Just a little wobble

[simb]

Generally I'm happy with my lot and accepting that children aren't in my future. I was always on the fence about having children throughout my 20s and 30s and more often than not felt relieved to be able to concentrate on myself and having lots of joyous experiences!

I'm child free by circumstance with an absolutely lovely partner who is so right for me. He doesn't want children (right from the get go) and I've accepted that. I really can see the benefit of my freedom and and I have a brilliant friendship group of both child free people and those who have children. In general I'm content with our decision. I live a rich full and happy life!

A couple of years ago I had a really big broody time which was very difficult for me and my partner but we came through it and I can say hand on heart that it is the right thing for us as a couple. I can also acknowledge the smaller part of me that perhaps would have liked to take the other path and love and care for a child/ children.

A good friend has just given birth and I'm just feeling so very very sad and wistful this evening. I literally feel pangs in my heart for the little family that never was and never will be.

I know that this will pass. Don't really know what I'm posting for! Just to type it out I think and acknowledge my little wobble and honour my feelings this evening.

Thanks for reading!

Someone I used to know had the Wobble. She & her husband agreed to wait a year & much to their mutual relief, it went after about 6 months.

Agree. But also to add, the gamble some people take is to not have children. For some of these people it works out for the best and others it is a choice they regret.
Point being, nobody here or in real life can tell the OP whether it would be best to remain child free or to have children. Only the OP can decide. I would think about the answers to these questions OP:-
If your partner suddenly had a change of heart and now wanted children, how would that make you feel?
If your relationship broke down and you became single tomorrow would you still feel confident in your decision to remain child free?

This is exactly my experience. Never wanted children until I had one at 37 and one at 39 and would have had more. I changed my mind not because I was broody but because all the things we had been doing in our 20s and 30s were not going to be the same in our 40s and 50s.

A close friend chose not to have children because her partner had a life limiting illness. A careful, considered decision that she made knowing that deep down she wanted a child but not at the price of separation.
She's approaching 70 now, her partner died many years ago. She has led a full and adventurous life, has lots of nieces and nephews with whom she has played a greater than usual aunty role. She's occasionally wistful about what might have been but wouldn't change it.

Oh I admit, I am not confident in my decision at all. I can certainly see a future ahead of me where I am alone without family and it upsets me deeply. But neither would I want to be alone with a child with additional needs, so knowing which side to pick is impossible.

Whatever choices we make, life is one big gamble for us all. I wish you well.

What happens if your child is born with or develops an awful health vulnerability? What if your child is a bully or a rapist or a layabout who steals from your purse to pay for drugs and gambling debts? Being changed to love someone unconditionally isn't always a good thing. And not everyone experiences this unconditional love anyway - then they have to live among the people who insist it happens to everyone.

There's a good reason fewer children are being born now that women can choose!

PND is a little different.. I had PND. I think we’re all here talking about the people who are saying they regret having children when their kids are older, maybe even adults. Not in the first months or so of giving birth and struggling.

I'm not saying women with PND or PND have regrets at all, many women with those don't have regret, but they can worry about accessing help because of how women are judged. Women cannot do anything that won't cause them to be judged, the only thing you can do is whatever you think is the best choice for you and what will make you happy, you can't ever make everyone happy and you can't ever make a choice that's not judged.

Bully, rapist, layabout, gambler, drug addict… I think ultimately all those come down to poor parenting. So I guess those people whose children ended up that way and then regret having children obviously should never have had them in the first place.
Health challenges and additional needs are a more grey area. I can see how that could lead to regret. I’m talking more about the people who regret having children because it changed the course of their life (obviously). How would those children feel knowing their parents wished they don’t exist?

You give up a lot to have kids and many people don't even particularly enjoy the company of their adult children. Every awful or even just disappointing human being had parents and all that expense (financial and spiritual) won't necessarily pay off for everyone.

I think you must be quite young or quite oblivious to the outside world to believe this

I think things like not being able to exercise or see friends when you need to are huge things that are treated like it's nothing (and yeah it's usually mums who give those up the most).

I think understandable to feel sad because you don't know what the other side is like, but you're only imagining the nice moments. How nice would it be to have a cute baby, or a child saying I love you. But the reality is it's hard and if you're not 100% in on it I think you'd resent it. You need to be all in in my opinion because it does completely change your life. Better to regret not having a child than having one. And I say that as someone who loves having my daughter and wouldn't change it for the world.

How old are you? Could you still have one?

After being ambivlent about it for years (my brother has a severe intellectual disability) I decided that I would not have children. But I did mourn it. It took about 3 days of ugly crying to let go of the idea of being a mum, or a grandmother, and now all my friends are parents knowing that I won't have that to share with them.

I still get the occasional wobble epecially around cute fat babies, and I would be open to adoption/foster when I have built a suitable environment for children.

I don't agree. One of my friends has 6 children - 5 boys and 1 girl. One of the boys gas been in trouble since he was around 16 (he is in his 30's now). He has been in prison twice and is a drug addict. All his siblings have good jobs and are settled with partners and children. So not likely to be due to poor parenting.

Another friend has 4 children and again 1 of them is a heavy drug user, been in trouble with the police regularly. The others have caused no problems at all. She is at her wits end with the problem one. She has said she would not have children if she could go back in time

You sound a lot like me. I am also childfree by choice and very happy with my life but I do tend to have a wobble with pregnancy and new baby announcements.

I find that the sadness doesn’t last long, and I feel better quite quickly as I remind myself of how hard it is, and how terrible I am without sleep. Even visiting a newborn I am usually relieved to come back to my quiet home afterwards.

I thinks it’s normal to wonder about how our life could be with children. I think I’ll always have a parallel imaginary life in which I have children, but likewise if I’d had children then I may at times wonder how our life would’ve been if we stayed childfree.

There's a good reason fewer children are being born now that women can choose!

The reason the birthrate is falling is nothing to do with contraception.
Women have been able to choose with certainty since the 1960s, so 60 years. Longer with less reliability. I was born in the 50s and because there was contraception my parents chose to have two children as did most people. I know many women my age who chose not to have children. It's nothing new.

Women are having fewer children for many, many different reasons.

I think yes and no. I think the culture has changed enough that women of my age (Millenials) actually do have the choice in much larger numbers than before to be child-free. We also have a lot more debt and education availble to all levels of society than people in the 60-80s did.

I think when women become more comfortable with the choices about having children make, and get used to having the conversations with men about their expectations re: childcare before they have kids, I thinkthe birth rate will rise again.

"Bully, rapist, layabout, gambler, drug addict… I think ultimately all those come down to poor parenting."

The whole nature vs nurture thing passed this poster by.

The reason is because a lot of women don't want to have children. Or have one to see then realise they don't fancy more.

It is only in my lifetime that women have been able to choose socially acceptable, full lives that don't involve being nursemaid to others.

The Scandinavian countries offer essentially full equality and extensive affordable childcare but the birthrate is still very very low.

This is my son's situation. He's fine.

I hope this is helpful, but I just wanted to reassure you that many people who chose to have children also have that panicky sense of watching their other potential life (often, for women, the one where their professional and earning potential continued to be respected and fully realised) sailing away too.

There is no right way to live and whatever we choose comes with major drawbacks as well as huge benefits.

I find great joy in my children but have days where I cry bitter tears of loss over the person I was when I wasn’t a mother. I liked her a lot. I miss her.