I hate having kids

[Throughautomaticdoors]

I love them but I hate being a parent. It's dull, it's relentless, it's worrying, it's thankless, it's demanding, it's monotonous, it's exhausting.
I'd throw myself under a bus for them but being a parent has made me totally and utterly miserable. My first one didn't sleep through until he was 4 and a half and the second one is also a terrible sleeper. I'm starting to think it's something I've caused as everyone else I know has had at least one good sleeper.
I can't wait for them to grow up.

I'm a bit late to the party but I'm comforted that it's not just me.
I keep thinking "it'll improve once they can talk, once they can do things for themselves. Once they're at school, etc."
It doesn't. You just get new things to deal with.

I adore my kids (3.10 and 20 months) but some times it is so fucking hard.

No-one tells you this though? No-one tells you there will be times you will pushed to the absolute brink.

Even though the love never waivers the patience, the calmness, the compassion, the understanding can waiver.

I must say I have found it harder the older my 2 get. At the moment they fight, the older one hates the younger one in all his stuff but the younger one just wants to do what the older one does. One cries, the other cries louder. One screams the other one screeches louder, one lashes out and the other one whacks them back harder!!!

I work 3 days per week and I look forward to my work days.

How people cope with more than 2 is beyond me!!

I keep waiting for the magic to kick that everyone goes on about. In 7 years with ds I can think of about two or three really magical moments. I can't think of about twenty times as many shitty ones.
Honestly I don't know why anyone does it. Apart from hormones make us hell bent of reproducing and cloud our rational judgement. Oh and society lies.

I love this thread.
I was once heard to say to a childless friend, when both mine were under 5, that I couldn't think of any life situation that having kids made better. Going out for dinner? No. It's invariably a disaster with small kids.Watching telly? No because you have to watch what they want to watch or provoke a meltdown. Buying anything-house, car, even clothes? No because you have to get what's practical mostly and not what you really want. Seeing friends? No because you never get to actually speak to them. Going on a nice family day out? No, costs a fortune, one kid is invariably not happy with the choice of where to go, you are tired and would rather be at home.going on holiday? Expensive transfer of location where you still get to do all the work only with added panic about sunburn/kids drowning in pool/finding food they will eat.Family meals at home? No-war zone around healthy eating and table manners.Simply popping to the shop for some milk? Twenty minutes to get everyone out of the door, 5 mins In the shop being nagged for sweets, 5 mins dealing with the strop when said sweets are not purchased.I racked my brains to try and think of a situation that was made better by having the kids there. I came up with Christmas morning. Which was lovely. For about two hours before the kids got crabby about wanting what the other had got, became over tired and at which point I then had to go and prepare a large meal that both then said they didn't like (despite liking it a week before).
I love them.Massively. But it felt like a thankless task at times.they are a bit older now-different set of issues but now with added sass and snarky looks into the mix.

Many parts of being a parent is shit.
It's hard never being able to switch off, always thinking ahead.
Routine and drudgery, tears and tantrums, endless washing.
I have three, 14, 8 and 5 so it's easier now that it's not so full on and they don't need constant looking after, but it is hard in that with every age and stage comes different 'work' and responsibilities.
Even when you do get a night off parenting it's straight back to it so I suppose it can feel relentless.
There is very little time to yourself because somebody always wants something from you.
Obviously you dont fully understand this until you have them and probably just as well!! 😀

Even though the love never waivers the patience, the calmness, the compassion, the understanding can waiver.

This is one of the truest things I have read on MN. Encapsulates exactly how I feel in darker moments. I used to think I was a calm and compassionate person. but they have ways of pushing you to your absolute limits.

Yes myfriendnigel that's exactly it! nearly everything is harder and most of the time as a parent is spending time doing things you don't want to do.
Parks, soft play, freezing swimming pools, days out when they just end up whinging, walks every day otherwise they don't go to sleep at a reasonable time!
I would rather be reading a book and relaxing thanks or pottering around in peace but I get up, grit my teeth and do all these things because there is no choice!!

myfriendnigel. Brilliance. Motherhood encapsulated right there.

Just ringing my GP for an appointment to go back on the Pill and will buy DS anything he wants when he's older as an apology for being an only child. And for leaving him crying at nursery this morning because I just don't know any better way to handle that situation or explain it to him better. I'm too exhausted from squeezing myself into a 4' 11" toddler bed from 2.15 to 7am.

Fuck this parenting lark.

What a breath of fresh air this thread is. My two are 4 and nearly 3. 18 month age gap, thought it would be hard to begin with but then of course they would play together! But no. They do want to play together, all the time. But 99.5% of that play time is screaming at each other and fighting constantly over everything. But will they play separately? God no! It's such a thankless, endless soul destroying task being a parent (mother particularly, let's face it). I love them so much when I look at their peaceful sleeping faces (and then have a minor heart attack if they stir while I'm gazing at them... Please don't wake please don't wake....)

This....

I've been told that every moment is precious.
What, like the time ds2 decided he was going to climb on my lap just as I'd sat down with a hot cup of tea and I had nowhere to put it and no hand free to stop him.
He punched the underside of the cup as he struggled about and it went all over my face and in my eye.
It was a fresh cup. He's done it to a glass of red wine too.
This morning the only was I've been able to calm him down is playing silly tunes on a hideous wooden recorder thing we picked up on holiday. Nearly an hour I spent playing nursery rhymes on it, and it does seem to have worked but I want to weep.
When ds1 went back to school last week I missed him. Half an hour after I picked him up I was wondering why.

I remind myself how much I hated my shitty job. I did hate it. Plus, it's not all bad at home and the toddler still naps most days.
He's actually quite calm now, as long as I let him pull whatever books he likes off the shelf to "read". He's reading the Usbourne maths book I had high hopes of getting ds1 to use over the summer holidays. It came out once. He wasn't interested.

I think I'd quite like a few weeks in hospital with something relatively serious, but not fatal, but highly contagious so I'm in isolation. That'd be a nice break, unlike the camping holiday we had that was basically the same shit but in a different place. Canvas walls meaning that everyone can hear the tantrums and my ineffective methods of dealing with them. I wasn't going to be a shouty mum but they don't take me seriously until I'm practically purple in the face.

I love this (I absolutely love it) so glad I'm not the only one out their that would love to just stick the safety gate on and run out of the house and far away I love my DD something different but by god i preferred her when she wasn't 2 and didn't walk/talk or have a flaming attitude!! Sighs thank god I only have one. Symbol completely agree as well!! The walks. Parks. Swimming Eurgh!!! and all for her to still go to be at a normal time 7 but to be asleep at 11 and awake at half fucking 6!!!!!! Where the fuck does her energy come from!!!
I would be so much happier laid in bed until past dinner time getting up and actually having chance to get a long hot bath and then sit down and binge on my watching of greys anatomy in peace!!! (too be able to cuddle up to her dad without her being jealous and tearing me off of him to sit in the middle) the joys!!!

I was awoken at 5:50am by ds1 turning on my light and telling me his neck hurt. I sent him back to bed and he woke dd and ds2. Ds2 wouldn't get dressed. Dd had a massive strop over having to carry her own bag. Ds1 kept kicking a football in the house. Everyone was ragey about the perceived lack of options for breakfast. Ds2 cried at pre school and had to be peeled off me.

I've sat watching tv and eating shit. I'm so overweight but I deal with the stress in my life by eating. Mostly sugary stuff. My self esteem is at an all time low and my anxiety is sky high.

I had ds1 at 19 so I've not really had an adult life outside of children and Ido worry what I will do when the dcs don't need me any more.

I posted last week about how low I feel with possible pnd, the support I got was amazing. This thread and that one show how amazing MN and its members can be. Reading this at the mo is very cathartic before my drs appt tomorrow. It's not just me.

I love this thread because it reminds me how I used to feel all the time! I have 2 DC with a 15 month age gap and exH worked away when they were babies / toddlers. I was in a small village in a new country and it was the absolute worst time.

Now they are 9 and 10 it's a lot better most of the time. I've managed to squish down the dreams of freedom and travel by thinking that I'll do all that when they're grown up.

Now new DP wants children one day, but I just can't do it.

Me too sometimes. Most of the time.

Juan I know exactly how you feel! My DD has a serious medical condition I had her when I was 18 so my life has literally been dedicated to looking after her and taking care.
I take her out places so I don't completely loose my sanity but it absolutely hate it with a passion because in my head I'm always thinking what's gonna go wrong.
Wouldn't say that I'm overweight but I haven't lost the baby weight I've had for 2 years like all the other girls have. I also sit on the sofa and eat junk food mainly because I don't have the time to look after myself or cook decent meals in between being her mum and her full time nurse it's exhausting! Sometimes i wonder why and I have asked myself on more than one occasion why I didn't just give up in the beginning (and yes I mean let her die in comfort) but then I look at her and see how much we have both accomplished at getting her this far and it's all worth while.

I know PND is real, and some people have it. But a lot of mothers are just really fucking miserable because their lives are shite.

Thank you OP for having the courage to say this out loud. Reading everyone's comments makes me feel less guilty for feeling the way I do as it seems to be a universal feeling. When dd was born and people would ask me 'so how do you like being a mummy?' I wanted to scream at them that I fucking hated it and why had I ruined my life! I felt like I'd destroyed my lovely selfish life of going out when I wanted, eating and sleeping when I wanted and generally being me. It was a year before I was diagnosed with PND after feeling like I was going mad. It's taken nearly 4 years to finally get back to feeling like me, dressing like me and seeing life for what it actually is now. I'm not a 'natural mother' I hate going to the park, I'm crap at playing, kids parties send me into a cold sweat and I get walked all over by my stroppy dd but I do love her dearly and yes I do still miss my life before but what I always come back to is that life has changed and I need to make it work for me. I still have days where I could quite happily walk away from it all or rip my hair out but after reading this I guess it's just parenthood!

I went back to work when the DC were 2/1yo respectively and honestly didn't miss them for 6 months at least I still remember how wonderful it was to walk down the street alone, to sit on the train alone, to READ alone in the middle of the day with no-one screaming for my attention. These are things I get all the time now (WOHM PT) and I've started to take them for granted.

It does get better op

My baby just pooed in the jumperoo and I didn't realise so she carried on jumping for several enthusiastic minutes. This has caused the poo to burst out of the nappy, up her back and down the sides of her legs.
Awesome. So worth it though. So worth it.

YES! To all of this. I was shit at every job I had so I thought motherhood would be nice. I'm fucking knackered. I want a day off. No cooking, cleaning, standing in cheerios. I could poo on my own. No H moithering me when all I want is to lie in bed.

I love my DD to bits but surely 20 days holiday per annum isn't too much to ask?!

And thank you OP. Great thread

Maybe we need a new thread "Things in life that are improved by having kids"

I need to know the answer to this conundrum

The only thing I've got so far is parent and baby parking spaces. Fuck. That's bad.

Those of you with more than one DC, did you feel this way with the first? If so why did you have more?

Genuine question as I only have the one and find it so hard I don't know if I could do it again.