Infertility and useless parents

[RoomOfRequirement]

I know IABU. Christmas season making everything worse and all. Probably need a MN break.

But I am finding it so difficult to read thread after thread about absolutely useless parents, not caring at all about their DC, or causing problem after problem, or not wanting to parent, and it's just giving me rage. Why does the universe let those people have DC, when nice people would kill for a child and actually care for and about them!

Any other women with infertility feel this way sometimes?

so who is going to be the grand arbiter of who is nice enough to have childen?

@October2020 i disagree. I don’t agree with saying you couldn’t understand because you aren’t a parent but it’s totally unreasonable to assume that because you did that all parents know what they are getting into. I know parents who were thrilled to be expecting but totally unprepared for the changes that came, thinking you know and experience are two very different things. Lucky you that you knew and it was exactly as expected but not everyone is you.

Yeah YANBU unreasonable, the world is an extremely unfair place at times. It does seem that some people pop kids out with little to no trouble but have no capacity to really look after them.

That said, struggling with fertility and perhaps having to go down difficult routes to have a child, doesn’t guarantee that person will be a good parent. I imagine neglect, abandonment and just general shite parenting are universal traits across the spectrum of “ease of conception” (for want of a better phrase).

I could never understand why a friend who'd had to go through umpteen rounds of IVF then put her children into childcare as much as possible and complained about them a lot. Fortunately I didn't say anything to her though, just tried to listen and help!

Several years later, when I'd eventually managed to have DD after years of trying, I was signing her up for all and any childcare available so I could have a break! Children are relentless and it's very very hard work, no matter how much you love them and want them.

I’m infertile due to medical trauma (though childfree by choice as well) and had abusive parents. I keep my therapist in a job, put it that way. YANBU OP but MN is very ‘smug mummy’ and this thread likely won’t go well.

So many patronising responses! Sorry OP it must be hard, remember there are millions of people appreciating it all but that doesn't make a good mumsnet post.

I totally understand what you mean OP. We tried for three years and 7 rounds of IVF to have our daughter. I love her more than I could explain. It is exhausting: I am exhausted all the time. All the time. I have no real life outside her at the moment and I cannot wait for her to go to bed most days. But I try my very hardest to be as good as I can as a parent - to treat her with kindness and love, to not fight in her presence, to make sure she has all of the things she needs. That’s what every parent should commit to as a minimum but there are plenty who don’t!

It must be really tough for you OP, I have four grown up kids, and through my worst times, I still feel rich in family. Xx big hugs to you, Christmas must be hard.

I had quite a few years of failed fertility/IVF treatment and now I'm so grateful to have 2 DC.

Before I had kids, I always thought I'd be a child minder; I could see us all baking, skipping through fields in the summertime, etc. And then I had 2 kids and OMG I changed my mind PDQ. Kids are great but they suck the energy and life out of you 24/7 for dozens of years!

I wish you all the very best of luck with your fertility journey.

OP I totally get it (4 years infertility, failed ivf and a miracle baby). Many of those who have not experienced infertility will never understand how painful it is hearing the parenting tales of
woe, equally they don’t understand how hurtful comments like ‘those without children don’t get it…, or count yourself lucky you can have a lie in…blah, blah, blah’. You’re allowed to feel how you feel (and so are parents because it is exhausting). Some people though really do act like their children are a burden or outright say they regret having them, and it’s those that I struggled with (and still do). Good luck with the rest of your fertility journey!

@leithreas you had NO IDEA that you might raise a child with ASD+ADHD? The thought never once ever crossed your mind, you never once put any thought into considering that your future child might have any manner of additional needs? Not once? I mean, maybe you didn't, but I find that completely fascinating.

It's not possible to know the depths of any unique situation, because everything we go through is a combination of everything that has happened before and what makes us as individuals. But that is the same for everyone. So whilst it isn't possible to fully understand every tiny aspect of an experience, it is absolutely possible to have considered it. And people who have children without considering all the possibilities and variations that life throws at us completely baffle me.

Having my child brought up some challenges I'd personally never faced before, but I knew that would be part of parenting and had at least thought that it might be a possibility!

I'm sorry your experience has been so hard.

I suffered infertility for years and I think it’s totally normal to feel the way you do. I did. It would be inhuman not to see the unfairness of it. But it’s also natural for parents to want an outlet to talk and to be imperfect. I’d really recommend finding an alternative to Mumsnet for a while, I needed to do that to cope. It’s a bit like self torture reading so many posts from parents. There are some good fertility support groups on Reddit.

It would be great if as a society we didn't need children's social services and there are plenty of societies and cultures around the world where it is believed what we would call abusing children is deemed necessary for discipline. The misery parents put DC through daily through any or a combination of low iq, mental ill health, substance misuse, homelessness, domestic violence, sexual abuse, trauma, bereavement, wilful neglect, having rose coloured glasses about a partner, poor parental role models, different cultural and religious norms: the list goes on.

We only have to look back in history to see how the UK used children in coal mining, factories and put them up chimneys.

Most nursery rhymes have a violent theme or allude to abuse towards children, animals or women, eg Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well, who put him in? Reference to cat abuse.

Cutting off rats' tails with a carving knife; atishoo atishoo we all fall down: reference to pointing the finger at someone who sneezes as possibly the next victim for the misery and huge death toll of the bubonic plague;

The sad but true fact is children have always been targets of inhumane behaviour and the only time in history when this sort of behaviour and abuse is frowned on is now!!

It hasn't actually been 'so hard'. Like I said in my post I enjoy being a parent. I've really loved it.
I don't know why you are so shocked that I didn't know what raising a child with asd and adhd would be like. Of course i thought of the possibily my child be disabled but how is that in anyway the same as actually living it? 16 years ago(actually it would be 17 years ago I was pregnant) I didn't know a single kid with either asd or adhd. It really wasn't discussed to the same degree that it is now. I'm honestly fascinated that while pregnant you sat down and knew what raising a teen with an unknown personality and unknown disabilities would be like so much so that you know 'exactly' what it is like!

I think there’s got to be some middle ground between the two extremes of:

1 Knowing exactly what parenting is like in all circumstances and being able to be a perfect judge of others eg. I knew what parenting would be like pre kids. It's exactly as I expected, except for the ways in which it is loads better. This is definitely not true for me or most people I know. I didn’t know and couldn’t predict the realities of having my children and all children are so different. I would have to learn again if I were to have different children; and

2 Saying because you don’t know what others are going through that you won’t or shouldn’t judge.

I don’t know what it’s like to have harder or easier children than my own, to have an child or loads of children, to be a single parent or to be richer or poorer than I am. I think are are still able to say that we know when some behaviour is beyond the pale or that right and wrong is still right and wrong.

You do realise "atishoo, atishoo" is about the plague and nothing to do with children?

Yanbu to feel the way you do, you've been dealt a shitty hand.

But I am a 'nice' person, who has much loved and desperately wanted kids and sometimes I am a shit parent.

Your comparison to a job is way out. Being constantly every second of the day for years without break in sole charge of tiny humans can be mentally all encompassing in a way that's like nothing else, exhaustion and stress and tiredness can turn even the greatest parent into one who gets it all wrong. Parents are human and all humans make mistakes.

Nobody manages to parent the way they would ideally like to in their heads.

Everyone has there own struggles. I have two children so by your post I should over the moon and so happy, but I'm struggling with depression and crying in front of my 8 year old. Believe me I wish I wasn't and my children were all I ever wanted. So why can't I cope? I don't know. I don't want to be useless. My stresses come from wanting the best for them and worrying about them.

@leithreas I didn't say I knew exactly what parenting your specific child would be like. I said that parenting as a whole has been exactly as I expected. Some really horrendously shit bits, some unexpected bits, lots of challenges, even more loooonnngggg days, but also an almost infinite number of brilliant bits too. Nothing that has happened to me as a parent (so far) is outside of what I expected it might be like. Which is why it is so absolutely ridiculous when people say to people without kids 'oh you can't possibly know what it's like'. That's only true in the same way as you can't possibly know what it's like to be anyone else, in any other situation, ever. It's a statement said to be divisive and to kick people down when they're already on their knees and it's pointless, unkind and unhelpful.

No one is the perfect parent.. regardless of how you get there, it’s really unrelenting. Someone who is a crappy parent today is capable of being a great parent tomorrow in a different situation or context. I think it’s easy to see parenting as this journey with one overriding judgement - it’s not, it’s a complex and long series of thousands of choices both big and small and so you can be both crap and wonderful! I think very few parents are actually crap for the entire thing start to finish. X

I was at a funfair at the weekend and a couple in front of me couldn't get on the ride with their young child(maybe 5 or 6). They swore at the attendant and then sent the boy off to his sibling whilst proceeding to swear some more and call him demeaning names. They were scum but neither you nor I get to decide who deserves to be parents. My dh checked that the boy was OK as did another attendant.

Yanbu, wish you all the best.

Sadly though there are many who are 'crap' long term and do great harm.

Drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse, mental Ill health, poverty and just plain bad people lead to 1,000s of children becoming looked after, damaged, lost opportunities etc.

Some can turn it around. Many, many don't.

I agree OP some people should never be allowed to breed. Walk round most towns on a Saturday afternoon and there they will be. I was walking behind 2 women with a large tribe of children in tow, the language was appalling and the children were loudly repeating what the mothers were saying, with encouraging laughter from the women. Next generation of little scrotes in waiting x

What sort of stuff do you mean? It’s difficult to tell if you’re being U without some examples. From the people I know 90% of them at least are absolutely trying their best, most in very difficult circumstances (cost of living/ MH issues/ SEN etc). There’s obviously some not great parents out there but most aren’t and you may see a snapshot of others in their 5 minutes when they lose their shit of a 24 hour day.