To think a lot of people regret having kids but are too ashamed to say it?

[ThatDenimLurker]

You can love your child and still mourn the life you gave up.

It isn’t just losing your old life. Children bring a suffocating worry. The dread of something bad happening to them can be overwhelming. And it never ends. I know several people whose adult children have broken their heart. For example, I know a couple whose adult son killed himself, another couple whose daughter died from alcoholism, and another whose adult son is a homeless addict with mental health problems. I also know a couple whose son has very bad autism and won’t leave the house. They are terrified what’s going to happen to him after they die.

The happiest people I know are all childless or single or divorced. Every friend I’ve ever had with a husband and kids has done nothing but rant about either the kids or the hubby. None of them seem genuinely happy (though many will claim to be).

No, I was desperate for children by the time I was a teenager. I knew I was made to be a mother. Sorry that sounds so twee. I do suspect more people regret them than we think though.

However, I do regret who I had children with, I do sometimes think if I could go back I wouldn't do it and would have waited for my now husband before having kids.

Oh another child hating thread on a parenting board… 🙄🙄🙄

Love my kids more than anything in the world. I have never regretted having them for one second.

And I enjoy my life.

I mourn the life I gave up but that is not the same as regretting having kids.

No idea if some people regret their children and don’t admit to it.

I know for sure that I don’t regret my children and I’m as sure as I can be that my friends don’t regret theirs. We do all have worries about the world we’ve brought them into, it seems so much worse than when we had them.

I think some people will always want to think others regret things in their life as it makes them feel better about their own, whether that’s having children, not having children or just about anything else. Those people aren’t usually happy with their choices or what life has dealt them. I think the happiest people are those who just crack on with their own life.

Maybe stop worrying about how people you don’t know feel about having kids?

Yes, I was thinking of that thread too!

Personally, as someone who was contently childfree till I was 40, and then had a child, it makes sense of a lot to read some parents’ responses to me as childfree and then as a parent of one child by choice as stifled expressions of their own regrets or mixed feelings. Some of it was certainly a (possibly unconscious) anger at being reminded their choices were choices, and that they could have chosen an entirely different life, and some of it was that my life looked suspiciously ‘easier’ to them, both as a non-parent and then as a parent of one.

This was obviously a tiny minority of people, and generally not people I knew well, but my impression was that they were people who hadn’t thought of marrying and having children as a choice, just ‘what you do.’ Being reminded that they didn’t have to do any of it by the presence of someone who’d suited herself, annoyed them.

That’s not fair. @KimberleyClark is talking about a current thread on the clearly-named ‘Mumsnetters Without Children’ board in which a few very self-righteous parents have arrived to say it’s in bad taste to have a thread about moments of relief at not having children on a parenting site. One wants to close down that board.

I was 21 when I had my first. I wasn’t in to anything people my age were doing and was pretty miserable before DS came along, so I’ve never mourned a life I never enjoyed.

Not at all. I was an only child which I hated,it wasn't deliberate. I vowed from about 13 I was going to have 6, I got pregnant at 18,that bit wasn't planned, got married this was the 1960s. I wasn't a heavy drinker, have never got drunk. Never felt that I was giving up anything. I trained as a nurse when she was 2,had wanted to do that since I was 8. Had 4 DKs,2 miscarriages and an early menopause. Maternity leave in the 70s 80s was 6 weeks after birth,not like today.

I haven’t read the thread and really don’t care if mumsnetters without kids want to post that. However, I remember when someone from that section posted a thread about why people have children in AIBU. None of the answers were good enough for her. She was very nasty to people about having children despite everyone being polite and respectful.When she was pulled up for it, she ran back to mumsnetters without children telling them she had been bullied ‘for not having kids’. 🙄 She wasn’t at all. She was being horrible about children and to parents on the thread, telling them their reasons for having kids didn’t make sense etc and rightfully got told that she was being horrible. MNHQ had to get involved, there were so many deletions, mainly OPs posts. I’m not sure if it got taken down in the end or if it’s still up. I do think there has been an increase in child haring threads since the board has existed which is a shame as I was one of the posters who added my support for it when it was requested.

I don't have suffocating worry.
They have turned out fine.
I moan but I wouldnt be happy single either.

It's a mistake to judge parents by MN. Those of us with decent kids wont obviously post here.

Not me - I have never regretted having them for a second, they are my everything and my life is so much better for having children

Actually I suspect most people feel their life is better and more fulfilled for having children but you can't talk about that!

Also the vast majority of kids are not autistic, alcoholic or addicts. That's really a very depressing way of looking at the world.

But that’s one person. The childfree are no more or less likely than parents to be unpleasant or mildly lunatic or addicted to online baiting of people.

I mean, I was a childfree adult for 20 odd years without doing that ‘breeders’/‘crotchgoblin’ rhetoric. Then I had a child. I’m exactly the same person, but with a child. I haven’t crossed some Rubicon where I’ve forgotten my reasons for not planning to have a child, or started to feel combative about childfree people glorying in their childfree-ness.

Oh gosh that sounds horrible!

Definitely! I don’t know anybody that regrets having had children

Yeah this. I've regretted having mine at various times but now they are grown up not at all

Although if I had life again I probably wouldn't have ghem

I have absolutely zero regrets about having children. If I had to do it again, I would - at the same age, with the same man and would have the same children.

BUT
I don’t have any of the challenges many go through with partners, health concerns (about DC or themselves), educational challenges, job worries, financial stability.
I enjoyed my youth - studied, travelled, partied, so I feel fulfilled from that aspect.

Yep. I’m so glad we stopped at one. We are a relatively high earning household, but raising a child (to the standards I would like) is disgustingly expensive in the UK. I’m not even vaguely surprised birth rates are falling. It’s not about not loving your kid, it’s accepting you are leading a different kind of life, so that you can protect and nurture them. If I had my chance again, I’d be childfree.

I think some people regret having kids.

I also think some people are unhappy full stop. They will blame it on various things - having kids. Not having kids. Being married. Being single. Where they live. Their job. Their lack of job. And on and on and on.

The fact is they’re just unhappy people and no matter what is happening in their life they will remain unhappy and blame it on this thing or that thing. When actually they’re unhappy because of themselves.

I love my kids and I had them young when I was full of energy and enjoyed it but if I was someone who waited until mid 30s to 40 to have kids i honestly couldn't think of anything worse im exhausted all the time and would of hated it. If I didn't have them when I did I wouldn't have them now.

No it wasn’t one person as unfortunately lots of the posters on the child free board joined in. It was a shit show. It was a talking point on other sites at the time. I only posted on to say the reasons I had children and was told by lots of child free people that my reasons were not good enough, they didn’t understand etc. One woman was told she didn’t justify her reasons for having children well enough. As if she had to. 🤪 It was really horrible.

The OP then said she was bullied because she didn’t have children and because she was ND. No one knew she was ND. Lots of parents here have ND kids, including me, so it was just bollocks. She was being nasty, her pals from the board joined in, they got caught out and mumsnet had to step in.

Also 65% agree the OP isn’t being unreasonable, on a parenting forum. You can’t argue with stone cold data 😂