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?

It's an individual thing but I'm glad I've had a chance to experience parenthood. I'm glad I did lots of 'living' beforehand though because once a child comes along, your needs come second.

The pros outweigh the cons for me and I really do enjoy looking through my child's eyes and seeing how they come to make sense of the world. It's really quite fascinating to me how they learn and develop.

I'm lucky that my dh and I make a good parenting team and we have family support too. That all massively helps because having a child is constant and you can only have a 'break' if you have supportive people around that you trust to care for your child.

Plenty of posters have mentioned hard work as a reason for not having children. But looking back on my life, it seems to me, the times I have been least happy, closest to depression, have been when life has not been full of challenges, when it's all been a bit meh. It's like a holiday: some people swear by sun loungers by the poolside, others (including me) would far prefer to be up a mountain in the rain. Obviously, you don't want anyone to die on that mountain, but the effort of the climb, to the right person, is part of what makes the experience so special.

It took us several years and multiple rounds of IVF to have our LO, and there were times when I questioned whether it was really worth all the heartache, expense, drugs etc, did I really want this as much as I thought I did. Now she's here, it's amazing, she's amazing and I am loving being her mummy. She's only a baby so I know there are challenging times to come but so far it's so worth the hard parts because the good parts make me so happy. I don't mind that our lives have changed to revolve around her, and my career is on hold for
a bit. We did the travelling and spontaneous stuff before she was born and this feels like a whole new adventure and I'm so excited to see the person she grows into.

personally i am always surprised that so many people end up having kids. it's essentially like being a carer for someone 24/7 - totally fine but a bit of a shock to the system. Am also a bit surprised that while people are so keen to have kids - they don't do the same for their elderly parents when they get older. I fully expect that i will have to end up caring for my parents when as old people's homes are an alien concept in our culture.

I think a lot depends on what kind of partner you have. Be very picky about the father of your kids would be my advice.

One thing I didn't realise is how much they still need you when they reach young adulthood. That's a hard part of being a parent because you can't always fix things for them, however much you want to, and it can be stressful and emotionally draining supporting them through difficult times.

This. I thought my two young adults would be more or less independent by now, but there is so much that they need help with still. There is obviously no day to day grind like you get with small children, but when they do have difficulties it can be very tough.

I would only recommend it to someone who has a strong urge to have a child and will be unhappy if they don’t.

To someone on the fence and without that urge I’d say don’t.

Am also a bit surprised that while people are so keen to have kids - they don't do the same for their elderly parents when they get older.

The average weight for a 24 month old is 12 kilos- after that age, they don't really need carrying any more.

By the time, MIL was too frail to stay at home, she also needed lifting. She weighed over 90 kilos. Slight difference there. I couldn't have lifted a 90 kilo toddler either.

If she had been able to get herself into her wheelchair she would have preferred to stay in her own home with food deliveries and all her things around her.

The nursing home had space for a professional hoist which had to be worked by two people for safety reasons. I could not have managed that on my own even if I could magically have expanded our house to fit it.

personally i am always surprised that so many people end up having kids. it's essentially like being a carer for someone 24/7 - totally fine but a bit of a shock to the system. Am also a bit surprised that while people are so keen to have kids - they don't do the same for their elderly parents when they get older.

In what universe are these remotely equivalent? You are only a 24/7 carer for your child while it is young, small and relatively portable, unless that child has a significant disability, and you are preparing that child to do without you and make their own way in the world in most cases. (And 24/7 is a bit of an exaggeration -- I have always used a combination of a childminder and wraparound care for before and after school.) It is an entirely different thing, again in most cases, to being a carer for physically adult-bodied elderly people who have significant, complex and deteriorating health needs.

It can be incredibly hard, frustrating, demanding, exhausting, fun, joyous, life-affirming, and everything in between.

There's no other comparable life experience.

@MagMell - honestly for me they are the equivalent. they are basically caring duties for you nearest and dearest. I know that in the UK they are seen as entirely disconnected - but thats a cultural thing. In practice - it's basically spending approx. five-ten years of your life putting someone else's needs first. I am sorry that it looks so very different to you. The fact that it does -sort of makes my point for me. i.e. i am surprised that one is seen as so very natural whilst the other is not

No
I love my kids very much, but they've set fire to everything I enjoyed about my life.

I don't think it's something to either recommend or advise against.

Hardest and best thing I've ever done. My life would be immeasurably easier and less stressful without children. I'd be richer. I'd look a lot better. I'd have a far less narrow life. I don't want to be without them though.

If you gave me a choice to go back to pre meeting DH and start all over again... I still want to be with DH but I want us to do things differently, and rather than finishing having dc 5 years ago I think I'd like to have just been getting started!

@corythatwas - honestly i meant less the physical demands though realistically the sleep deprivation, what women go through in labour etc is also physically very demanding. I more meant the life changes i.e. giving up work, friends etc....people seem to readily do it for their kids but not parents. It's not good or bad - just an observation

I know that in the UK they are seen as entirely disconnected - but thats a cultural thing.

I'm neither from nor currently living in the UK, and while I agree it's an issue impacted by culture, it's for me inflected by misogynistic cultures which expect female self-sacrifice for caring roles.

I am sorry that it looks so very different to you.

There's absolutely no need to be 'sorry'.

I more meant the life changes i.e. giving up work, friends etc....people seem to readily do it for their kids but not parents.

Then we simply have very different life experiences. Becoming a parent has not involved me giving up work or friends, 'readily' or otherwise. I do not anticipate that helping my parents, should they need it, will involve such sacrifices either.

newsheadlines there is a big difference in dynamics.
You decide how much or how little you want to give up and how you are going to achieve this.

With children, you are in charge. If you decide they have to go to nursery so you can work, they go to nursery. If you decide it's a good idea to take them inter-railing across Europe in the holidays, you can do so (several members of my family have). You decide their bedtime, you decide when music has to be switched off. You get to set the house rules, what counts as good or bad behaviour in your house. If the children do not comply, you can enforce discipline.

You can't treat ageing relatives like this. They are used to having a level of autonomy and will suffer greatly if this is taken from them. They are used to being the ones that set the tone and decide on acceptable behaviour.

Also, with children you know that every year they're going to get less dependent, less demanding. And they know that when they grow up, they'll be able to do as they want.

Elderly people are often terrified at losing power and can get very angry at anything that suggests they are no longer in charge.

Ime most people don't give up either work or friends when they become parents. There is usually no need and there is often not the option. People need an income and families need a social life.

@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

@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

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.

@minipie I totally agree

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

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.

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...

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.