Guilt about my parents

[ManchesterBea]

Hello,

I wonder if anyone can help, I'm approaching my mid 40s, and I'm happy childfree by choice, I've experienced a few pangs over the last few months, but mainly about a road less often travelled, and feeling like I've somehow fallen off the normal track. But nothing that makes me actually want children!

One thing I am really struggling with this massive amount of guilt that I've not been able to give my parents grandchildren, even though they have never even mentioned it. I just feel like I'm denying them that experience, and I'm somehow undermining the fact that they had children, and I just haven't done that. It's almost like I feel selfish, but also like a complete waste of space.

It's really strange, and I'm sure it's not rational, does anyone experience this?

I think this is extremely common. Even if the parents genuinely don't mind either way, there is significant social status in being a grandparent. And of course, many parents are keen to be grandparents too. It can be a huge source of grief and therefore guilt in many families.

I think the better way to look at it is that a fantastic set of grandparents will never make up for the harm caused to a child by having a mum that doesn’t want it.

When people call me selfish I think it’s the furthest thing from the truth, because I will never bring an unwanted child into the world. That, to me, would be the most selfish thing I could do. Refusing to do so is the opposite of selfish.

It must be hard to have parents who’d make excellent grandparents and feel that they should’ve had the chance, but you don’t owe them that experience and certainly not at the cost of a vulnerable human being.

No, it's not rational, especially as they have never even mentioned it

Why not have a chat with them about it?

I understand OP, but you cant live your life for other people. Having children is such a big thing that you need to really, really want them, it’s not fair on your or the child otherwise. Do you have any siblings? What are their views oh having kids or are you the only option for your parents to become grandparents?
your parents might be disappointed that they won’t have GC (and if they are it’s good they aren’t vocalising that to you), but even if you did have kids it doesn’t mean that they would be entitled to be a part of their lives, or maybe they wouldn’t want to have as active a role as you would like to them (as there are numerous threads on MN about!). You never know how these things might have gone so you can’t beat yourself up about it.

One thing I am really struggling with this massive amount of guilt that I've not been able to give my parents grandchildren, even though they have never even mentioned it. I just feel like I'm denying them that experience, and I'm somehow undermining the fact that they had children, and I just haven't done that. It's almost like I feel selfish, but also like a complete waste of space

Where do you think that message comes from? it's clearly not from your parents, so is it friend, family, society at large?

Can you actually talk to them about it? I'm struggling to see why you're 'undermining' the fact that they had children, as if it's some massive sacrifice of themselves that you have to pay back. A lot of people had and have children without really thinking about it because 'it's the thing to do,' or 'everyone around us is having children,' or 'we're married, of course you start a family, don't you?'

Your DP's wanted DC but it's not a debt you have to pay on. Surely nobody takes on the lifetime committment of parenthood to get DGC later? Every DC should be wanted for themselves, not for what you get in return. If your DP's have never even mentioned DGC what makes you so sure they even want them?

You can't possibly predict whether your parents would have been active and involved GPs. There are many examples on these boards of parents who make a big deal about the idea of having grandchildren, then back away when the child is born.

Thanks @fitzwilliamdarcy for this sound advice.

@Eyesopenwideawake Thanks, I think I will.

@Ladybirder I'm an only one but this is all so true.

Thanks @MrsDanversGlidesAgain its society at large I think. It's just there as a constant message.

@Daleksatemyshed This is also really good point thank you!

@maslinpan This is true.

Thanks everyone for giving me some perspective on this.

Reframe it this way, OP - that they might have been happy to be CF but were under pressure themselves to have a family, so they're not going to subject you to that.

My mother (as far as I'm aware) was laid back about me not having DC. I suspect that she'd have been happy to have been the same, but it was the 1950s

I think the most important thing to them would be that they have you . Especially if you have a close loving relationship. That’s special.

We really do, which also makes me worry that my mum will worry that I will never have that with a daughter.

Arg. It's all so not rational.

Thanks @MrsDanversGlidesAgain all these comments are helping.

I am surrounded by people who have gone down the more well trodden having a family path and don't have many people in my real life to talk to about it.

Your parents might understand about societal pressure - they only had one and in my experience there's always questions and a bit of pressure to have more than one. The other thing to consider is if it was that important to them to have a big family they'd have had more themselves. Talk to them, you might be reassured.

I will thank you ☺️ I know they thought a lot about whether to have a child and are not particularly conventional in many ways.

I think talking to them about it is definitely a good idea if you feel you can have that conversation. I'm sure they wouldn't want you to drag all this guilt around whatever the outcome.

I'm a grandmother but I would have been happier if I wasn't one. Not because it makes me feel old, I'm this old either way, but because raising children is hard and it's becoming harder and harder in this country. I also almost died having 2 of mine, I don't want that for my daughter, I was left traumatised but told to just get on with it. I also don't really feel that much for my grandchild. They're not mine, I don't live with them, they're just a baby of someone I love.

I want my children to have a happy and easy life, that is all.

It is absolutely not our job to make our parents into grandparents. They chose to have children - fine. But they don't get to choose for anyone else. Any parent who pressurises their adult child to provide a grandchild is really someone to dislike, in my view.

I’m also very happily childfree by choice. My mum struggled for many years to accept that I wouldn’t be having children, and always said I would change my mind when I was older etc etc. Despite me having always been very upfront & clear with her that it was never, ever going to happen, there has always been an element of denial on her part, and she was very upset & disappointed when she finally had to accept the truth.

I obviously regretted her reaction, and wished she could have come to terms with reality sooner & more easily, but I refuse to feel guilty about it. It’s my life, my body, my choice not hers and I made the right decision for me, my DP and our future. If that sounds selfish, so be it and I can’t be responsible for her reaction to something which is outside of her control.

I appreciate your honesty. My mother was never that keen for me to have children, I don’t think she enjoyed being a mother and she genuinely thought I’d have a nicer and happier if I didn’t have children. As it happened I couldn’t have them but I now feel it was for the best. My mum did eventually become a grandmother aged 85 - my brother became a father in his late 40s - but she’d been diagnosed with dementia by that time and I don’t think she got much out of it really.

I wanted to weigh in here on grandparental attitudes, despite having had a late child after I’d planned to be childfree, but having five siblings who are childfree by choice — my parents were of a deeply Catholic time and place where having children was not a choice, and as timid, conformist people, it would never have occurred to them to do otherwise.

All their life decisions have involved conforming. All their desires for us involved conformity. Their biggest ambition for themselves and us was for us all to do exactly what everyone else was doing, preferably two beats behind them doing it so they could check how it went. Because their world view is a small one (both from deprived backgrounds, timid, socially withdrawn, not given to friends), these ambitions involved us leaving school at 15, becoming mechanics if male and secretaries (if female), marrying in our early 20s, settling locally, and having a minimum of three children, after which their daughters become SAHMs, and a social life involving Bingo, Weightwatchers and discussing soaps.

Instead of which they got high-achieving academic children who all have multiple postgrad degrees, professional jobs, are mostly unmarried, don’t lead lives they recognise as in any way valid or valuable or recognisable. Choosing not to have children is a key aspect of this. They’re not proud of our actual achievements. Children are the only allowable achievement for them.

Me having one child just wasn’t enough ‘normal’. They think he’s a ‘lonely only’ and that it ‘looks weird’.

TL; DR? You can’t live your life according to what someone else regards as normal.