Being a parent - Would you recommend it?

[Cherrypicker85]

Not a parent yet.
I've seen several threads of parents struggling and being miserable.
I'm looking to hear the other side of things.
Has it overall been a positive experience for you?
Has it changed your life for the best and how?

[MsSquiz]

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but I don't regret it.

[YukoandHiro]

Poor you @Cheerfullygo4 - I'm expecting my second now and have only just found a balance with number one (multiple severe food allergies, eczema and other conditions that make life just generally tricky) and I do worry that we're about to enter a whole new level of hard times.

Would getting an ADHD diagnosis, for example, help you get some extra support? Have you tried contacting other SEN parents locally so that you can connect with people who genuinely understand and won't judge you or your child?

Good luck xxx

[managedmis]

Bear in mind as well that you can't pick the kid you're gonna get. They could be ill, disabled, the opposite personality to you, not look how you expected etc etc.

[Cheerfullygo4]

@YukoandHiro Just a basically non compliant child. Probably some ADHD/ ODD behaviours. Extended family totally disinterested and so I lack support systems as basically my child is disliked by friends and family. I have isolated myself I suppose to protect myself from feeling like rubbish, and to protect my child from realising no one likes him. My other children are popular and achieve. This child is lazy and argumentative. This behaviour also manifests at school so I have to deal with that too. We insist on and set boundaries and consequences that have worked with other children. This child just doesn't care and I am constantly on edge walking a tightrope to see how long they can behave until the next phone call. I love them so dearly and only want the best for them as much as my others. But they don't make it easy and I am defeated and down in the dumps all the time. But that's the way it is.

[Athrawes]

No

[YukoandHiro]

What was different @Cheerfullygo4? More high needs child? Or just total overwhelm to a level you couldn't have predicted?

[newsheadlines]

Not to go back to what I said in my previous post but I think my point and responses to it illustrate precisely the different experiences that people have.

We were the same as the OP - mid-late 30s, great careers and very much unsure as to whether or not we should have a kid. I love my son but for me the absolutely hardest thing is that basically you turn from being an independent and self-sufficient adult into a carer.

Ok, my child is only two but my experience is that having a kid plus a demanding FT job and four months maternity leave is that my time is basically split between working (and trying to perform the same as my child free colleagues which has been impossible during lockdown) and looking after DC. In the first year, DC didnt sleep and I only saw a friend maybe once. In the second, DC was ill every other week because of starting nursery and honestly no friend with a small child is going to want to see you then. Am hoping that this year will be easier........

The idea that I could go longhaul when my kid vomits after ten minutes in a car is a pipedream. I struggle getting them to their grandparents on the tube without getting off the train five times to stop them vomiting....

But I have other friends who travel longhaul all the time with their DC and they sleep the whole way. Thats just not my expeerience.

[KylieKangaroo]

@CalicoTheCat I felt exactly the same, I think being on the fence is worse than knowing what you want, I was consumed with ambivalence about kids for a long time and it actually effected me more than I realised!

[Cheerfullygo4]

I have 4 children. First three loved it. Totally and utterly regret number 4. Miserable and defeated.

[CalicoTheCat]

I'm in a similar position OP. Mid thirties and unsure about kids. I always read these threads hoping I'll find something which will convince me either way, but it's not going to happen is it - it really is such an individual thing.

It's so hard making the leap of faith not knowing whether it's going to be for you or not. Personally, I think a lot of my personality traits would make motherhood hard (introvert, impatient) but then I read things (mostly on here) from people saying that they didn't start really living until they had kids, and worry that I'd be making the biggest mistake of my life by not going for it.

No advice sadly, just solidarity!

[roundandroundabout]

There's a great quote from somewhere saying having children is like getting a tattoo on your face. You have to be as certain as you possibly can be that this is what you want.

[rhowton]

In hindsight, I wouldn't have children. I love my children but if I could choose to go back in time, and erase ever knowing them and would go back infertile, I would.

[unmarkedbythat]

I remember years and years ago, when a friend and I had new babies at the same time. When she went back to work her baby was not sleeping much at all and she was so, so tired: her boss, who was not a parent, helpfully declared that if he was he would "simply insist that they sleep". If my friend had had the energy she would probably have punched him in the throat.

I too was a perfect parent before I had children.

[Onceuponatimethen]

I think that’s semantics really @MagMell - if I hadn’t had the kids those friendships would still be in play and they dropped away at that time only because I had a baby

[jblue2018]

I absolutely would recommend it whole heartedly it’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I find it interesting how many people say you lose part of your life because I thought I’d feel the same (pre children I had a full time career, good social life in London etc) but I honestly feel like I’ve FOUND my life. I’ve never been happier than I am with my daughter who is a toddler, yes she has tantrums and throws food and is messy and wakes in the night but all that pales in comparison to the joy she brings me. I didn’t want to go back to work so we’ve cut down our spending and I’ve gone back 2 days only. If we could afford it I’d have 3 or 4 more children I’ve loved it so much 😂

Funnily enough someone asked me the other day how I was ‘finding’ motherhood and I found myself replying
‘I have this really strong feeling that these days when my child (children in the future hopefully) are small are the best days of my life and life will never get better than this’!
Having a small person is what life is all about for me personally.

[Cherrypicker85]

I appreciate the honesty of those who said 'no' I don't recommend it.
While I know no online conversation can actually tip the scales for me one way or another, I am aware it's something I can't possibly understand from the outside so I really appreciate catching a glimpse of the other side.
While speaking with friends, the overall message was: If you don't like your life, don't have kids in order to fix it. If you do love your life, don't have kids as this life will be over. You'd think at 35 I wouldn't be so impressionable right? But I do have a gut feeling and deep inside I know it's the right thing for me.

@YukoandHiro this: 'It's changed my life for the better by stopping me being so introspective' speaks to me so much. I wish I'd snap out of it and just live!

Regarding caring for elderly parents: I admit I never compared that with bringing up a child either.

[YukoandHiro]

Can I just say I bloody hate the "I did it this way so it all worked out for us, just chill" type comments on these forums.

Until they arrive, you have no idea what you're going to get.

Try teaching a child with multiple severe food allergies to just "sit in a restaurant and eat all kinds of foods". It's a life and death risk assessment situation, not relaxing.

Just be grateful your kids were easy ones and don't lord it over others on a more complex journey please.

[roundandroundabout]

I agree with mini pie I think. If you must do it then do it. That was how I felt. I wanted to be a mother more than I have ever wanted anything. I couldn't not (although serious issues conceiving so nearly didn't).
What I would recommend, once you know if you really want it, is:

• supportive partner
• good job or some other outside interest so you retain some part of yourself
• adequate money, stability, home
• family support

All of these things have made the challenges of motherhood manageable for me.

The other thing as many PPs have said, is give serious consideration to how you'll manage if your child is highly strung or has SEN. Can you be happy putting your career on hold?

I also only have 1 and that has made a big difference to me.

[MagMell]

My friendships mostly didn’t survive my mat leave when I wasn’t around to do city lunches and the fact I had a very clingy bf baby who didn’t want to be left and was very hard to settle at night (later turned out to have sn). This made night time meet ups impossible

But that's not 'sacrificing friendships' to have children, it's simply drifting apart from a specific set of friendships that depended in certain types of activity/availability because of circumstances. I've moved around a lot in adult life, and sometimes friendships based on geographical proximity haven't survived -- but I wouldn't call that 'sacrificing friendships' because I've chosen to migrate...

[crazychemist]

Whether I’d recommend it or not would depend entirely on who I was speaking to!

I love being a parent. My 3yo DD is without a doubt the greatest joy in my life. That’s not to say there’s never been any hardship - she had a medical issue as a toddler that caused a great deal of stress and sleep deprivation. But I love her to pieces and honestly she lights up my days. I don’t know if I’d feel that way if I was a SAHM - she does 4 days of preschool, so I do get “adult time” away from her, which I think is healthy. I’m very lucky that my job has been flexible - I went back 2 days a week after maternity leave, and have gradually worked back up each year.

BUT I know that I have been very lucky about my circumstances. DH and I both have very secure jobs (although not high earning - we are both teachers and neither of us is full time) so we have very predictable finances. We wouldn’t have wanted to have a child until this was the case, it would have just been too stressful for us. We were able to move close to my parents, who are willing to help out with childcare - this has been amazing the last 2 weeks as DDs preschool no longer offers wrap-around care, so we are juggling school runs between us and my mum is doing nearly half of them. Without her, we’d be seriously stressed. She’s also going to look after my DD when I have my twins at half term, so DH will be able to support me in hospital (as much as Covid regulations allow). We have local friends who either have similarly aged children or are happy to be around kids, so we still have a pretty decent social life and don’t feel we have to compromise on this too much.

So it really depends. If someone can comfortably afford children (and that means very different things to different people), they have a support network they can call on when they need to, and their social/work life isn’t going to have to be totally sacrificed.... YES, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t quite get their ducks in a row before they have kids so find it rather a shock to the system and very difficult!

You also don’t know what your child will be like. The medical problem that my DD had was horrifically stressful, but fundamentally fixable! But there are many children who have much longer term challenges, health or behaviour wise.

[YukoandHiro]

Should say *WON'T regret the decision to become a parent!!

[Onceuponatimethen]

@minipie I totally agree

[YukoandHiro]

You'll regret the decision to become a parent - but you will regret some things about being a parent, such as lost opportunities (work/travel/freedoms).

It's changed my life for the better by stopping me being so introspective. I'm much more tired than I ever was though, and it's a bone crunching constant exhaustion that you can't describe til you've known it.

[Onceuponatimethen]

@corythatwas not all kids can manage nursery even if you want them to go. A full nursery day wouldn’t have worked for either of my dds - one likely to get a dx and one just very very highly strung

[Onceuponatimethen]

@corythatwas think it entirely depends on your social network and your baby. I lived in a tiny flat in central London and all my friends whether single or coupled had no kids.

My friendships mostly didn’t survive my mat leave when I wasn’t around to do city lunches and the fact I had a very clingy bf baby who didn’t want to be left and was very hard to settle at night (later turned out to have sn). This made night time meet ups impossible