To ask if you regret NOT having children

[josil]

I'm looking for perspectives from those who made an active decision to not have children - not those that couldn't or didn't find the right person.

If anyone is out there that decided after thought it wasn't right for them even though they could have children (even potentially with fertility treatment assistance) I'd like to hear from you if you have any regrets.

Ideally from those who are 50+. Sorry to be specific but I'm really struggling here with potential parenthood.

I have tried to conceive three years now and while I haven't had any treatment yet I'm trying to weigh up whether I should just draw a line under it. Motherhood I don't think suits me for many reasons but also some aspects of it I know is really like.

But I just cannot feel the courage to say I'm not having them as I feel I will be riddled with complete regret in 10-20 years from now hence why I'm after perspectives.

"Unsurprisingly no one admitting they ever regret deciding to remain child free, just like it’d be pointless to ask if anyone regretted having children."

I think you will get more people who have kids, than who don't, admitting to having regrets, for two reasons:

• some people drift into parenthood without much thought, whereas the decision to remain childfree is an active one taken every day of your life. Everytime you have sex you must be careful to avoid creating a baby you don't want, so you revisit your decision often and 'check in' with yourself about how youre feeling about it
• a childfree person can theoretically undo their decision right up until they hit menopause, whereas once you've had kids, it's done. Have them at 25 and that's you locked in for life, whether you like it or not. Conversely, decide to be childfree at 25 and you've got 15 years in which you can take an alternative route if you'd like to.

I’ve never seen a childfree person suggest on here to a parent that they must regret having had children deep down, or that they will one day, but parents tell childfree people all the time that they’ll regret it later.

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

@BloomingPersimmons do you mind me asking why you regret the decision?

Op, all I can say is that being a parent requires patience, time, work, energy, strength y a bit of selflessness.
It is not an easy job if you are prepared to do that AND you find the right partner to share it with then you will get the reward of lovely caring children and that is fabulous and cannot be replaced with anything else really.
if you are not prepared to do that, then don’t bother having children.

It’s also a numbers game. Far more people choose to become parents than they choose to remain childfree. You’re more likely to hear stories of regretful parents because there’s more of them.

I don't regret being child-free one bit. I watch what so many of my contemporaries went through with their children and are now starting to going through with their grandchildren and I look ahead to a future that includes climate change, falling living standards and possibly war and am grateful that I won't die worrying about children and grandchildren.

I was the local go-to babysitter and childminder in my teens because I was deemed to be a sensible adolescent. I spent week after tedious week looking after other peoples' children during the school holidays, reading the same books over and over again, doing the washing, cooking for them, endlessly cleaning and clearing up and being cheerful and finding things to do with them. In my gap year I au-paired for a posh family in France and again, the routine, the dullness, the endless patience required. I also saw how bored and resentful some of the parents were, and the way in which it was always the women who took on the burden of care.

I was told countless times in my 20s and 30s what a wonderful mother I'd make and whenever anyone said it to me a little voice in my head said 'But at what cost?' I saw so many interesting, intelligent women disappear once they'd had children, swallowed up by family. I also saw how much my contemporaries suffered: the depression, the husbands being unfaithful because their wives weren't up for sex, the gradual sinking-in for many of them that although they were married they were going to be parenting pretty much alone. I'm sad still to see so many women here on Mumsnet discovering all this late in the day.

When I got into my mid-30s I waited for broodiness to kick in but it never did. I had an interesting career, a wide social circle and some good relationships, but never with anyone whose aim was to settle down into a nuclear family with children.

I worked in the 90s for an academic institution that carries out research into the lives of children and families. Almost all the staff I worked with were female and almost all of them mothers. We had lunch together when I left and someone asked whether I regretted not having had children and I said no, expecting the usual 'You don't know what you're missing out on'. Instead, at least half of them told me not to and said that if they'd known then what they know now, they wouldn't.

@BloomingPersimmons sorry for the messages! It kept telling me the message was unable to send but clearly it did send!

Maybe, as a few PPs have said, some of them will regret it much later when life is very different to how it was when they made their decision, and when family may seem more important. Or maybe they won’t and will continue to be happy in their decision.

That's such a lame little kick at child-free people. If the best thing about parenting is the hope that one your children will look after you in old age, what does that really say about having kids? And who would want to be the child of a person who's brought you into the world because of what they expect to get out of you in later years?

I'm 62. I have no regrets. Do you imagine I'll feel differently at 82? I won't.

Not sure if it is misery loves company or a desperate need to have their own choices approved.

Both, I think!

@Pluvia sorry, I may not have expressed I myself well. It wasn’t in any way intended as a kick at child-free people, (I don’t have children myself) though quoted out of context it may read like that. I was responding to the PP who had was having a dig at people who had said they were happy in their decision not to have children and suggested they were being dishonest. What I was saying was that people choosing not to have children know how they feel about not having children because they are already living a child free life so of course most of them will be able to say they honestly don’t regret it. I do know people who chose not to have children and, now in their late 60s/early 70s, remain very happy with their choice. On the other hand I know a couple of older child-free people who now regret it. I was just acknowledging that - that you can’t ever know for sure how you’ll feel later in life so you just have to make the best choice you can at the time you make it.

I certainly wasn’t suggesting people should have children so they have someone to look after them in later life. I don’t have children myself - this is down to circumstance not choice. My own experience is that, although I knew all my adult life I wanted to have children, not having them weighs far more heavily on me in my later years than it did when I was younger and had more going on in my life to distract me from the lack of family.

Apologies if I offended you.

I have a wonderful stepdaughter, but no children of my own. My husband was never really bothered about having more kids; he´s 10 years older than me and already had two of his own.
I went through the ´I do want kids/I don´t want kids´ phase for years, but eventually the decision was made for me because when I hit 50, I went through the menopause.
After years of being happily child-free, I didn´t realise how much it would bother me that the possibility to have them without outside intervention was no longer an option.
So, to answer your question, do I regret not having my own kids?
I would have to say, yes, I do.
I´m not unhappy without them but if I could do my time over, I would have them in a heartbeat.

The goalposts will change again when you hit 82. Then it’ll be ‘you’re lying’.

I so not want dd looking after me when im old. I want her to have an actual life.

Anyone who thinks having children will stop you being lonely in old age should spend some time in an old people's home. Find out just how few of the residents get regular calls or visits.

I think it depends. My friends who didn't want children don't regret it at all. They're in their 50s. Others who didn't because they aren't in a relationship seem ok by it. I mean I have always really wanted children so if I hadn't had been in a relationship I would have had a sperm donor or adopted, so I don't think they wanted to have children that badly.

One has pets but the others don't have pets either. Whereas I seem to have a need to look after something so when my kids became a bit older I got a dog. My single and childless friends don't want the responsibility of a pet.

Yes! I'm astonished at how defensive so many parents are — even on a thread where the OP said she wanted to hear from 50+ who'd taken a positive decision not to have children...

Flouncing Babooshka, no offence taken, no need to apologise. It's just such a stupid thing of people to say. I was thinking not just about me but about all those people who wanted children and didn't manage to have them, or those who'd have loved to be in a secure relationship in order to have children but never found someone suitable. They're child-free too, and they are also being told that they'll have no one to love them and support them in old age.

I agree with this, it's no guarantee. But that's more of a cultural thing over here than anything. In other parts of the world it's a disgrace to leave your elderly relative like that, reinforced by religious texts.

It's not a reason to have children in and of itself, but everyone people has children out of self interest 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well I'm 46 still fertile -ish but my DH has terrible health problems so it's unlikely we will have kids and that fills me with dread and sorrow every day of my life but you parents carry on droning about how kids are hard work, eh?😏

I was mid 20s when I decided that I didn't want to be a mother, and almost 30 years later I've never once regretted being child-free. The only part I've ever thought enjoyable is the shagging part, the rest fills me with horror - pregnancy, birth, parenting, sleep deprivation, strained relationships, etc. Nope.