties of life in a pandemic*

We potentially have to deal with all that... but not at the same time as trying to raise and at time homeschool kids! It much, much less pressure for childfree people now. We’re in the same storm but we’re on the easier boat![/quote]
Honestly, that wasn't my experience of Covid with a child. I had all of the economic and work difficulties, with the added complication of living in temporary accommodation from which we had to move more than once after a house purchase in a new country fell through at a late stage, but raising and homeschooling my eight year old was actually generally fairly pleasurable, and got me out to the nearby beaches and woods during lockdown and plugged me back into the natural world, when I suspect I would otherwise have worked throughout.

There’s none of me left to be a close friend, which is sad really. My friends are still there, but I’m not close to them

I feel that way too like I am trying to keep time and energy back for my friends, but then one of the dc are ill or the week has been so bad I can't face it. I wonder if in later life, there is more time for friendships again or if the friendships will be gone forever by the time we have all managed to wade through two decades of parenthood?

but raising and homeschooling my eight year old was actually generally fairly pleasurable

I think most people could have managed effortlessly and 'enjoyed' covid with just one child to worry about and living close to the beach!! Perhaps you need to consider most people have significantly harder set ups than the one you are describing PortugeseManoWar!