To wonder if raising children is worth it?

[Theresa88]

I have a 3.5 year old and 11 month year old. Everyday feels like a massive struggle and im just over motherhood, which is clearly not ideal when im only just getting started. Sometimes I regret the second child and regret having any at all. It feels like all this work and effort to raise them into a good person, and then they may just go off the rails as a teenager and/or decide not to have a relationship with you as an adult. Can someone tell me the hard years will pay off eventually? :(

Why do you need to cancel yourself?

You have to clicker train them early. Sometimes if you are persistent you can train them to even put washing in the washing machine or pick up your slippers but mostly they just pee on the carpet.

That's where I've gone wrong 😂

This is terrible advice to give you with hindsight, but I think it's relevant that your kids are the ages they are.

You had your youngest when the oldest was 2.5, so were pregnant from when your oldest was under 2.

That is, for want of a better word, "unnatural". In the wild, we usually only had children at 3-4y. Breastfeeding and a basic diet wouldn't have easily allowed a woman to carry a child more frequently, and young kids need a lot of attention, a lot of time to run around outside.

I know you can't exactly put them back, but it's not wrong of you to feel that you're not enjoying it, because we're not really designed to have children and look after them all by ourselves (and have jobs etc). So of course it's tough.

Oh, sorry, explanation needed.
Since the age 13, I called having kids "cancelling myself and my life".
Now 46, I didn't lose my freedom, my intact body, autonomy, money, ability to make a decision for next day, to be anyone and anything I want to be.
Speaking for myself, obviously.
The freedom of body and soul is everything.

Oh ok, fair enough. Glad it worked well for you.

The joy of parenthood is the Grandchildren, so you have the best bit still to come. Having your own children is 90% work and 10% fun, having grandchildren is 100% joy. Hang on in there.

Not everyone’s children will want to or be able to have children.

My DC don't want kids and I am fine with that.

Absolutely. And no one should be pressuring them either way.

Mine are 20 and 23, and if I do say so an absolute joy to spend time with. I sometimes wonder how lucky I am to have such kind, humble, funny, hard working kids.

My god there have been some lows though (teenage years!!! particularly DS when I honestly thought I might have to leave). I still worry about them all the time though (that’s the biggest downside).

But I honestly feel blessed to have them so stick with it, I definitely didn’t do things perfectly I can assure you so no idea how they seem to have turned out ok.

Same, I imagined it would be (for me) a life of drudgery.

I'm post-menopause and I never wanted kids, as far back as I can remember. The reason is simply that I didn't want to do all that domestic work day in, day out. I didn't want to do endless cooking and cleaning and dressing and all the rest of it, and have to stay in most nights, being tied to the dinner/bath/bedtime schedule. Also no interest in kiddie days out, kiddie birthday parties, and all the rest of it. And I also wasn't comfortable with the lack of control over the outcome, in terms of whether you'll have a child with health problems or one who ends up in prison etc.

But there is no perfect choice. My husband left me and I am lonely. The world is made for families, and most women are wrapped up in theirs.

I wish I HAD wanted children. But I simply didn't, and I couldn't make myself want them. It would have been much easier, in terms of fitting in with society, and much less lonely, to have wanted them and had them.

One thing I do know is that having young children is HARD work. I didn't need to have them to know that. So I don't think you are unreasonable, OP. I'm sure it will get easier.

How beautiful this description. I do feel the same with my teenage DC.

If it helps, my relationship with my mother went through a phase like this when I was about your daughter's age. It was a really difficult season for us and we both felt extremely disconnected and hurt by one another. I'm 40 now and we're very close, and have been for a while. As I got older, I was able to see her and have empathy for her as another woman just trying to do her best, outside of the experience of her being my mother. Now when I look back at my childhood, I see the young woman that she was and want to be that woman's friend. I don't know how to articulate it well. But hang in there and keep trying if you can. Likelihood is high that your daughter will come around. Wishing you both the very best.

That's kind ,thankyou .
Everything I said ,I'm just guessing she feels like that ..she hasn't actually said she does ..I'm just assuming
But we are not as close as I'd like ..and I feel resentment coming from somewhere from her .
I'd love to have a better relationship with her ..I just don't know what she needs me to do ,to achieve that

I hated the baby and toddler years, boring, relentless drudgery with no escape
from about 3 onwards I have loved being a mum

I enjoyed 3 teenage boys, having masses of their friends round the table, going to matches, even the constant feeding

now they are young adults and I love being with them, am incredibly proud of the decent, happy, hard working men they are

it gets better, I hated the stage you are at, it is definitely worth it

I'm so sorry. I bet my mother would have written something similar. As we don't know one another, I can't say whether you are/aren't doing this, but my mother looked back at the effort, energy, time, money, etc she put into motherhood and viewed it as having done a great job giving us a perfect childhood. She had a really hard time with two things; 1) she couldn't take accountability or hear my point of view anytime I shared feelings about my childhood that didn't match her memory of it or viewpoint of it, and 2) we are just very different women with very different priorities in life and she had a hard time with that. She couldn't relate to me and kept trying to guide me towards a life path that aligned with what she found relatable or what she had imagined for me. That path would have made me really unhappy. There was work I needed to do on our relationship, too. But ultimately, we needed to really hear each other out, acknowledge both of our feelings and lived experiences, and meet each other where we're at, rather than where we'd have liked the other to be. I hope some part of that can help!

I never really know what to say to threads like these. I don't want to say "it will get better" because for me it mostly did not feel like this even at the most challenging ages.

All i would say is - look for the moments that feel better and try to have more of those. That cuddle in bed when you read them a story & they beg for just one more book with you. If there are other times that really make you feel worse, is there any way you can get support with those from the kids father, friends, family etc.

Worth it how?? What are you hoping to get out of it. My 2 are teenagers now and we’re mostly still ok. Some difficult days/weeks/months and still lots of worry and anxiety about them but I regret nothing. We have many, many days and moments when they just fill me with joy and pride. The good heavily outweighs the difficult bits.
For me, the teen years are proving the most challenging and at no point have I ever wished my life different or think that they aren’t worth it.

Broadly worth it. But the teen years have had me questioning my sanity. The constant gaslighting and all the worry....and feeling every day like I am not doing a good enough job (especially reading threads on Mumsnet about everyone's amazing teens).
I loved the early years, so it was worth it for that.

I quite enjoyed the baby and toddler phase but im over the relentlessly boring cycle that is is life with children now and wish I'd never had any.

I'm wishing the next 10 years away.

I think people questioning the phrase "worth it" are being disingenuous. No one has children for purely altruistic reasons. Most people have them for company, laughs, a sense of being a close-knit family, and to have someone to look out for them in old age, even if they don't look after them directly.

Yes, I know I'm going to get blowback for that last thing, but I definitely think that the vast majority of parents want/expect their children to at least help them somewhat in old age even if they live far apart, by checking on them and maybe liaising with doctors and coming to help if they need to be admitted to hospital. I'm sure that lots of PP will say that they are totally fine without a second's help from their kids in old age and that they expect no care or help at all, but frankly I don't believe it of most, and I do think it's a slice of the decision pie for most. But we are not allowed to say it out loud, so 🤐.

I hated the 0-3.5 phase, felt very little joy and was extremely tired. but that hard work phase does ease off massively. On balance, yes worth it for me in order to experience the positives of motherhood, to feel pride in the shared task of parenting alongside DH and ultimately to have DS in my life.

I know and i feel for those that never get to be parents ( if they want to be) or Grandparents.