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?

@MsLuxLisbon I know your post wasn’t directed at me, but the post today by @Hartley99 resonated so I’d like to comment.

I can’t detach (nor do I want to) from some of the horrible things I’ve witnessed or am aware of e.g people needlessly dying of cancer because they’ve been misdiagnosed, children dying in wars, my narcissistic mother always putting her needs above her children’s with disastrous consequences - because I feel it’s part of what makes me human. Or maybe it's my personality and being empathetic. Life isn’t always fair, and that’s partly why, in general, life is shit.

@Hartley99 I lost my Mum to cancer as a child and was emotionally abused by my stepmum. So not a million miles away from the little boy on your street.

I am (mostly) content, I have a good life. I wish my mum hadn’t died and I still feel sad about it at times but I am glad to be here and grateful to be living in this beautiful world.

Exactly this. Myself and DH are mid-40s, no kids, own home (which is nearly paid for!), plenty of disposable income for holidays and hobbies and still in great shape - physically and mentally - to enjoy them.

We would not switch places with our 20-something nieces and nephews for all the tea in China!

I agree with you OP. I won't be subjecting a child to life. It's cruel and relentless. Basically you are born, go to school, loads of exam stress maybe with a side order of bullying thrown in, college or university (with more stress), then trying to find a job. Then getting up early and going there for 40 odd years, retirement (if you are lucky), perhaps a few decent years, then old age, perhaps in an old people's home, loss of dignity, death then being burried or cremated. And that's if you can avoid horrors like serious accidents and cancer along the way. I would NEVER have signed up to being born.

@Strawberriesandpears But do you not enjoy things in the day to day? Relationships, leisure time?
I really enjoyed school apart from a couple of miserable teenage years, I LOVED Uni, I’ve done a few different jobs and left when I stopped enjoying them to look for something else. Really like my current job and hope it stays that way but if it doesn’t, I’ll move.
I really like spending time with my family, I make plans with friends, I have a hobby that I love… I don’t think my life is all that special and I’ve had my fair share of difficulties along the way but I am still so glad to be living it.

Zeborah · 10/04/2024 21:10
You need to be able to see and capture the happy, joyful moments in life, regardless of how fleeting. There’s no such thing as happy ever after.”

I do wonder whether people generally have unrealistic expectations now ( fuelled by instagram, etc.)

I do wonder whether people generally have unrealistic expectations now ( fuelled by instagram, etc.)

I think some people always have had, such as “Work hard at school and you’re set for life” or “You can achieve anything if you put your mind to it”. It’s all bollocks.

I can understand where the OP is coming from. It is natural to fear for the future of your children, wondering what is in store for them.

You can only bring them up to the best of your ability, teaching them as much as you can, and hoping they do well at school, learn enough to show future employers their brains have the capacity to absorb knowledge and remember and apply it. That is all you can do: the rest is up to them.

If your childhood was full of misery, why have children at all? Is it that someone had control over you all your life and you want that same control? Is it that you think you can do a better job than your parents did?

A decade ago there were hundreds of teen pregnancies, and on TV programmes like 'Teen Mum' and the reasons they had for having babies and keeping them was almost always the desire to 'start a family' or 'have something of my own'.

They are not good enough reasons to bring life into the world.

Our desire to have children should be when we have a settled life and enough income to give them a future. Unfortunately, too many women have children first, then look around for a lifestyle they want, and that is the wrong way round. The state of the world and the cost of living means that there has to be two wage packets coming into the home to pay for the necessities of life - bed and board, and parents have to forfeit bringing up their own children to maintain that. It means that many children are being brought up in groups by strangers, and once you have no control over how your children are nurtured, then there are problems. Is the extra income worth giving up your children's care to someone else? When mothers worked part time to supplement income, they were usually at home with the children at least half the day.

Teenagers are more in need of family to come home to after school, yet they are regarded as old enough to be on their own, even look after the younger ones, but it is these teenagers who long for family life and have children hoping they can do that. They cannot, because they have no experience of family life when both parents work. If they didn't when the children are young, they certainly do when they are teenagers, and the whole cycle begins again.

This essay by Ian Leslie (liberal left-ish thinker) is absolutely fascinating and draws together research which shows a link between privilege and/or conservatism and being happy.

"Why does being left wing make you unhappy?"

I don't think you should be proud of being 'empathetic'. People who pride themselves on empathy often are a) miserable and b) narcissistic! People talk about narcissism and empathy as polar opposites, but I believe then to be two sides of the same coin. The belief that you have some special insight into the sufferings of the world and can feel others' pain is actually deeply arrogant, when you really think about it. Far better to detach and to sort your own house out before you worry about anyone else.

With respect, you don’t get to tell me what I feel and I very much disagree that there’s a similarity between empathy and narcissism.

There is more than a similarity. As the meme goes 'it's the same picture'. The whole concept of 'empathy' is a complete crock and I wish more people realised that. I could go on and on about it, I won't because my thoughts on the matter would fill a long book, but the way that 'empathy' has become currency is deeply sinister and at worst a gift to people who have ill intent, at best a way for people to misguidedly pat themselves on the back.

Wow there was quite a bit of mental casuistry going on there really.

Possibly I can see your point where it is effectively phrased as “ I’m miserable because I have have greater empathetic capacities than others.”

But if someone is actually exercising empathy I really can’t see that calling that narcissistic is fair.

Thus I don’t agree narcissism and empathy are two sides of the same coin at all. It might, however, be narcissistic to claim you have super powers of empathy. But you’ve elided several steps of logic in the way you have stated it.

Possibly I can see your point where it is effectively phrased as “ I’m miserable because I have have greater empathetic capacities than others.”

Except that isn't the case because I rarely feel miserable.

This is linked to the view from many others on this thread about the OP: "You sound depressed". Just because someone feels life is shit or life is generally shit it doesn't necessarily mean that person is depressed or miserable.

I think our posts are actually agreeing? That response from me was not in answer me to your posts.

I disagree that empathy and narcissism are the same thing.

You say you don't feel depressed but what about all the good moments with children like when they say/do something new or funny? Doesn't that make the hard bits worth it?