To feel sad that people are not having children, they would have liked to have

[Tootiredfrthis]

I feel sad that I would love to have a third DC but I don't think I will because of lack of support and not having any extended family who can help.
Similarly, I was speaking to a friend and she almost cried saying how much she would love to is third DC but can't as she's 42 and sky rocketing nursery fees.
Another friend was saying she would love a third but undecided due to no family nearby.
Another male friend was saying he would love a second DC but he has broken up with his girlfriend and was in custody battle for his only DC and don't want to go through it again.
I feel quite sad that there are so many who would love another DC but won't be having them for various reasons while fertility rates keep falling and there's so little support for modern parents/families.

Of course OP can be specific and focus on people who don’t have a third child if she wants to, but the thread title is then a bit misleading as a lot of childless not by choice people will see it and click on the thread thinking she is referring to them.

I think ‘oppression Olympics’ is a pretty nasty and dismissive phrase given the thread title is misleading.

I sort of feel OP is BU, as her post slightly implies that she’d like to have a lot of children and then rely on other people to look after them.

You should have titled your thread less broadly if you didn’t want to attract contributions from people who are childless not by choice. Your title clearly leads those people to assume that the thread will be at least partly about them.

But the header is only brief, people are supposed to read the original post to understand what the thread is about. And if it doesn't suit them, there's always the option to click out 🙄

Not just “another”. I know loads of people who would have loved kids (myself included) but life decided otherwise.

C’est la vie.

Once you've clicked into the thread because of the misleading title, you then read the OP, which – as a lot of PP have pointed out – is fairly unreasonable. The OP has two healthy children and seems to want another child but for other people to look after them; compiles a list of friends who want more children without any kind of compromise; and expects others to feel sorry for her/them because of this. It feels like a slap in the face to read something like this if you are childless not by choice. Especially if you think that you are about to come to a thread that is going to be relevant and supportive to your own situation. I think a lot of people posting here don't really comprehend what it means to be infertile and for that to be it (ie. not to be infertile and for IVF or other treatments to work, but to come to terms with not having a family at all and everything that entails). For the OP to then double down and tell off a poster for answering the question she asked (AIBU) is not okay.

It's better that people are not having children they'd have liked to have, than people to be having children they regret having.

I agree with this.

I have huge sympathy for everyone experiencing infertility whether primary or secondary (I’m primary).

I think it’s sad if someone limits their family size because of financial or familial circumstances but I don’t think it’s comparable with infertility, sorry. And I do feel like this thread assumes the two are comparable.

This is a weird thread. If you desperately want a third make it work.

In an ideal world I'd love a third but I feel too old and think it would make life too hard. If we were much richer and had a bigger house I'd go for it! But we can't have everything we want in life.

I have quite a few friends desperate just for one so it seems pretty ungrateful to complain about tbh.

And honestly, I think people in the past had too many children for spurious reasons, such as they liked babies etc, or just had sex without contraception. It's better that people are thinking more about it nowadays. It's not just about having a baby, or a child, that only lasts a very brief period of time and then they're an adult and you have to justify making the decision to make them exist.

I don't feel sorry for people who already have at least 1 living child.

Yes, it’s sad. I wish we had better support for families in this country. I do feel even more sad for people who would have liked to have children but haven’t been able to at all personally though.

I always wanted to be a wife and a mother with a big family, I know it’s not seen as very feminist of me these days (though I do feel feminism should be about women being able to make their own choices!) but it’s the truth. Even though I’m a doctor and a lot of people assume I’ve always been very career-focussed, really if I had met the right person I’d have happily given it up to be a stay at home mum and housewife and I think I could have had a very happy and fulfilled life. I did deliberately pick a career where I could financially support myself so that I’d not be fully reliant on a man for earning power if necessary though, as I didn’t know if I’d meet anyone etc.

In the end I had to divorce due to domestic abuse after having just one child, and have not met anyone else since we split sadly due to pressures of work and motherhood and also health issues, including recovering my mental health after domestic abuse. My son is in his final year of school now and I am getting to an age where I have to sadly accept I am highly unlikely to be in a position to ever have another child, even though ideally I would have liked 6 kids (more realistically probably 3 or 4). It really stings when my sisters get endlessly pregnant in their happy marriages but of course I’m happy for them and I love being an aunt.

I absolutely love my son and am so proud of the lovely young man he is, despite having his father’s genes (luckily he has mine to balance them out lol plus I have fought tooth and nail to make sure his father does influence him negatively and unduly. I’m so glad that I was able to experience motherhood, so I don’t think it compares to the pain of people who were not able to have even one child but there is definitely some pain in this situation for me. Not only in not having other children but also in having to raise my only child in a less than ideal family situation, and even for who his father is (but of course if he had a different father he would not exist). I didn’t get the form of motherhood I’d ideally have wished for, but I’m still glad I am a mother nevertheless and I think I’ve been a great mother under the circumstances, I’ve certainly done my very best by him at all times and he’s brought so much joy into my life, even if the aftermath of domestic abuse would actually have been easier if no children existed!

If I could travel back in time I genuinely don’t know what I would do. I wouldn’t want to undo my son’s existence but also it would be hard to choose to put myself through the hell his dad put me through. And who knows, if I hadn’t met his dad, I might have been perfectly happy with a lovely husband and lots of kids, or I could have ended up alone etc etc. it’s probably best that we can’t rewind life really and just experience it in all its bittersweet moments with joy and sadness often going hand in hand or at least that’s been my experience.

I would love a 2nd DC and would love for my ds to have a sibling but I just can't go through pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum again it was really tough sad 😢

wow, what a sad, narrow view on the point of existence. If that were true, would you be happy becoming a handmaid?

Yes, not being able to have as many children as you’d like due to external factors is sad and hard emotionally. I had four and was broody for another each time and I think I’d have found it hard it I’d been restricted by something outside of my control such as financial, housing etc but knowing it was possible to conceive quite easily (I’ve always been fortunate enough to conceive quickly).

My own children are in a much worse situation as housing costs have gone sky high and they can’t even afford a small place. I was renting around age 20 and it was affordable with enough over with two of us working.

Everyone in society now is centred around the rich getting richer while everyone else struggles. There’s no job security and companies try to spin that as a good thing because you have choice and can be a skills based worker. It’s not good, it’s all about them. Things are so expensive you need two incomes for a house yet we pay huge taxes and get increasingly less in return. Even teachers are being made redundant.

I think it’s great that people tend to stick to 0/1/2 children. We have limited resources and it’s only going to get worse. From a bigger perspective it’s much better that families are trending smaller.

I talked about having 6 kids for years but it took us a long time and 2 miscarriages to have our first and I am super lucky to have been able to have a second. I am very grateful for what I have despite a lingering vague sadness that I didn’t have the future I’d always pictured.

my husband feels very strongly that people shouldn’t grow the population - as a family we have actually shrunk down as neither my brother or his sister had kids. One by choice and one sadly not. I only feel sorry for my sister in law out of any of us.

Me and DP would have loved a third, but difficult financially and I had 2 high risk pregnancies, so felt that we couldn’t push our luck for a third.

In hindsight I wish we’d been in a financial position to start a family earlier, things might have been different.

I’m sorry but I find this incredibly self indulgent. Shoot me but no one needs more than two children. The fact that someone has two children and not three is in the scheme of things not the biggest problem and I think this is a bit spoiled. I feel awful for people who desperately want children and can’t have them but people who already have some and want more are a long way down my sympathy list.

I also find the “why isn’t there more support for the family” whining really ick. There’s more government support for the family than at most points in history. No one is entitled to have their desire to have endless children subsidized. It’s not great for society, not brilliant for the planet

And by the way not all of us want multiple children. It’s OK to want one or two or God forbid to enjoy working.

Theres an unpleasant pronatalist tone to this thread which is honestly giving me the creeps.

I would adore a second child but I couldn't afford it and wasn't in a stable enjoy position. Now that DC1 is 6 years old and I've just bought a two bed house, I feel like it's too late for me. It does make me very sad if I allow myself to dwell on it for too long.

It is REALLY sad. This is the big con sold to us by the feminazi, build a career, don't be bogged down by babies, don't get married and endless articles about how awful motherhood is. The beauty of this era is it is not social expected of you to have children so if you really don't want to it's fine, but we are almost meant to feel ashamed if we do simply want to be a mum. Many women realise too late they wanted children and they either can't or it's hard work. When you have kids young you have energy and can link up with friends having children and support each other with childcare and advice. I have no family but have had 4, my last probably broke me lol but I'm through the other side now and it's wonderful watching them and knowing they will always have each other and their kids will have cousins and so on. FYI, you can never have enough money, your house is never decorated, so have kids and enjoy them.

Do you live in a very small two bed flat in a really really cheap area? If not, then it's a choice to prioritise your current area or house. That's absolutely fine and a valid choice to make.
I realise your personal situation will be more complex than a few sentences on a forum, and some people have complications like disability etc, but in the vast majority of circumstances finances are not enough on their own in this country. If you are prepared to live a very frugal life in a different area most people could afford a child. Not wanting to choose that is absolutely fine, but it is your choice.

I agree. It's a bit hard-nosed, but I've never understand why there's a general consensus that people should have as many children as they want, regardless of all sorts of things (environmental concerns being an important one, but also issues of having sufficient emotional and financial resources for additional children), purely because they want them. I might want three cars, or three boyfriends, or three pieces of cake, but I don't need them.

Why is it seen as admirable to exercise restraint in so many contexts, but not when it comes to bringing more humans into the world? (Yes, obviously I understand the biological drive to procreate, but I don't think that negates my point.)

I've just seen after posting that you've made similar points to me, but expressed them better! Yes, "self indulgent" is exactly the right phrase imo.

I appreciate you didn't end up having six children, but I don't think it's in very good taste to use siblings' infertility (assuming that was the issue) to mitigate any guilt you might have about increasing the population.

I would be, frankly, furious if I ever heard my brother or sister-in-law justifying their unnecessarily large number of offspring by way of me not being able to have any. The minor silver lining for me is that it has reduced my carbon footprint, and it's not the prerogative of someone else to unilaterally negate that reduction.

Honestly, it's those who wanted one and didn't succeed you should feel sorry for. I was nearly one of those people. We felt very blessed to have our DC. I was too old to try again and - honestly - just very grateful to have the one.