To think having children makes women miserable?

[missylissy9]

I’m only in uni and nowhere near having children but reflecting on my own family it’s something I think about a lot.

Growing up my mum did everything around also having a demanding full time job as a teacher. She did all cooking, cleaning and organising of pretty much everything in the house and for me and my sister. My dad played golf every Saturday and Sunday and sometimes during the week and so I spent nearly all my time with her meaning me and my dad don’t really have a relationship. He never really had the patience to deal with children and would regularly get angry at us for completely normal child things e.g spilling a drink or not being able to stop laughing at the dinner table. It’s like walking on eggshells.

Despite finishing work at 4 everyday he would come home and relax all night despite my mum returning much later, doing all cooking and then having no time to herself as she had marking to do later.

My parents don’t really have a relationship, my dad seems to get annoyed by anything she does or says. They only time they spend together is when we eat dinner as a family, nothing outside that. He’s told her before he’s not interested in anything to do with her work and never asks her about her day or how she is. Any extra tutoring she used to do he used to get annoyed at for not spending enough time with us (ironic I know).

I’ve always wondered why she didn’t kick him out, they’re not married and she owns the house completely on her own, but maybe it’s not that simple and I’d never have the heart to ask her. I have no doubt she loves being a mother and we have an amazing relationship that I wouldn’t trade for the world but I can’t help but think she’s spent most of my life deeply unhappy, and continues to now.

I guess my question is can you ever guarantee you won’t end up like this before becoming a mother, no matter how amazing your partner is before? Talking to a lot of my friends it seems common (most either divorced, unhappy or rich enough to hire people to not have the problem) but despite having always wanted kids I can’t help but think staying single would be better? Or is it just something you have to sacrifice?

I love my DC never was miserable. Wanted more. Wouldn't change a thing.

Sometimes, yes. But many women are extremely happy and fulfilled having children.

The way to guarantee you won't end up doing that is to not do it.

My partner had a miserable upbringing and I had the polar opposite and he was determined this wouldn’t happen to his kids and he is a brilliant dad

raising kids and juggling life is hard work there’s no denying it but I wouldn’t change it - not a chance.

You have a thread claiming you're expecting your 4th child. Which is the truth?

I was somewhat on the fence about having children - I wasn't great with other people's and had limited experience with babies etc but it's the best thing I've done. Before my career was my identity, whilst it's still important and I'm still ambitious, my children are the best thing in my life. Choose their other parent carefully so it's teamwork but for every difficult moment there's so many amazing ones, I wouldn't change it for the world, from a middle aged mum of two.

Don't choose an arsehole for a partner, would be step 1. Step 2: if a perfectly reasonable partner turns into an arsehole leave them.

Sounds like your dad makes her unhappy not you, relationships are complicated maybe she didn't want to split for a multitude of reasons.

He sounds bloody miserable though.

Awkward 😆

I have a husband who is incredibly involved as a father. He cooks, he buys kids clothes, coaches hobbies for each of them (I do all this too) takes a personal interest in our children as people.

I have 3 children who are largely grown up but are my favourite people in the world, I have a busy well paid term time only job that I love but which I could never have sustained without my husband.

I’ve tonnes of hobbies and interests.

My absolute favourite thing in life by far is being a wife and a mother. Nothing else has been as rewarding.

You and your mother were shafted. I’m really sorry about that.

I don’t know about your parents but I will say that I get annoyed by the portrayal of mothers in programmes like Motherland and Outnumbered - always harassed, always irritated, always stressed. Is that what women have to become when they have children?

Ah @missylissy9 I always felt the same. The happiest adults I saw when I was younger were women who were childfree or men who had kids and wives who did all the hard stuff for them so they could just play.

Firstly no you can never guarantee you'll feel any way about anything in future. But you do have an instinct. Think of it this way - what do you want to do when you graduate uni? Maybe you want to be an architect for example. What makes you think you'd like architecture? Maybe you know yourself enough to like buildings and drawing and engineering. Or maybe you know you'd hate being a nurse. Because you know you hate sick people and hospitals, for example. I think it's pretty similar to think of parenthood like that, a job, that some people hear the job description of and think 'yes amazing, bring it on' and others think 'hell no' and that's fine.

Personally I was in camp hell no and for various reasons ended up having 2 kids. My hell no instinct was pretty spot on at first - I hated looking after babies and changing nappies etc. I did it and was very sweet to my lovely kids but god it was bo-ring and not for me. But what I didn't realize was 'parenting' isn't just one thing because parenting a baby is a different job to parenting a toddler which is different to a teen or an adult. It's almost like you cycle through nurse > architect > HR professional in terms of how different each of the jobs are. Turns out I didn't like parenting babies but the job of parenting big kids (which is mostly for me doing sports, reading books, eating snacks and endless banter) is a really good fit for my skills and I LOVE it. It makes me happy. I hope parenting teens is also fun. I think parenting adults will be too.

It’s not the children making women miserable it’s the shit men they chose to have kids with.

Of course you are being unreasonable. Having children makes many women happy. You are basing your comments on one example. And that example is about your parents relationship not about how your mother having children. Also remember it's impossible to judge a relationship from the outside. Your mother's thoughts might be completely different from yours
Of course there are no guarantees there never are in life whatever you do. But having children is the best thing that ever happened to me.

The lesson here is not that motherhood makes life miserable. The lesson is that you need to choose your life partner very carefully, it's probably the biggest decision you make as an adult.

Someone who is kind, someone who respects you, who works hard as well. People get worse as they age, not better. Don't pick a man because he's handsome and fun hoping he'll mature once kids come along

Having shit partners makes women miserable.

Not rocket science is it?

Having a child is the single best, most important and most meaningful thing I have done in my life. He's a joy (and sometimes a challenge) and I personally would have been miserable if I had been unable to have children.

I only have one though and most of the women I know who have two or more seem to be struggling and less happy.

Why do posters forget that their previous threads can be found easily?

In this case I'm genuinely confused why the OP states she is in uni with no kids, when judging by her other posts she has atleast 3 kids.

Baffling.

Are Hugo, Henri and Louis not bringing you joy OP?

Well that's silly you are accusing her of just using one example and then you're just using your own experience to say she's wrong.

Parenting makes many people very happy. It also makes many people very unhappy. The OP is asking whether she can know in advance which camp she'd be in.

And honestly I think most people do have an instinct. I have friends who are intentionally child-free because they know they'd hate parenthood and I think it's great that these days people can be empowered to make that choice rather than feeling pressured into having kids and then being miserable rubbish parents.