To wish I’d never had children?

[Squashedbyarock]

When I had my dc I was in a happier, more optimistic, naive place where I knew the world wasn’t always great but I believed there was a flip side of joy.
Age and experience have now shown me differently and largely I think life is 99.9% grind and misery with 0.01% where everything is ok.
My dc are young and cheerful, I look at them and think - you’ve got no idea.
It is all just such shit all the time, if my parents had been able to ask me before having me I’d have 100% said no, knowing what I do now.
Everyone I know is unhappy (adult) - this doesn’t give particularly good odds for my own children being content.
And I understand no one is happy all the time - happiness is fleeting - I mean more a sort of settled, calm feeling that everything is ok.

Aibu to really regret my dc - for their sake - all the misery and unhappiness that just being alive brings?

It sounds difficult. Talk to your GP/therapist? The reality is life can be a challenge.
I have two daughters, one of whom is BPD and has periods of depression she is 20. Getting the right help is almost impossible here in the uk!
She feels bleak about the future. She can’t see her potential. Or joy. She is locked into her head.
Personally I think women are fed a lie about having children. It’s not for everyone. And I think one is enough to be honest, if at all.
I don’t want grandchildren. I don’t want to look after children again. This view is taboo. I never voice it.
I really admire women who choose not to have them.

What's DC?

Make some changes. Start a new hobby, take a holiday (even a couple of nights in a cheap B&B), join some social groups - I joined a local club (like a working men’s club) £10 a year and loads on there.
Or up sticks and move somewhere new. I’m moving 400 miles to the far end of Scotland by myself this year - don’t know a soul where I’m going but have joined all the local Facebook groups in advance and lots of things to do up there and meet people.

Yes, but that is how depression works. It is colouring your perception of things. What you call realism are grey glasses that make everything look like boring concrete. By taking antidepressants or getting therapy, you will be able to see things in colour again.

I am so much more cynical and am less chirpy than my little baby is - he is simply filled with joy and is so happy to be alive, whereas I'm simply content but tired. I don't think I am as depressed as you are, I'm taking meds and feel better than I did when I had postpartum depression.

Enjoy having two children who currently are loved and are cheerful.

There are children who have to face things like ASD or ADHD, or who have serious mental health disorders. It's great that they can talk about them now. Hopefully as the rates of children who are trans or gay go up, the suicide rate will come down.

You don't sign up to be a parent of a child with a disability or special needs. It's just now it's easier to talk about it so maybe people are becoming more aware.

I've thought like this before. It was PMD and I ended up very unwell mentally. You should speak to a GP

Life is not like this for me, I find life mostly very enjoyable and sometimes amazing. I have some troubles, but not too many or too overwhelming. So I think you may be depressed.

@ZsaZsaTheCat yes that's our plan for all of the dc if that's what they want to do

Live with us for a small board payment and save hard for their first small house / flat

I was similar to you- left home at 18 even though I didn't want to, it was a horrible start to adult life as well. and it definitely disadvantaged me. Skint all the time and Moving every five minutes to rented shit hole to rented shithole and worse, staying in awful relationships as I couldn't afford to live alone

I was desperate to leave home at 18.

I think you need anti depressants

Squashedbyarock · 09/04/2024 08:21

It is very hard to bring up children. The responsibility is very high. There is no room for your deciding you don't want to. You don't really spell out what is making you feel like this. What triggered it? What can't you face? Being responsible for other human beings takes a lot of courage. Seems like your courage and confidence has taken a dive. Remember it, so you don't repeat it.

You must not let despondency interfere with raising your children. You don't have to put on an artificial brave face, but you can push to the back burner some of your issues. No child wants to go through life desperate to understand whether it is them or someone else that is making you feel unable to cope.

What do you want for your dc's future? What is it that you consider an important help in their lives? Have you thought that you can teach your children about life? Speak to them about the history of your family tree. You don't have to know a lot at first, but have you thought about trying to give them a sense of 'belonging'?

Fill them with memories. Find all the free admission places and take them to museums, and so on. Churches are free, when open. Take them on a tour of architecture and see what they like about it, if anything.

Bringing up children should not be a chore. It is hard, no-one ever said it was easy, but you have the task and responsibility to bring them up so that they can deal with the slings and arrows of life, and that is so important. It is probably the most important thing you will ever do in your life.

Children need to know when they are doing wrong. They like to know where their boundaries are, and you are responsible for setting them. Do you explain the reasons for those rules? They are little mini you, If you know yourself, you know them too, or at least what they are capable of.

Don't keep too many secrets from them. They will learn not to trust you in the future.

Children cannot cope with too many rules to remember. That makes them rebellious. You can have one rule which carries punishment - lying. Everything else they do wrong can be 'an accident' but lying is the worse thing they can do. You soon learn from their faces whether they are or not, and you can look at them and say 'you wouldn't lie to mummy, would you? Try it, if it isn't too late.

Make a point of reading everything they read, so that you know what is going on in their minds and can be a step ahead of them. While you are bringing up children, be prepared not to watch TV or read what you want. You cannot fit in RV soaps around children, certainly if they realise you are doing it. Don't be a martyr to them either.

Don't be afraid of showing your feelings, such as anger, but not severe anger -because then they can justify their own feelings and understand. You run the risk of them seeing more in you than you want them to, but does it matter?

Teach them about your ancestry, about social history. It helps them understand life, if not right away.

Like others have said, please talk to a professional. You may not think you are depressed but if don't think you should be seeing life in such a dark way.
Yes we all have cycles of worry and loss. We also have cycles of good things, they don't have to be big things either. My littlest granddaughter coming to visit with big happy smiles just because she's seeing me is enough to make my day a bit brighter. Or taking a walk on a lovely day, having coffee with a friend. So many small things can put a smile on my face.

I have went to counselling several times over my 60+ years when I needed it. It really can help if you get the right person.

Well, not really. There's always a choice isn't there? And sometimes you get to a point where you are unable to keep plodding on.

I think there must be a lot of people that feel the same way about life, I mean why else would so many people need alcohol and drugs etc. to escape from reality? If life was so great we wouldn't need all these things to get us "high" we'd be high on life already surely? Personally I'm sober as a judge, maybe that's the problem lol.

Just want to say agree with you Op. And to all those saying the Op is depressed, jog on. It is those posters who are living in their own little bubbles that cannot see what is going on in the world around them. They have no real idea what is going on in others lives behind closed doors, they think because someone smiles and is happy in a conversation that they must be fine. Open your eyes, look at what is actually happening that's if you've time in between hair appointments and driving your range rovers.

It's very common for depressed people to think this. If feeling low is a pervasive and enduring condition you can loose insight into the fact that it's not normal. Please give some consideration to your mental heath and at least ask the opinion of your GP.

Wow that's a bit patronising! Especially to the childhood sexual abuse survivors on this thread who have overcome and now find pleasure in life.

I can see the death and destruction around the world, and poverty and strife on my own doorstep - but it doesn't stop me experiencing all the emotions and experiences life has to offer.

There is no good without the bad.

Hair appointments and Range Rovers? Do you think these are the gateways to happiness? 😁

I won't be giving you a list of all the reasons I could justify being miserable. Because all that stuff is secondary to the fact that I'm a resilient optimist who has meaningful connections with the people who I love, an appreciation for a world that is bigger than we are and who is grateful for the things that we do have.

Now that won't stop some people resigning me to the rank of 'happy but dim' because building a narrative that you have been driven to hopelessness because you operate closer to the truth of things through your intelligence and mental acuity protects a fragile ego and, I expect, makes for a reasonable consolation prize for enduring your unending pessimism but my sunny outlook is not built on hair appointments and a range rover 😁

You’re depressed, please get help. For your sake and your children’s sake.

I think you sound depressed OP.

Being depressed doesn’t mean there is nothing wrong in the world but you nonetheless still feel bad regardless; it means that you are struggling with the weight of what absolutely is wrong in the world. When you are not depressed you find ways to process that and move on, or ways of focusing in on things that give you meaning and hope amongst the darker aspects.

It sounds as though your dc are healthily happy. Try to use that as your beacon of meaningfulness. Every day you can keep them feeling that way ( broadly speaking!) is day with meaningful existence in it for you. Please do seek help as they may be able to make this process so much easier.

Squashedbyarock · 09/04/2024 08:21

I cannot see in your post any reason for why you feel like this. Why do you regret having your children? Is it the cost of living, that every penny you have is hardly enough to cover your cost of living, which has increased phenomenally since covid, partly because banks are making up what they lost in 2009, and supermarkets are taking advantage while we are expecting prices to rise, and the cost of fuel, travel, items for school?

It is very dispiriting to work hard and never have enough to cover the costs of bringing up children. You could get practical help for that.

Those who are in full time work, yet cannot afford to cover the rent, fuel, energy, food, and all the necessaries do feel as though they are just slaves, without being able to save for their family's future, and prospects look dim

Think of the years of slavery: slaves worked all day for bed and board only. If in this 21st century that is all someone in full employment can do with their pay packet, then albeit the house might be better than a wood shack, many people are living like slaves, without being able to save, and that makes many mothers feel they are failing their family, no matter how hard they work.

That is very real, and if it causes depression, it is no wonder.

Because it seems completely undoable without a major input of cash from somewhere like an inheritance. I have nothing to leave my daughter who is already 30. Houses anywhere near where she works are 200 thou+. She earns about 28K. She's have to put away about half her salary for three years just to pay the deposit.

I agree. And think how many people find life so ghastly that they take overdoses or jump off a bridge! My dad is buried next to a young man who killed himself, and so are my grandparents.

I’m always amazed by people who think life’s pretty great. If I was being unkind, I’d say they’re shallow and insensitive. Then again, maybe they’re just braver and more positive than I am. To me, it’s always seemed obvious that life’s basically horrible with good bits, rather than basically good with bad bits. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “most people live lives of quiet desperation,” which I’ve always thought is true.

I have seen so much horror in my own small life that it takes my breath away. Just take the road I grew up in. The boy who lived opposite lost his mum to cancer when he was seven and was then horribly bullied by his new stepmum. The pretty girl at the end of my road was thrown through the windscreen of a car when she was 17 and spent the rest of her life hideously scarred and trapped in a wheelchair. The man two doors down sank into deep depression and drank himself to death, leaving behind a young wife and 10-year-old son. I could go on. And that’s just one tiny street in one small island. Truth is, the sorts of tragedies I have listed don’t bother a lot of people. They are unmoved by the suffering of others. Their view of life hinges entirely on their own experiences. So long as their life is good, they think life generally is good.

But it isn’t just the tragedies. So much of the daily grind is miserable. Most jobs are shit and unfulfilling, and most relationships are hard and far from ideal. Let’s be honest, none of our dreams come true. (I always wanted to be an actor, artist or writer, but had no talent, so settled for a crap office job instead.) And on top of all that, we’ve got the nightmare of old age and death waiting at the end. I have seen death several times, and each time it was horrifying. My sweet, gentle grandmother died of a brain haemorrhage when I was 19. That sight has haunted me ever since. That’s our reward for the 80 year struggle.

@NCprivatelife has it right- I don’t consider fame or being a pro athlete the pinnacle of a good life at all! I hope my DC become kind , considerate people who contribute to their community and are comfortable with who they are.
Do consider getting some help OP. Not everyone feels as helpless and pessimistic as you do. We went to a farm that see some lambs yesterday and it made us all so happy- maybe we’re easily pleased but i think it’s important to find joy in simple things. I am not rich , famous, in a relationship or very successful! I am happy and contented and feel lucky to have the pretty ordinary life I have.

One of the talents you lack is seeing the good in things and also detatching yourself from others' troubles Why are you still dwelling on the troubles of people in your street? I don't think about sad stories like that, I do have to admit. It's part of life but if it isn't happening to me or to someone close to me I don't really care if I'm honest.