Regret having children?

[PumpkinKlNG]

Is it ever ok to admit you regret having children? (Not to them of course) people say you never regret having a child but aibu to think that isn’t true?

I don't regret it, per se, but I struggle massively with being a parent - my DD is only 4, so a long time to go before I can do little things without arranging child care. Even today, I've been trying to do some sewing (with the finished article being for her) and she has just been a PITA all day - I gave up in the end. Her dad is next to useless and we're in the process of splitting.
I'm in love with my daughter and I'm amazed by her constantly and I put myself into her wholly - but do I wish it was easier? Abso-friggin-lutely!!

I don't regret it, no. I went through a phase of it when they were very young. I found early parenthood extremely hard and a total shock to the system. I also had little in the way of family support and even from my partner at times. I was ambivalent about having children but my partner was very keen back then so I thought he would be my strength.

Now they are older, we have a lovely relationship and it was worth all the effort when they were young. I have my freedom back (ish) and get sufficient space - a big thing for me. Sometimes, they get on my nerves a bit with their constant demands or irrational moods but that's as far as it goes. I certainly don't get that tearing my hair out feeling and total loss of control that I had when they were small.

I think I was just not cut out for small children.

I think while it's really common to hear threads about how hard it is it is usually qualified with a "but of course I can't imagine life without my kids/my love for them is indescribable" etc. You don't very often hear people saying I really don't enjoy parenting and wish I didn't have to be a parent anymore.

I love my son very much and I'm fact am having another one but I can quite easily imagine my life without him, I can see that my deep love for him is simply biology in action, and I am aware I may well have been a lot happier without kids. However I don't regret having him as you just can't know what your alternative lives would actually have been like - like a PP said regret feels pretty pointless. I could tie myself in knots trying to decide if I regret it or not but what does it matter?

I also think it's worth thinking about day to day happiness versus big picture sense of purpose/meaning. Loads of studies show parents are generally unhappier than child free people - but children can bring a deeper sense of meaning to life (to some people) which gives another kind of contentment.

I don’t regret having mine but I do regret being so unprepared/naive to what being a parent would be like. It knocked me for six finding things so hard, from the birth to breastfeeding to feeling useless because of my child not sleeping, and with a second one arriving with a pretty small age gap things got even harder.

What’s hit me the most is the extent to which I now doubt myself all the time. Constantly comparing myself to others and falling short. I know people only present the good stuff on social media but it doesn’t stop me from feeling shit about myself on the daily. This has spilled over into other parts of my life now and I feel a bit stupid as I was expecting motherhood to come more naturally than this, and for it to be the final piece of the puzzle so to speak.

When I look at my children I know I’m not doing a bad job at all but the being needed all the time is hard, some days it’s monotonous and occasionally I just feel like I want to walk away from my life for a bit. Things are slowly getting easier.

You speak as if "being a parent" is a single experience to regret (or not). Being a parent to a baby, a toddler, a 5 year old, a 10 year old, a 13 year old, a 17 year old, an adult child - all very different experiences. I think you'd end up with different answers at different stages in the journey and for different children. I think anyone who regretted every single stage would be a monster and I would pity their children.

It's funny but people always say on here that no one is honest about how hard it is etc but I feel the total opposite. All never hear (especially in the office) is people moaning about their kids, their child care, not being able to go out, kids being ill, nightmare behaviour, expensive hobbies, not being able to go out, 'just you wait until you have to get up at 5am at the weekend'. I was desperate for kids at 25 and it put me off. Im 30 and a half now and just come off the pill and I still have the fear of how utterly sh*t it's going to be as everyone endlessly moans

I wouldn’t push the button to reverse it but it is just…unenjoyable. I just think that my quality of life was higher before, I’ve not found the ‘worth it’ factor to be a real thing.

Love my kid but if I could go on holiday anywhere I’d like to go to pre DC 2018!

Surely a person would think seriously about having a child/children, and how it will change your life, and whether you can devote your time to a child, and forgo what you would rather be doing in life instead. You can plan not to have children,if you have in mind that it will curtail your lifestyle somewhat.

I haven’t got kids but I sometimes wonder if people’s expectations are too high. A lot of parenting (I am imagining here) is probably mundane and hard work but I also imagine there are wonderful bits thrown in. I have also observed that parenting seems to be very different to when I was a kid. We fit in with our parents and nowadays it seems like everything is about the child. I hear parents asking their kids opinions about everything and feeling guilty if they buy themselves anything. Maybe expectations need to fall a bit and not everything in life needs to be centred around children. Those are my thoughts but as stated I am not a Mum!

I don’t think I regret my kids, but knowing what I know now I’m not sure I’d choose them again. I know that makes no sense but that’s how I feel. I adore them, but I can imagine I would’ve been happier childfree. My husband on the other hand was born to be a dad and it has been life affirming for him. He is so hands on and does most out of work childcare which makes it easier. I love seeing him happy, and he works hard to make me happy and give me time off. He had a blissful childhood and lovely parents, I did not, and I wonder if I’ve had whatever maternal instinct I should’ve had bruised somehow.

Someone upthread said “as with any other decision in life you cannot undo it”. Actually, with having a child, I think the reverse is true. It is the one decision you can’t change, once they’re here. I love my kids, I really do. But i’ve often felt im too selfish to parent and whilst i wouldn’t be without them, if i could press a switch that somehow simultaneously allowed me to know what it was like and also not know i was cancelling my children who i love dearly- i would.

I regret having mine and don't feel embarrassed to say it. 🤷

I would definitely have been miserable had I not had them, and I wouldn't ever change them now they are here, but I have severe anxiety, particularly about their health and wellbeing, etc. and it's utter hell to live with. I was an anxiety sufferer before I had them too, and often wonder what I was thinking, imagining that I would be able to cope with it and that my anxiety couldn't possibly get any worse. How wrong I was.

I absolutely worship my children, of course. I think you can love the very bones of your children, and provide them with a loving home and a happy upbringing while still thinking maybe it would have been better had you not had any at all. And I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for feeling that way.

@Tessie87 a lot of what you see on social media is crap. People present the image they want you to see. I have friends who tell the world about their brilliant marriages and wonderful kids and I have seen the truth. Don’t compare yourself to anyone, you are doing just fine x

@1forAll74

Surely a person would think seriously about having a child/children, and how it will change your life, and whether you can devote your time to a child, and forgo what you would rather be doing in life instead. You can plan not to have children,if you have in mind that it will curtail your lifestyle somewhat.

It’s a good question. The thing is you can have absolutely no idea what effect it will have until you do it. Most parents to be don’t think much past birth and newborn stage- the rest is unimaginable. When expecting my first few I never thought about the teen years for example. If we really did comprehend wheat would be involved there would be far fewer babies born. A couple of years back I had a pregnancy scare. There was no way I could have gone through the raising of another child, knowing what I know. I have 6 by the way so it wasn’t all bad.

@AleynEivlys

I regret having mine and don't feel embarrassed to say it. 🤷

I would definitely have been miserable had I not had them, and I wouldn't ever change them now they are here, but I have severe anxiety, particularly about their health and wellbeing, etc. and it's utter hell to live with. I was an anxiety sufferer before I had them too, and often wonder what I was thinking, imagining that I would be able to cope with it and that my anxiety couldn't possibly get any worse. How wrong I was.

I absolutely worship my children, of course. I think you can love the very bones of your children, and provide them with a loving home and a happy upbringing while still thinking maybe it would have been better had you not had any at all. And I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for feeling that way.

Me too

I’m not sure it’s always down to other circumstances. One friend now has a 7 year old, healthy, happy, funny, enjoyable to spend time with. Her dad gave up work to stay at home with her by mutual agreement when she was pregnant, friend has stayed in high stress high earning career she adores. They have a big house, high household income, two devoted sets of grandparents, one who’s very involved and has the DD for weeks at a time and unscheduled overnights at the drop of a hat.

While she’s never explicitly said so, my friend who always dreamed of being a mum seems to absolutely loathe parenting. She’s impatient, snappy, intolerant, uses any opportunity to be away from her DD and hasn’t had a second child after previously wanting several.

She’s an alright mum but her DD is far closer to granny and has been quick to form close attachments to other adults who want to chat to her, hug her, take an interest. She’s brilliant, I love her to bits, and my friend can’t seem to see anything good about her.

I had my DD a couple of years ago and it was a really rough time in my friendship with her as she seemed so resentful of the fact that I wasn’t miserable and didn’t hate it. I never brought the topic up but she’d ask how I was coping, if it was awful and if I said things were going okay thanks she’d seem actively annoyed.

Agree with pp that friends l know who were desperate to have kids are the ones who struggle the most with parenting.
I never wanted kids then got pregnant and took to it like a duck to water which surprised everyone including me.
Yep my dd can be a bit annoying sometimes but l absolutely adore her and am proud to be her mum.

I don’t regret it, even the tiniest bit. We are now in an easier phase (pre-teen) but, even though it was exhausting, I didn’t regret them when they were younger either. I really wouldn’t want to start again now though.

I think a lot of how you feel about children comes down to your circumstances. If, as a PP said, you are older and more used to life without kids, it must be more difficult to be happy about changing your lifestyle. Also, whatever age you are, if you’re sleep deprived and struggling to make ends meet with childcare etc, that can be pretty shitty.

I think two things made it easier for me.

Unlike some others here, I think having children later in life meant I had got all the fun and freedom out of my system. Also my friends mostly had children already so I wasn’t exactly missing out on a party lifestyle that was going on without me.

I also really expected the worst, having heard so many horror stories - although people rarely say they regret having children they tend not to hold back about the sleepless nights and feral behaviour.

I also got relatively lucky in terms of having healthy children with no additional needs.

I absolutely don't regret having children but I do resent the impact that being a parent has had on other aspects of my life.

I'm glad that I choose to work pt and prioritise them when they were younger, although wish dearly that I lived in a society where this wasn't such a negative in the workplace.

We also don't have any family support/extended family, so the burden to be everything to them is immense.

And, yes, I know that some people make this work, but it's not working for me at the moment and I'm pissed off.

@VulvaTeeth

The people I know IRL who appear (from what they've openly said and from what's observable) to regret having children the most can be split broadly into two categories: 1) Where the reasons for being unhappy are obvious. I.e, like previous posters have said, people who have no money or no support, or children with behavioural issues.

2. Those who've very much followed the crowd and had children because it was the done thing to do after establishing a career and getting married. They've previously had high income jobs, have had children at a culturally "average" age (28-33ish) and are consequently stuck in very middle class "nappy valley" areas with lots of other women in the same situation. They've made motherhood into a whole lifestyle, a competition really, while forsaking just about everything that was part of their previous lives. They're physically healthy, stable and affluent, but highly stressed and bloody miserable.

Writing it out, it seems a weird thing to notice. But basically people who, without thinking whether they really wanted kids, threw themselves into a certain lifestyle of motherhood, while finding the practicalities more difficult than most.

My God, I have never read anything more accurate than your second description of my exact fucking life @VulvaTeeth 🤣. Minus the competition bit maybe, as I’ve gone out of my way to avoid those weirdos. Competition over who can have the biggest ‘mare on a day to day basis, maybe…

Overall, I don’t regret them, but my God I miss my old life….

If you look around you at the adults you know, some are lovely, some are needy, some are easy-going, some are terribly anxious, some are really sporty, others love nothing more than a good book...

I'm sure some of the regrets arise from the fact that you don't have a baby, you have a person, and some people are much harder to handle than others.

I love my DD but my god it is a challenge to parent someone so different to me.

This is going to sound a bit stupid too but while I thought and planned very hard for practicalities, it was only fairly late that it struck me that you also have to try to bring them up them to be a decent person with good values, manners, friendships, relationships, work.ethic, etc. Argh!!

Its weird, I regret them but I don't at the same time. My life could have been so different and most likely better had I not of had children. But I do think this is related to the man I had them with, rather then parenthood. Parenthood is not what I thought it would be and I don't like small children as much as I thought I did!

That said, my children are the reason I get up every day and had my life had taken the same path but not with them in it, I certainly would not be here now. They spurred me to keep going through my darkest moments. Even when I was clinging to a knife edge, thinking of them being without their mother and how much it would hurt them if I was gone meant I dragged myself through it all.

When I say I expected the worst, I mean my expectations were really, really low. I fully expected I’d made a terrible mistake that I’d come to regret, I spent most of my pregnancy thinking this was the last time of my life I would ever enjoy. And then DS was born and actually it wasn’t so bad!

I don't regret my kids, they are the centre of my entire existence, but it is so so hard, I have a couple of friends who are pregnant/TTC and I do my best to be honest about the highs and lows. I do look at childfree friends and feel a bit resentful but I know that a) that is totally ridiculous since this was my choice, and b) they don't get the positives either so it's swings and roundabouts.