She doesn’t know any mums that are happy

[Yousaiditnotme]

Did anyone hear/see Chappell Roan’s podcast about not wanting kids?
She was saying how all her friends with kids were just living in hell, how she doesn’t see anyone happy with kids, how there’s no light in their eyes etc.

I thought it was interesting, any thoughts?

Do you honestly think it isn't just conversation; everybody is cynical these days, sencerity is seen as sentimental, particularly by the liberal middle classes so literally nobody is going to dare to even show their true feelings let alone celebrate their choices! There is also a fear of being told your light has gone out or some such hostile rubbish, when actually all you doing is being alive!

I don't understand your reasoning, why do 'heart' decisions equate to wrong and 'Head' decisions equate to good? Having a baby is all about love and that has to be overwhelming to want to do the things you do for the baby so getting up in the night X2, 3 or 4 to feed the baby, ensuring you can provide for the baby, ensuring you can pay for a roof over your head for the baby. It is 10 x a more powerful motivator, your heart absolutely needs to be the main decision to have a baby or you won't get through the hard times.

You seem very good at mis-representing absolutely everything I say.

I didn’t say heart decisions were bad, I said there’s something wrong with just following your heart when it comes to creating an actual human life.

Love is great but it won’t pay the bills or make you a good parent. There are so many other factors that people should take into account when they decide to have a child.

Aye but it is selfish to bring a child into an unsuitable environment, so it's important to balance heart and head.

Having a baby isn’t always a gut decision for everyone. I know people who made the decision to have a baby intellectually. They didn’t feel a burning urge to be parents. They weighed up the pros and cons and decided the pros outweighed the cons. And for some people it’s FOMO or fear of possible future regret that drives them.

@Pip2580 I wasn’t meaning to suggest your friends regret it and just aren’t saying - it was more the general idea that if someone does regret having a child, they’re hardly likely to say it out loud for fear of being judged for it.

I know a lot of people my age (mid thirties) who are childfree by choice - I guess because people without kids naturally congregate together. I have no desire to spend time with someone else’s children so I don’t naturally gravitate towards parents, I guess.

’Intellectually’ is probably a fair description of my own thought processes on having a child at 40, having previously planned not to. I thought it might be interesting, I’d just finished a big book project, we could afford it, DH was keen, and I thought that even if it turned out to be less interesting than I thought, we had the resources to still do a decent job of bringing up a child.

No, it's not, it's a huge driver in doing all those things, if you don't start from the position of love in having a baby, I think it is more likely to go wrong. I know a couple of people who did this and they simply couldn't cope with the lack of control when the DC were young.

It's not selfish to follow your heart that should read. An unsuitable environment does not equate to decisions made by the heart.

So do I and it didn't work out.

Nobody is saying it does - they’re saying that only following your heart is rarely a good idea when it comes to creating a life. You have to think about the next 2+ decades and how you’ll
manage in any number of situations.

Many people don’t think like that though and then you get threads full of people wondering how they’ll cover the school holidays, or inset days, or wondering how people manage on X amount of annual leave or income.

I think these podcasts tend to exaggerate whatever position the podcaster is taking up in order to be more interesting. I know Mums whose lives are mostly very unhappy or happy, but most of them are having a mixture of feelings ranging from despair through resentment and satisfaction to wild joy.

Which is why I clearly said it should be a BALANCE.

Yes, sorry you did, got you muddled up with another poster.

Exactly. Some people put more thought into what to watch on Netflix than on creating a life that may last 100 years, and how they are going to manage, whether they can afford to without taxpayer financed dole and what sort of father they are saddling their offspring with.

So tired of the “falling pregnant” and “unexpectedly found myself pregnant” tales of woe. That’s what animals do. Human women should exert the effort to control their reproduction.

We were the same with our first, she was brilliant and a real joy as a baby and toddler. We thought, 'this is great let's have lots of kids'. Then we had a second who is completely feral! She's is also brilliant and funny and sweet but she screamed in her sleep every night until she turned two, she breaks everything she gets her hands on, dumps toys out and walks away, she is as likely to headbutt you as kiss you and we are exhausted and happily done with two. I didn't get how hard it could be until she arrived, but we still adore her and have a lot of fun with her too. I hope you have a lovely, calm and easy baby for your second!

Oh totally but, again, that's not something I can relate to: I feel like I've got more of a zest for life now than I've ever had. The only difference is, now I'm older, I don't feel the need to people please, so all the things I am doing now I genuinely want to do. That includes clubbing, travel etc, etc...

As they say: 'You don't stopping raving because you get old, you get old because you stop raving!'

It’s like people that say they no no one that votes this or that, or laughs at him or her or that likes their job. Whatever.

For most of us, the “people we know” is a pretty small drop in a very large bucket.

I for instance could just as easily say I don’t know anyone that’s heard of this individual, and that those people are parents that are certainly not joyless or dead behind the eyes. I can reasonably imagine these same people have had many moments when parenthood had them against the ropes. Any many more when they didn’t. Ask them on any given day and you’ll simply get a different response.

Because being a normal human being without supernatural powers, I was not able to see into the future 🙄

The fight or flight thing really resonates with me. My brain is constantly whirring and in a state of sensory overload, and even sleeping until I wake up naturally seems like an unobtainable luxury. I seem to spend every second of my day repeating the same 5 phrases over and over, making food, cleaning, or doing the bedtime routine. It’s very hard to describe the level of monotony and grinding drudgery to anybody who hasn’t had children.

It’s ups and downs and I love it but I do look at childfree people in work and think it must be nice to get home and not have to organise uniforms, check homework, worry about getting them to school on time, making lunches etc etc etc. But then on the other hand I love catching up on our days, love our hugs, laughs, football matches. I love the people they’re becoming. I think you moan as a mum but would never trade it in and simultaneously can see how someone childfree would say that’s the right choice for them too. Nobody needs to say one is better

I had my tubes tied in my early 20s and lives been great.

I go anywhere I like whenever I like. If I want to fly to Mauritius tomorrow I can and I don't even have to tell anybody. I can sleep til noon if I feel like it. I have nice things all over my house and I don't have to worry about them getting damaged or broken. When I tidy up it stays tidy all day. If I don't have any media playing my house is silent and I absolutely love peace and quite. I don't have to answer endless questions, listen to whining shouting or crying and I don't even think about anybody else.

I see parents struggling with the realities of children and think it's some weird scam, where everybody who has them only says the good bits followed by 'its hard though', which really undesells the drudgery of raising children.

The best thing women can do for women is not having children. It's like a nasty trick society has played. Ties you to the father possibly forever, financial/career hit, no free time, wrecks your body, huge amounts of stress, huge amounts of labour.

And while nobody thinks it will happen to them, there's no gaurentee at all that your kids will even like you. They could grow up to be a violent aggressive incel who won't ever move out, or cut contact completely deciding their childhood was toxic, they could be a person you fundamentally disagree, a heroin addict, anything really.

It's a lot of risk for little reward.

For me having kids would have made me, and more importantly them, miserable. I did actually get pregnant a couple of times, but miscarried. Whilst I’d not have had an abortion and would have sucked it up if I hadn’t lost the pregnancy, I didn’t feel anything but dread at the thought of being a parent.

I can’t imagine anything worse, for me, than the company of kids, the conversation with and about kids, playing with kids, watching kids tv etc etc. I am not, nor have I ever been, interested in anything child centred.

my sister in law is an early years teacher and kids flock around her and she knows what to say and do with them. I just feel lost and uncomfortable. Give me a puppy though….🤣

Im happy with my choices, just like my sister in law is happy with hers and my nieces who are adorable btw but also adult now. I admit I’m a better aunt to adult nieces than I probably was when they were young. They seem to love me so 🤷‍♀️

but you can’t opt out of parenting your own kids for the first 20 years or so can you. And that’s what I would have found dull, boring and miserable. I know people will say it’s different when it’s your own etc etc, it I know me and I know that the miscarriages were a blessing for me.

The trouble is there is still so much judgement about women like me in society and that can make us defensive because who wants to be called immature, selfish, irresponsible and living some kind of pointless life. I don’t btw. I have a boring responsible job in the NHS and an elderly father to care for, plus a dog and friends. I can see how some people, parents or not, may look at my life and think that the light has gone out of my life, but it is just that: my life and I’m happy.

The best thing women can do for women is not having children.

@Anotherparkingthread What should women who want to have children do though?

Should they make a life choice that isn’t what they want?

I completely respect someone’s decision to be childfree. In our immediate families, DH and I are the only ones who chose to have children, none of the siblings have. It’s not because we’re the eldest and they looked at us and thought no way, we’re younger ones! 😂 We all chose the right paths in life for ourselves. As @stclementine wisely says, she’s happy with her choices just as her SIL is with hers.

it sounds as if you’re suggesting that a Mum like me should have made a different life choice, even though I’m happy with my choice. My children are 19 and 16 - if I still feel that it was the right life choice for me, surely it was?

I wanted kids but couldn’t have them. That made me miserable for a while. I’m happy now though, being older and wiser.