To ask why no one tells you how shit it is having children?

[Boredandexhausted]

Why does everyone pretend it’s this amazing wonderful thing when actually it’s just relentless boredom and worry and doing things you don’t want to all the time.
I cannot think of one single thing that I like about having children. It’s not their fault and of course I do my best but I hate it. I’d like to walk out and never come back.
Youngest one is now having to isolate for two weeks because of covid in their school so that’s two weeks stuck in the house. Oldest one has SEN. Youngest one isn’t very bright and is already struggling in reception. Oldest one has ASD and is nowhere near as independent as most children their age.
It isn’t relentless, the asking for things, the problems I’m having to solve, I am so bored. All my life is is a series of stuff I don’t want to do with no let up. My youngest doesn’t sleep much and doesn’t go to bed until 10pm and is up again at 6.30. I have had enough.

Then I see fb videos and photos of people with their lovely families and children, enjoying days out, playing with their children etc and I think is it me? Is it just me who finds this so thankless and dull? It makes me anxious as well, having two other people demanding things from me and of me all the time.
I wish I’d known. I just wish I’d known.

Your DH does sound like an absolute ratbag, as well. He wouldn’t agree to you going away? He’s not the king, he’s a man with two kids. Just go.

I found it a bit relentless and shit when they were very young but now they’re older I really enjoy them. Things change so fast and there is light at the end of the tunnel op I promise but it doesn’t feel like it when you’re in the trenches slogging your guts out and wiping things multiple times a day.

Hugs OP. Very similar boat here. Unless you’ve got children with Sen most don’t get it. Teamed with the relentlessness of general parenting. I have three kids and two have Sen. The youngest has very complex needs. Dh works ft and I work PT. The grind is relentless. I love my children but it beats you down, nothing is simple especially not bed time and it’s hugely exhausting. The needs the kids have, the system, managing a marriage is work in itself. You do sound very depressed. I’m not surprised. So many parents of children with Sen are. Have you seen your Gp? I didn’t know anyone with kids and I never expected being a parent to be a walk in the park but my NT child who is a year old than his sibling with Sen is a breeze and he has a couple of medical issues. If you want to chat, pm me.

It’s such an individual thing by the looks of it! There are parts which are mundane and tough like when they’re not sleeping, the tantrums, the changing nappies the extra cleaning etc. But my partner helps out on a 50% basis. Equally I find so much more joy, watching them discover things for the first time, allowing me to be a kid again with snugggly movie nights, building dens, playing hide and seek, telling stupid jokes etc. It’s not all great, but the good times outweigh the bad for me

sacchariferous

You’re not in charge of how other people feel about their lives. You know that, right?

People probably didn't tell you because most people aren't in your particularly difficult circumstances.

Having kids is hard, but enjoyable for most people. Add in SEN, and it's even harder. Add in a lazy, useless husband, and it's even harder still. Add in your own mental health problems (anxiety? depression?) and of course it's going to be a nightmare.

One of these things on its own would probably be more manageable, but altogether, I can imagine it's very difficult.

@Boredandexhausted

I can’t go away. It’s covid times. Even if it was not covid times dh would never agree to it.

He is not your boss, they are his children, he is their parent. You don't need to ask his permission, you tell him you are at breaking point and you are going away for a few days. Tell him that he would have to cope if you ended up having a nervous breakdown or you just walked out on him and the DC. You need to tell your DH exactly how you are feeling and that you can't do it anymore so he really knows how bad it is and how it is affecting you.

You do work full time, you have a job and you do all the childcare and cleaning etc, when he gets his evenings and weekends to lie on the sofa relaxing you are still working so stop telling yourself you are worth less than your DH with his oh so important job, you need to value your worth and your true workload. Honestly, you are amazing, I don't know how you get up and do it every day.

Parenting is brilliant when you get a proper break every day. If your kids are at home every day and not going to sleep until 10 any wonder you feel the way you do. You need DH to give you a proper break. Tell him if he doesn't then you're going to social services to ask for respite care for your oldest.

sacchariferous maybe don't tell the OP how to feel and how to voice those feelings? She's venting and is clearly in a shit situation judging from this thread. She has also clearly said that she loves her children.

Then I see fb videos and photos of people with their lovely families and children, enjoying days out, playing with their children etc and I think is it me?

Facebook:
Lovely day making memories with my beautiful children. Can't believe how blessed we are with them. We decided to take a packed lunch with us, and the children said how glad they were as the café only served chicken nuggets and chips. My children have never liked them.
They thanked us without being asked on the way home, and said it was the best day out ever. Can't wait to do it again.
#blessedmummy #feelingblessed #makingmemories

Reality:
Josh was car sick on the way out, all over Luna who screamed non-stop until we stopped the car. Had to buy her a new t-shirt as she refused to wear the spare clothes I'd put in because it was blue.
Tim slipped in the mud getting out of the car and hit Josh who laughed.
We paid £20 each (£20!) for the tickets, and within 5 minutes all the children had asked to go home as it was boring. The only time Josh came off his phone was when he was arguing with his siblings.
They all refused to eat the packed lunch we'd bought as it wasn't fair they wanted to go to the café, so we ended up bribing them with ice creams. When we got to the café they were so cold and wet we changed that to hot chocolate. Luna dropped hers down her new t-shirt and I don't think we'll ever get the stain out.
The queues for anything free were at least 90 minutes long and the paying ones were another £5 per child on top of the entrance day.
We left early because they wouldn't stop moaning, except we got back to the car and found we'd dropped the car keys somewhere in the park. We found them eventually when we'd walked the whole park twice.

At least the children were silent on the way home-they were all sulking as I told them we're seeing grandma tomorrow and they don't want to...

@emmaluggs

It’s such an individual thing by the looks of it! There are parts which are mundane and tough like when they’re not sleeping, the tantrums, the changing nappies the extra cleaning etc. But my partner helps out on a 50% basis. Equally I find so much more joy, watching them discover things for the first time, allowing me to be a kid again with snugggly movie nights, building dens, playing hide and seek, telling stupid jokes etc. It’s not all great, but the good times outweigh the bad for me

And when you have a child with a disability or medical condition chuck in the appointments, the surgeries, the coming to terms with diagnosis, the support groups, the DLA/PIP applications, the SLT, the genetic testing, the IEP, the school and the SENCO and the work, the work, the work.

Your husband is a twat. Why don't you say you're going to the shop and then book into a hotel for a night? Fuck him, let him find out what it's like.
Ask him to make your son a Dr's appt, a 12yr old shouldn't be shitting themselves weekly.

Well in my circles, its often only when the woman is pregnant that having kids and what its actually like is brought up, so it seems a bit..cruel to say its relentless and thankless and all the bad sides. Bit late by that point and feels mean depressing someone when it might not be the same for them and theres not much that can change it at that stage anyway!

Its bad a lot, I agree. There are good bits though!

I don't think anyone told me how shit it was, everyone always couches it with "but of course I love them to bits." After DD was born, I DID not love her to bits. I wanted to give her away.

She does make me really happy now at 2, but I won't be having another one. My relationship with DH was not super equal before she was born, but he definitely does substantially more childcare than I do, and we both give each other time to have our own interests. Our kiddo is easy going and does not have SEN. The potential for SEN was a huge fear I had before she was born, as I don't think you can underestimate how much more thankless this would make being a parent.

However, you have children and a husband who isn't very engaged, that is the reality. You can leave, you can get a divorce and not fight for custody of the children. You do have that choice, society and family might not be very nice or understanding about it, but it is your choice. You can try and get your husband to do more - a lot more but this will likely be really challenging. You can pay for help, if you can afford it. You can ask family to help in a consistent meaningful way, if you have them available. I don't know if any support from the council is available for your child with SEN but that might help too.

Regardless, I think you need some professional emotional support, either with counselling just for you, or ideally counselling for you and marital counselling for you and your DH. You should seek an urgent referral from your GP and don't minimize how you're feeling.

Don't underestimate the effect that the last 6 months has had on you either, OP. It has been fucking relentless, and, just like me, I see that the support network you had carefully built up (parents taking the kids occasionally, yoga classes) has been blown away by COVID.

My DC don't have SEN (well, I do wonder about DS2 sometimes, but he's thriving in a mainstream school, so let's leave it at that) , but I do- I'm autistic, so an unbroken routine and plenty of quiet time alone is essential to my routine (plus I'm a single parent). So, you can just imagine how well I coped with lockdown .

Thing is, I feel that all my reserves of patience are exhausted, and that it may well take some time to recover from the total burnout that I have suffered. I hope that one day in the future I will enjoy time with my DC again, but at the moment it's still a massive struggle.

I have every other weekend off, and last weekend- which was a free one- I was sitting reading a thread on Mumsnet about whether you're happy. I realised that I WAS- that I felt perfectly happy and contented- because it was my childfree weekend. I got them back last night, and I'm already feeling stressed and depressed again .

I hear you. I find much of it relentlessly dull and boring and lonely. I love my kids and do get enjoyment from them but I will never like the drudgery of cooking, the laundry, the endless picking up stuff, the never ending demands. The boring weekends of running all over the place to activities, followed by hours of homework, followed by hours of housework. I don't see how anyone enjoys that aspect to be fair. Going to work on a Monday is a relief but I'm so tired by then! And people could tell you about the workload until they are blue in the face, until you've done it it's very hard to imagine how relentless it is. 24*7, 365 days of the year for years on end. I hold out hope for it getting easier. You said you feel very flat, that sounds like maybe depression? That makes it even harder! If you have a nice GP talk to them. Would your dh be sympathetic? I think you need some kindness, some support and a break! You may be in the trenches now but it would feel better if you felt you were a team with dh, at least it makes me feel better. Good luck op.

@Witchend absolutely. Comparison really is the thief of joy where social media is concerned. You’d be forgiven for thinking that everyone has it all sorted and that they never have the dramas that you have to deal with. They do.

I'm with you on this, I'm much older with adult children now, but I said exactly the same when my children were small.
I couldn't understand why everyone was always "when will we hear the patter of tiny feet?" and as soon as I had children, agreed that it was actually hard and unrewarding work. And it was. Tedious, boring, I was drained and also had a partner who thought the children were mine, not ours!

It is hard having children, women should support each other and certainly someone should be saying how difficult it really is. With hindsight, I haven't changed my mind, motherhood is bloody difficult. I love my children but if I had my time again, I wouldn't have had them at all. And as for the husband, I left in the end. I decided I'd been a 'single mother' while I was married and indeed, it wasn't any harder on my own...in fact it was easier.

I really hope you get some support and that things get better for you.

@Boredandexhausted

I only work part time. And it’s not an important job. Where both parents work full time then I suppose the caring for the children has to be more equal. My parents used to sometimes have the dc for me but won’t now because of covid.

Just going to say, it does not matter how “pressurized” his job is, he has to parent too, especially when you feel like this. Really truly.

Having children is not shit! I enjoy it very much thanks.

However having a rubbish DH who does nothing is shit!!

You don’t have a child problem, you have a DH one.

(Having children is hard though, but worth it and so rewarding in many many ways that outweigh the bad by far, if you had a better husband who was a active parent things wouldn’t suck so much for you!)

It is much harder for women too, in most cases I'm afraid. A lot of men seem to get away with doing less than 5% of the child rearing. Any father who does between 25% and 40% is held up as a good, involved father, even when both parents work full-time. There don't seem to be a lot of households where leisure time is shared equally on a 50/50 basis. Many people seem to think you don't need a break once you become a mum because the children are just an extension of you.

You have had loads of good advice, and a few spectacularly unhelpful and insensitive posts. All I will say is that when I was findings things hard with DS I used to see Facebook posts from a couple we know. They always seemed to have this idyllic, perfect life with their three adorable moppets. One day we visited them and their middle moppet was a moany nightmare, while DS was somehow on exceptionally good form. Suddenly I grasped their life was not perfect, they just put nice family photos on Facebook.

@Boredandexhausted

My advice would be sit down with Dh spell it out loud and clear. You cannot continue, it's affecting your health if it continues you will not be able to look after them and he needs to do something to help.

Go for a walk outside every single day. No matter what the weather is.

Phone your GP tell him your a carer and exhausted. Ask them to check blood levels for iron etc

If the bloods come back normal get a really good vitamin and take maximum strength Vitamin D and folic acid on too of it for a month.

Sleep when youngest is at reception.

Talk to teacher in reception. Are they actually behind? What could be done etc etc

Phone a friend, parent etc who will be supportive every single day.

And lastly remember this is a stage and this too will pass.

I’m a single parent, you should try it. Seriously, I’m not being facetious. 80% of your resentment would evaporate if you were doing it on your own. There is nothing more demoralising than some twat filling up the space in your house and being an unsupportive douchebag.

It can be done. I work full time, no family nearby, but I have great friends.