*deep breath* I regret having children.

[BadGround]

Ive namechanged clearly... even so, writing the title took me about 20 minutes... but it still doesn't sound wrong.

I regret having my ds. He is 15 months old now, and while I'd go to the ends of the Earth for him, there is not a day goes by that I don't kick myself.

It is not PND. I am not depressed or 'down'. No doubt someone will try to convince me it is, just like unhappy victorian ladies were labelled as mentally ill when they were desperately unhappy with the lives society gave them. I am perfectly happy with my life, or rather, I was. My son is perfectly lovely, and my dh is extremely helpfull. I adore them both. And no, I wasn't pressured into it, either. I was in love with the idea. I thought it was what I wanted. Society told me it was what I wanted ,right?

I would never give up my ds, and I look forward to giving him a loving environment to grow and learn... but if there was a way to reverse time, and politely, painlessly engineer him out of existence, I would. Honestly.

It never occurred to me that I had any choice otherwise. Nobody ever tells you that you have a choice. I miss my old life intensely, and the thought that I had every right and opportunity to keep it that way makes me sick. It's got to the point that these thoughts don't make me feel guilty anymore.

I miss my relationship with my partner. I miss what we did together. I miss being able to walk out the front door of my own bloody house without a second thought. I miss having the money to spend on the odd nice thing. I miss having a house full of our nice, beautiful, adult things. I miss being able to ponder freely over my career options.

Honestly, truthfully, does anyone feel the same? I don't mean those who are unfortunate enough to have depression... does anyone actually endure cold, hard regret? Even just sometimes?

I don't want help. I don't even know what I want. I don't think I could describe myself as feeling "desperate". I guess i just want to feel like I'm not a hideous monster all on my own.

I know I'll probably get a million identical replies of "It's sometimes hard... but I wouldn't change them for the world!!!". Although, yeah, I'm happy for you.

Please don't hate me, is what I'm really trying to say. I actually consider myself quite a loving person.

Don't really know how to end this. Over to you.

BadGround, if you are real and not a journalist, then your poor, poor little boy. I hope he never ever finds out how you feel.

He, like every child, deserves a mother who wants him, not one who would like to painlessly engineer him out of existence - that just chills me to the bone if it's how you really feel. How anyone can actually write those words about their own child I don't know.

Please try and embrace what is wonderful about your life with him- and I am sure there are many things if you try to see them rather than focussing on your old life - rather than seeking validation online for your feelings of wishing him into non existence.I only hope that his father does not feel the same way as you.

You cannot stop him from existing now, so asking strangers online to tell you it's OK to feel this way is not the right thing to do by your son, loving him is - he needs you.

i've made the choice not to have children and i have to say i'm 100 percent happy with it. yes my OH's parents might be disappointed - but they already have grandkids and sorry, they won't be the ones raising them.

even though we aren't mega wealthy (i earn well, husband average wage) we have a fantastic lifestyle that just wouldn't be possible with children. we have hobbies, keep fit, eat well, travel and are planning a six months in UK six months in overseas property (which we have now bought) living pattern. this stuff just wouldn't be possible with children.

the things i will miss - holding a child that is genetically mine in my arms and just the curiosity of what that child might be like.

the things i won't miss - everything else about the responsibilities of parenthood including stressing about schooling, childhood illness, teen angst, having to fit your entire life around school hours and children's hobbies, the absolute expense of modern day child rearing, the boring conversations about bringing up children, the parental competitiveness, the sense of being stuck and trapped.

i think people who have children and raise them well are amazing. i just don't want to do it myself.

notaskiver, I don't think what you have said is any help at all fo anyone who is going through what the OP is.

Having been through similar myself, I am sure that she is not deliberately trying not to love her son. I'm sure aslo, she looks after him well, and never mistreats him. But you can't make yourself love your baby. For most mothers, even though they have bad days when they find it hard to cope, they still love their babies, and that's what makes it worth carrying on. But for a few of us it doesn't happen, at least not straight away. That's not to say that it will never happen.

When ds was born, I didn't feel any surge of love for him really. Obviously I looked after him as well as I could, and didn't want him to come to any harm. But every day I woke up in tears, just wishing that I could turn the clock back to the time before I was pregnant. I knew there was no option - I couldn't "send him back", so I had to get on with looking after him. I never wanted any harm to come to him - I knew it wasn't his fault that he had been born to a woman who couldn't stand babies.

Gradually, as he became older, he stopped being a baby, and turned into a little boy, and then I was able to love him. He is now 10, and I love him so much, I could never be without him. I will probably never tell him how I really felt when he was a baby. It's not his fault, and yes he does deserve a mother who loves him, but I wasn't able to do that when he was a baby. But if someone had come and said that to me at the time, I would have felt even worse than I already did.

I never had a second child, and the main reason for it was that I didn't want to inflict myself as a parent on another baby.

Some people may quetion why I became pregnant in the first place when I really disliked babies. Well, I naively assumed that many women weren't really keen on babies in general, but that it would be different if it was my own. Sadly, this wasn't the case.

But the positive thing I can say to others who feel the same way as I do, is that for me at least, the feelings I had disappeared as ds became older. If you had asked me when ds was a few months old if I regretted having him, I would have said yes. If you ask me now, it's definitely no - it's the best thing I ever did.

NotASkiver, I do love my child, I just do NOT love being a mother. There's a huge difference. I'm sure even NormanTheForeman wouldn't say there was no love at all in the first year, as truly dreary as they may be.

We don't hate our kids, we just wish we'd known.

Also @ Smashing: Hope you don't get flamed. I'm glad you feel able to say stuff like that because it needs to be said, and I respect you for it. :)

BadGround, I was just in such a bad place in the first year or so, I really didn't know whether I loved my ds or not. It was so hard. But I
well and truly know I love him now.

I think I did love him in a way when he was a baby - but hated my own life so much it was hard. I don't know, it's so difficult to explain to people who haven't been there.

Anyway, I love him to bits now. I've come out the other side, and hope you do too, OP.

I too am going through this at the moment. I have a 3.4 year old ds, and an almost 3 week old ds and it has all come flooding back just how much I hated this with my first baby.
I regret having my second baby and question why I got pregnant in the first place. I have been able to share my feelings with my dh and my health visitor and am getting the help I need.
I just don't enjoy this stage and love my older ds so much and feel our relationship started to blossom when he was around 18 months old.
I have been told to take each day as it comes and find this is really helping as if I think too far into the future it makes me want to leave and never come back. Today I am literally taking each feed, nap etc as it comes.
I m glad that I've been able to admit how I'm feeling and not to have been labelled as having PND. The way some of us feel and have felt about our children is valid and must never be written of as depression.
Maybe we could use this thread to support one another through these hard times. OP I will pm you now to see if you would like to do this

Probably get flamed for this but...

You all need a stepladder to get over yourselves, you really do. It's just a lot of 'me, me, me' and I pity your children.

that's such a shallow crass comment GAG. It doesn't really add much to the proceedings does it. If you don't understand at least have the decency to keep your judgements to yourself.

Because I think sitting about thinking 'Where has my life gone?', 'I hate my life' to the detriment of your life now is deeply unhelpful. What purpose does it serve?

Badground, I've skimread, but just wanted you to know that things do change. I'm at the stage where my kids are secondary school age and older, and it's wonderful. Hang on in there and there will be stages where you thoroughly enjoy your child's age and stage, and the regret will go. I understand you.

There's always one person who has obviously never suffered from the feelings most of us have and feels the need to pass comment on something they have no understanding off. Nice comments GAG. Very helpful comments. Bet your a really supportive friend in real life huh?

oh s*d off GAG. The women on this thread are doing exactly the opposite, they are considering their lives and getting on with them. I think you must have a huge amount of personal conflicts yourself, probably around your own motherhood, to need to lash out at other women who are being honest and supportive with eachother.

GAG, what's the alternative then? Sit by ourselves in denial? Suffer resentfully in secret? Make ourselves into another smiling face, just like the ones which convinces us that everything would be ok in the first place?

I get the feeling you just want a fight, so, whatever. In the meantime, I guess I'll just sit here and 'get over myself'.

Right. There are two threads with the same topic on MN are the moment, but they are different in tone and I've probably posted on the wrong one.

However, to clarify, I have every sympathy for those with PND, attachment issues, or feeling generally unsupported as a mother. I agree that the much touted concept of motherhood as route to ultimate bliss/ competitive sport is deeply harmful to women.

But, hearing women wish their children out of existence, just because their life is less fun now, that I cannot agree with and I can't pretend it's healthy either, for the mother or the children.

Oh go away GAG. All of us are doing the very best we can for our kids, there is so much love being expressed here. What we are saying is that the lifestyle with kids can be at best tedious, at worst really depressing. I have seen my career slide, have gone from plenty of money to money being really tight, my relationship with dh turn into one of cohabiting carers not lovers, and our social and cultural life vanish.

What keeps me sane? Primarily a network of friends with kids of similar ages - absolutely essential. The odd night out when we can afford a babysitter. And the thought that this too will pass...

My kids are nearly 3 and the other is 4 months. Love them to bits but the 3yo is very demanding and frequently ill and the baby is not letting me sleep much.

Sometimes when I smile my face feels odd as I haven't done it for so long.

BUT I don't regret it, I know I would feel enormous sadness had I decided not to have them, I am only going to live once and this is a life experience I want to have so I will accept the crap and make the best of the good bits (as others have said, the older ds1 has got the more fun he becomes)

But I haven't got PND, and I don't think I should need to convince people around me that I'm mentally ill in order to make them feel that I deserve some support.

True, maybe my situation isn't ideal, for DS or for myself, but saying "Well, just stop it!" isn't going to help! Perhaps the way I'm feeling IS harmful (I don't think it is necessarily) but there's more to it than being told to 'snap out of it'. What do I do? Flip a switch? Find my 'reset' button? Dose myself up to the eyeballs?

And I've stopped imagining that it's a problem in my life. It's a problem in society.

Joan Smith in the Independent on Sunday yesterday said something which I felt to be very illuminating.

I paraphrase here but it was along the lines of that because in the past women had NO choice over whether they had children or not (pre-contraception), the assumption was that every woman wanted children.

I don't think that every woman is maternal at all.
The sooner this is accepted the better, frankly.
The world is overpopulated enough as it is.

But for those who ALREADY have children who regret doing so, I honestly do not know what to say.
Perhaps the grass is always greener?

Oh OP what a honest ans heartfelt post. There is nothing wrong with mourning the lost of your previous life, I think if I had acknowledged this and accepted things had changed I woulnt have OND so bad for so long.

Your DS is at an difficult age and you and your DH will be able to get some bits of your old life style back as he get older. In some instances you will find ways of doing the same things but in different ways.

In some ways Children give you a 'free pass' to relive and enjoy lots of childhood stuff and have fun in ways adults cant.

OP and others who have the feeling of regret is this related to being unable to bond? My experience was different and just trying to understand.

I also think it doesnt matter how much you read or prepare and talk to others nothing can prepare you for how you change emtionally and physically and your life.

Whilst I felt very bad when I had PND I was still capable of feeling much love for DS even though I was desperately unhappy. So I believe OP and can understand how she is capable loving her DS yet feeling bad for herself.

GAG, I despair at your comments. Why are you looking at a thread in 'mental health' if you have no understanding or compassion?

Bad, I haven't felt exactly what you feel so won't pretend I did or that anyone who hasn't is in a position to advise on it.

But I did have horrific PND, and thought I was the only one in the world who mourned my old life so bitterly. I used to sit around at lunch with all these purring NCT mums saying how much more fun this was than working and I wanted to eat my own head because it was so intensely more boring than working and I missed my old life like I was in bereavement. And felt I was the world's lousiest mother. And all that self-pity just ground me down. So I don't think GAG's point is as off as some other posters did. i think she has a point.

You want to feel better, I presume? You don't want to carry on regretting something you can't reverse? You'd like to feel as happy and engaged with life as you used to?

One day I realised, this was it. The old life had died and would never return. If I was to feel happy again, the only way to do it was to make a new life that I also loved. Entirely different but equally absorbing and enjoyable family life. It worked. I stopped feeling like I was acting when we had fun as a family and started to really enjoy it. I taught my kids a massive vocabulary and very dry sense of humour and irony from the youngest age, so we could entertain each other. They make me howl with laughter, genuine laughter, often, every day, as much as my old friends did.

And now when I see my single friends and realise all they do is drink far too much and bleat on about blokes and job dissatisfaction, I realise I'd far rather be with my kids who are passionate about life and what they do. They're more positive, uplifting, optimistic, creative, humorous company.

The great thing about feeling the way you do is that your kids grow older and since you appreciate adult company, things can only get better. They'll be grown up for far longer than they are babies. So you're likely to have a healthier, happier relationship with them than those earth mums who can only relate to helpless babies. The toddler years are oppressively dull for people who like adult company. But they pass and your memory deletes them pretty swiftly. Soon your DC will be at school. Maybe you'll return to work. And a new life begins. The toddler life is an interim blip.

The new life will never be the same but it can be far better than the one you mourned. We do, as GAG says, have to face up to the irreversible change and build on it. Make something new, but something we genuinely want, from it. It's a chance to start from scratch. That's hard to believe when the entire day sometimes seems to be locked into battles about nappies or tantrums about car journeys, but if you start to make plans now for when DC's older, for stuff you'd like to be doing in a year or so, and meanwhile enjoy as much of the day to day as you can, then you're on the way to feeling happier.

What a fantastic post Menagerie.

OP, I feel the same. The 'cope no matter what' mentality of the first few months is well and truly over.

Parenting seems totally thankless, with a baby who is easily bored, often grumpy, and not remotely cuddly. My relationship with DP nearly broke down completely, and, although it's now on the mend I really identify with whichever poster described their relationship as 'co-habiting carers'.

The idea of waiting months or even years before this becomes enjoyable is totally at odds with my mentality of not wasting your life. Ironically though, I feel totally defeated and unable to take any initiative to improve my lot. I feel totally overwhelmed and that I have ruined my life.

Brilliant menagerie