To not get the whole ‘I can’t wait to be a grandparent’ thing

[Sparklytopattheready]

Maybe I’m just a miserable git but I don’t get it…
my kids are late teens/early 20s and I can honestly say I’m not at all bothered about being a grandma.
I know how hard and relentless parenting can be and being a single mum doesn’t help.
I know several people who chose not to have kids and they are all off living their best lives, lots of free time, mortgage paid off early, multiple holidays a year.
Then there’s today’s society - the world is overcrowded, the pressure of social media, global warming, NHS in meltdown etc etc.
I can honestly say I’d be happy for my kids to never have children!

No. I think those that you call Debbie Downers are just flagging up that we don't have kids so that their lives fulfil our own dreams and ambitions.

Or rather we shouldn't have kids to fulfill our dreams and ambitions. They need to have their own which may or may not tally with ours.

I have no desire to be a grandma either. I'd really like to recommend my Dcs not to have children but I'm afraid they would interpret it as me wishing I hadn't had them, and that's not the case.
Friends and I were talking recently, if you had your time again, like a second life, what would you change. I said I wouldn't have children because I would like to experience a child free life. But that's only because I've already experienced a life with children.

I love like my Dcs. In fact... I actually really like my Dcs, enjoy their company, respect and admire them..... but my life as a parent had been super difficult--widowed when they were 4 and 9, my own parents died young, elder DC seriously mentally ill. It's been gruelling doing it all on my own for 13 years. I just yearn for time to myself- not grandchildren.

@KimberleyClark

Why is it wrong to influence our DCs to do something that gave us the joy of our lives but not wrong for the people in this thread to actively discourage their DCs from having DCs when it is life's purpose for so many?

How many childless people in their 50s/60s are on anti depressants?

Loneliness is soul destroying. Families supporting each other through the life course is better for everyone.

Isn't it better to be a happy grandparents, willing to help (the majority of DCs who do have DCs) rather than the selfish ones that ignore their GC and make their adult children's lives unnecessarily difficult?

I have friends who've not had a night off in a decade due to grandparents who refuse to even babysit for one night.

I want my DCs to have full lives. For most that means career AND family.

"How many childless people in their 50s/60s are on anti depressants"

Where is your evidence for this claim?

As are many mothers ?

Mothers who aren't supported.

Yours are very young still OP.

My dd had hers pretty late, and I can’t say I was ever longing to be a granny, but I’d have been very upset for her, if she’d wanted babies but couldn’t have them. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been too bothered.

What I did think awful was the DM of a DD’s friend, who was often apparently wailing that at this rate she’d never be a granny. I felt so sorry for the poor girl - it wasn’t that she didn’t want children, she just hadn’t found the right bloke to have them with.

What nonsense. Most of my child free friends are perfectly happy and not on anti depressants.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/12/too-many-older-people-given-antidepressants-instead-of-therapy

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10066696/

bcmj.org/articles/geriatric-depression-use-antidepressants-elderly

www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/28/over-1-million-childless-people-over-65-are-dangerously-unsupported

Having DCs shouldnt mean women/our daughters lose any opportunities to achieve anything they want in life.
I don't think anyone would disagree with you there @unmemorableusername though what should be the case isn't always reality course. I haven't seen anyone suggesting that parents can't achieve other things but you were the one who seemed to be suggesting that having children is a prerequisite to having a purposeful life which is clearly nonsense. A meaningless consumer driven lifestyle is hardly the inevitable alternative to parenthood!
Lots of people who don't have children (by choice or otherwise) make or have made very meaningful contributions to the world, whether that's famous historical figures such as Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen, Beethoven and Isaac Newton or every day people who do valuable jobs, pay their taxes, volunteer, create things, care for friends and family and so on. And parenthood is not synonymous with virtue either - you only have to look at the news to see that.
I'd be disappointed if my children had meaningless, materialistic lives too. I hope they are going to continue as the happy, productive, creative and kind people they are now. If they want children at some point and have them then great, if they don't, also great. I don't believe that the ability or desire to have children makes someone a better or lesser person in the slightest, and my adult children's reproductive choices are their choices and their responsibility, not mine.

Can't take you seriously any more.

The first three of those links dont mention the childfree at all, just the elderly.
The last says those childless NOT by choice are likely to be more depressed.
Just like those poor ( not by choice) or ill ( not by choice).. It doesnt mention those childfree by choice.

I have absolutely loved being a mum, so I very much hope that my dd will be able to have a similar experience if that's what she decides she wants. I'm not in any rush though, and want her to enjoy her freedom while she's young!

I know that I will adore any grandchildren that come along, but the idea is too abstract for me to really get my head around at the moment, so my hope is primarily focused around the hopes that I have for my dd rather than for me. I would love for her to have the experience that has been such a joyful part of my own life.

Of course, if she decides further down the line that motherhood is not a part of her plan, then I will respect that. More than anything, I just want her to be happy. At the moment, though, she is very clear that she does want dc at some point.

I have 3 kids, absolutely loved being a mother and would have had more if able. I am absolutely not bothered about being a grandparent. My kids are teens. I don't think that will change as I just want to live my life now and do all the fun stuff I haven't been able to do for years.

My own mother would relish that role. Oh and how she’d paint the picture of the perfect granny. But despite being told and reminded regularly since I was 15 (so twenty years!) that I will never bring a child into this world or our family, she holds this smug expectation that I will change my mind, and lowers my whole existence down to the fact that I’ve decided not to reproduce, and somehow she’s the victim and I’m depriving her of her right.

Im under no illusion. She was a shitty parent and she thinks she could redeem herself (to herself) by being a good granny. Not happening. The sooner the menopause comes the better so she can stop harping on.

Loneliness is soul destroying. Families supporting each other through the life course is better for everyone.
Isn't it better to be a happy grandparents, willing to help (the majority of DCs who do have DCs) rather than the selfish ones that ignore their GC and make their adult children's lives unnecessarily difficult?
I have friends who've not had a night off in a decade due to grandparents who refuse to even babysit for one night.

Families supporting each other regardless if some choose or don’t choose to have children is better for everyone.

My dc are teens, so it’s some way off and all of them have said they’d rather not, but I am finding that I don’t really mind either way - quite happy to just get on with my life and see what happens.

@unmemorableusername - I don’t think we should be influencing our children either to have children or not. Big life decisions like this should be a free choice, not one influenced by parents, however well meaning they are.

How many childless people in their 50s/60s are on anti depressants?.

probably a similar number to those 50s/60s with children who are on them. Having children doesn’t inure you from mental health problems. Bod knows I know that. My mother had depression all her life.

And having a family certainly does not Pat protect you from loneliness. How many people on here are NC with their parents or their children NC with them?

And I haven’t seen any parents on here actively discouraging their children from having children. Maybe hoping they don’t, but ultimately recognising g it’s for their children to decide.

@unmemorableusername while having children brought you joy, it's not automatic that it will bring your children joy.

Not all women feel it's their life purpose to constantly mind kids and therefore being a grandparent, wouldn't enhance their lives to the degree you think it would.

I would imagine that mental health is better where people feel they are living the lives they want and not being guilt tripped into either providing grandchildren or at the other end, being guilt tripped into sacrificing their retirement in order to provide childcare.

I do agree that it would be mean to never babysit or help out one's own children ever though.

Which is a sizeable number

My husband and I chose not to have children, but both of our sets of parents didn't respect our choice and badgered us from the start. It got better since our siblings have provided grandchildren and our nieces and nephews are very loved by us, but we never wanted our own. My parents however, once they got their grandchildren completely lost all interest in me and my life and that has been hurtful. It is like I don't matter anymore, it's all about my sister and her kids. We invited them to visit us - we live in Cornwall near a lovely bit of coastline that my parents love, but they refused because they wouldn't see my sister or her kids that weekend. They never spend christmas or any other celebration with us and only speak to us when we call them. Now they've cut me out of their will to leave the money to the grandchildren but are talking about me providing care....ha ha ha not happening.

Just unbelievable behaviour. If any of my DC invited me to Cornwall I would be there like a shot! Equally so if they invited me for Xmas or anything.even!

That’s horrible.

That reads similar to the people that don’t count couples as families in their own right because they don’t have children so aren’t “solidified” in their eyes.

You also see it on MN sometimes where the son’s parents don’t engage much with their DILs’ and then when she gives birth they’re then interested and then shocked she isn’t engaging with them as they want because they are now grandparents.

Ridiculous they think you should provide care for them then.

The people I know who take anti depressants all have kids including my own mother.

I have very little family and I am not lonely. I have one DC but I have no partner and no siblings, no nieces and nephews and am NC with my father.

My friends are my family and I'm closer to them than most of my own family.

I don't mind if my DC decides to have children or not but I didn't have a child with the expectation that he will be a crutch to prevent me from being lonely. That is selfishness imo.