If you are married/a parent, help me take off the rose tinted glasses about it? (I’m single and sad about it!)

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After some absolutely wonderful advice from lovely mumsnetters about being single and really wanting children...I thought this thread may be a dose of reality.

I will always want kids more than anything and the whole DH set up, but in the meantime, tell me the downsides so I can appreciate where I am in life?!

:)

DH and I are in agreement that whilst we love our DD more than we ever thought it was possible to love another person, think she's incredible, couldn't live without her, are proud of every boring thing she does etc....our actual quality of life is so much bloody worse for being parents. It's the weirdest thing. I would kill and die for her, she brings me absolute joy and my heart is just filled to bursting every day. But at the same time, life is just so much harder. We are lucky because we don't have major money worries, everyone is healthy, our relationship is happy, we have some support from family, but it's the mental load and the lack of freedom that I find so difficult. I have lost my sense of self completely and I know that DH feels the same a lot of the time. We wouldn't go on holiday without DD and we have only left her overnight twice, both times coming back first thing in the morning. Yes that's our choice but while we miss that freedom, the idea of leaving her is worse. BIL on the other hand will leave his kids with MIL and go abroad for a week without a backward glance, so it depends how you do things.

I find myself worrying a lot, which I never used to do. I worry about DD. I worry about what will happen to DD if something happens to us. I feel quite daunted sometimes at the prospect of being worried about her for the rest of my life. I definitely struggle more with anxiety since I had her (although I know a lot of that is down to specific circumstances around the time of her arrival).

I would say, think about whether you want to become a parent. Really think about it. Too many people - probably myself included - feel like having kids is a given, the "next step". But actually it is a choice. Not having kids is perfectly valid. It sounds really obvious, but I don't think DH and I ever stopped and talked about the possibility of not having them. It was always just a given that we would.

Yep. Mine were ruined. As was my vagina after a 10lb baby.

Everything is affected and you don't get to be primarily YOU. I think life is much easier for the unencumbered.

( bla bla bla, love my kids, wouldn't have it any other way etc)

But it is fucking HARD.

Downsides of having a husband:
They get VERY ANNOYING after a while especially after having a child with them
You can't just do things your way and always have to argue discuss it with someone else
Going out is a lot less fun without the exciting possibility of hooking up flirting with a handsome stranger
In-laws: if you are lucky they will be lovely but if you're like most people they will probably be a bit annoying and if you're one of the unlucky ones they will cause a LOT of grief

Downsides of having a child:
Your life is no longer your own - you can't just do what you want any more because you are responsible for a little person
No more lie ins (even if you occasionally get one your body won't be able to lie in any more)
Being ill and also having to look after a child is actual torture
Unless you are very fit, toned and lucky, your body will change a lot after pregnancy and childbirth, your pelvic floor will never be the same, your body shape will change as you will acquire a "mum tum" as well as bigger and saggier boobs, and you will probably get stretch marks too
You will be forced to choose or compromise between mothering and your career - of course you can do a bit of both but you can't "have it all", it's a myth, and if you choose to work even though you can rationalise it to yourself you will always feel some "mum guilt"

Hope that helps

Oh and (a parenting one) I worry a lot more now. About something happening to me (leaving DS without a mother) or to DS. I try not to think about it too much but it's always there.

@tokenginger I highly highly recommend a sling.

I have 2 DC. They keep breaking. One developed a potentially life threatening allergy after 4 years of nothing, the other has been to A&E 3 times, one of which was unconscious in an ambulance while i was miles away.
I would put up with everything else if they could just stop breaking and nearly killing me in the process.

Our eldest has special educational needs. We really didn't see that coming.
Life is really, really quite hard. My mental health has almost broken in recent years.
My husband and I haven't had a child free night in thirteen years. Fuck knows how our marriage has lasted.

I love my DS (3, nearly 4) but when I around he needs to be with me. He is my little shadow and loving, but a minute to myself would be nice

You can take a nice, long bath without someone getting in and wanting to do a pee in the bath with you

I forgot to mention permanent piles! That's a good one. When I was last pregnant I got fanny piles too which was a delightful addition.

Soft play hell too; it doesn't matter how much you hate it you'll still find yourself there regularly. You can pretend you'll be an earth mother tending your goats and laughing over craft activities, affectionately braiding hair and singing together, but you won't. You'll cry from the stress of getting them out of the house and then pay extortionate amounts to be forced to go on massive hot sweat pits of vomit and germs. Then get home and tell them you've had SUCH a lovely day with them while you put on 2 films to fill up the rest of the day.

All husbands snore. When you sign on that dotted line in the marriage book there's actually tiny tiny small print all about how you'll never sleep through a full night again because everyone snores and cries now and you don't deserve sleep.

Tonight my 5 year old has screamed at me and hit me because her favourite falling asleep story was no longer free on the app we use. This is despite the EXACT same story being available via 2 other platforms. Eventually she accepted it and went to sleep.
My DH, of course, is out and will come home at some point between 2 and 3, flump into bed and then proceed to snore loudly. He will spend much of the day tomorrow insisting that he is not hungover whilst clearly being so.
I spend most of my time working, looking after children or doing housework. I don't get a whole day to myself unless I'm ill and right now my dd is so clingy I can barely walk from room to room without her. Pregnancy and tiredness have stolen my memory and ability to think clearly.
Dd slept really well for for 3 years, lulling us into a false sense of security. Now it's a rare night she sleeps through. She comes into us and it's me that ends up trying to sleep on the 2mm of mattress space at the edge, or get squished between her and DH.

That was longer than I meant it to be!

You are constantly having to try and balance the wants and needs of, in my case, 4 other people, not just their physical needs like food and clothes but their activities. But the biggest thing is their emotional needs.
I am constantly exhausted and of course my needs come last.
It will never be about you and your needs ever again. And my kids aren't little, I have teenagers and I haven't slept well in years.

My dc are 24 & 20. I'm as much worried about them as I ever was. I worry more about my son's potential love life than I ever did about my own. It's exhausting because I'm totally powerless.

We went for a meal tonight (dh is working away) and although it was nice that they want to do that, they both wanted to chat to me about things, there was a bit of a toddler flashback.

Dh is driving home across country late tonight.

I will never be able to stop worrying about any of them. There's nobody to tell you if you're doing a good job or not. I'm just winging it.

I could give you a serious one and a lighthearted one.
Serious- have experienced marriage and having young dd as lonely at times. And I love them both. Can be lonely in a different way to being single. There’s not the anxiety of if you will meet someone and have a family, cos you do have some company from them both.
But loneliness from dh doing shifts and me stuck at home with sleeping dd was hard- I couldn’t just go out. And most of my friends now in same situation and tied to home in the evenings too. And sometimes what dh wants to do and dd wants to do isn’t what I want to do and I have to do it. Stupid compromise in a relationship!

Lighthearted- here are two snapshots of life with dc:

1. Dd few weeks old, was going out of the house, wrestling with weird sling thing I had been given, finally got her in it and us both dressed up for midwinter, when she puked neatly in between my boobs and it all puddled around inside my bra. Was DISGUSTING, start again with washing, new clothes, sorting out the sling thing again....think all I was trying to do was go to the local shop!

1. Rare night out for me and dh with babysitter for my birthday. Dd gets so excited about the idea of birthday cake she trips over her feet onto her face on wooden floor, cuts her lip and chips a front tooth.

Loads of blood and crying, eventually realised she was alright when she was still calling out for cake and managing to eat it despite injured face. Missed film and ended up seeing 2/3 of a rubbish one instead. I miss spontaneous cinema trips!

I love dd but yes she drives me demented sometimes!

She's 18 and seemingly incapable of using a bin, not losing her keys at least once a week, making even a small snack without leaving the kitchen looking like a bombs gone off! Leaving the bath looking like a very hairy, very colourful experiment has exploded in it!

And if you think you worry when they're little! Nothing compared to the utter fear when they swear they'll be home by 11pm and at 3am still no sign of them and they're not answering their phone! (Ongoing argument with dd)

Oh crap - then I read further into the thread and I am reminded...

I've never been able to sleep as deeply as I did before having her, my mum one of the most laid back people you'll ever meet on this kind of thing says she STILL doesn't go into a deep sleep in case one of us calls needing her - we're all in our 40's!

In my case I also had the joy (!) of a child who didn't sleep through until...

...she was 5 YEARS old - yep years, not even kidding! And even then she was an early riser (I'm talking BEFORE 6 am every day) until she was 12/13! She STILL isn't a good sleeper I doubt she ever will be but she doesn't wake me now.

I have a c section scar and "apron" of skin and stretch marks - yep 18 years later! Even when at 2 points I got to weighing less than I did before pregnancy the apron was still there so it's not just down to weight, before anyone says.

"I forgot to mention permanent piles!" Oh yes! 18 years op and I STILL have the piles from pregnancy! Quite honestly the pain and occasional bleeding is nowhere near as annoying as the itching when they flare up!

My boobs are huge - they were barely existent pre pregnancy. It's expensive and difficult getting bras to fit, they itch and hurt and make buying clothes generally really difficult.

My hips have never been right since pregnancy either, my shape has changed and they hurt constantly.

I've been skint her entire life, having a budget I keep a very close eye on is my default now.

Definitely agree when kids are little you can't do ANYTHING without major military planning which is a TOTAL pita!

I had visions of being a lovely relaxed earth mother - then I had dd! She DEMANDED routine from the very start and woe betide us if we tried to vary it in the slightest! Even 5 mins late for a nap = sleepless night that night. At least one if not more.

Late meal/snack resulted in screaming fury and more than likely a poonami to deal with! You have NO IDEA just how much a poonami can cover! I had times where it resulted in not only a covered in poo dd and full change of clothes for her, but where it necessitated an entire change of clothes and shower for me AND a complete bed change! You would not think so much shit could escape from one tiny human!

Colic/teething etc - sleepless nights spent pacing while trying to calm a distressed and VERY noisy baby and thinking the neighbours must HATE US! And your heart breaking because you've done all you can to help and they're clearly still suffering.

Toddler tantrums over the most bonkers things, usually in public where you do find yourself thinking people must think you're awful. Not to mention being kicked, hit, scratched even headbutted while you try to remove them from wrecking an entire display of glass jarred pickles or similar.

CONSTANTLY having to watch them so they don't leap off the top of a slide, bolt into traffic or try and force feed the neighbours dog chocolate buttons is EXHAUSTING.

Preschoolers who constantly ask "but why"

5 year olds who try to discover if the bed is as good as a trampoline either wrecking the bed or bouncing into the wall, constant scraped knees at this stage - you'll need shares in germolene and Elastoplast!

"My son leaves his toys everywhere and im forever tripping up and standing on them." Yep the sheer agony of standing on Lego/barbie shoes/meccano/toy kitchen bits barefoot in the middle of the night and trying not to scream out!

7 year olds who eat too much at birthday parties and then spend an hour non stop on the bouncy castle - then vomit all over the car on the way home (seriously try getting vomit out the area where the gear stick is located!)

10 year olds who wander off while playing and put the fear of God into you thinking they've been abducted or in a ditch somewhere...then you find them in a street 2 streets from their "boundary" cos they followed a kitten!

High school years full of angst; body image issues, academic concerns, friendship squabbles or even outright bullying, sports injuries, lost clothes, broken and lost mobile phones and other items, then romantic heartbreaks (if you think it's hard dealing with your own love life it's 10 X harder watching your child's heart be broken)

On the married side of things I'm divorced but even without the actual reasons for the divorce I prefer single life as basically I can do what I want when I want.

All the daft little things can be very irritating when constant.

Being able to watch what I want on telly (and NEVER having to watch boring sport or war documentaries), having what I want for dinner and when, being able to spread out in bed and have the room as hot/cold as I like, having the bed and bedding I like! Not having to do things like think about what shifts he's working and does that mean I can't go out X night (not sure I've worded that well). Not having to deal with smelly, rank gym clothes stinking out my laundry basket! Or indeed as pp says his monumentally stinky farts or the toxic stench left in the bathroom after one of his marathon shits! Being able to put something away somewhere - and know it will still be there when you need it again (dd sometimes wrong foots me on this one but she's nowhere near as bad as her father was - I mean who puts a corkscrew away in the tv unit? Or vital paperwork in the back of the cutlery drawer!) Knowing what's in the bank account! Ex wasn't too bad but occasionally early on he caught me out by buying something without telling me and then a bill "bouncing" as a result. Snoring - yep! Quite possibly also talking in sleep. My ex also sweated a LOT, I'd often wake up to a bed with soaked bedding and not just in the summer - so gross! Ahhh yes - the delightful habits some have which can be as minor but irritating as nail biting up to biting toe nails, ball scratching (and then getting food from the kitchen without washing hands!), not washing hands after using toilet, picking fluff out belly buttons, wax out ears, snot out nose...and eating it! Hoiking up snot and spitting it out, sniffing constantly when they have a cold cos God forbid they actually use a tissue and blow their nose! Oh yes! The palava that is a sick man who can't possibly do anything for himself and varies between snapping irritably or whinging as if they're the only person to ever have a cold! How to put this so not too outing? Ex once ONCE had a very painful symptom that I suffer from regularly (several times a year) and I mostly just have to dose up on meds and carry on - he would not believe me when I said "it's X that I get all the time" and genuinely believed he had cancer! As nothing could possibly be that painful and not be life threateningly serious! How the dr he eventually saw (several days of persuasion needed as he was terrified of being told he had cancer) kept a straight face I really do not know! Soon as he'd taken one dose of pain meds he was acting like it was ME who'd been overreacting! On the plus side he was much more understanding/sympathetic when I had same thing - at least for a few months.

Worrying all the time about what effect my parenting is having - is he resilient enough? Too obsessed with something? Am I going to turn him into a psychopath because I shouted at him after 4 hours of trying to get him to sleep?
Marriage is only worth it if you can find the right person. The wrong person will destroy your confidence. I do look at my single friends with envy as they are all in great shape, have nice hair and clothes, go out and do fun things. I did marry a good person but it's still tough living with someone. Since having kids, we have been awful to each other at times. He's ill a lot at the moment and I can't mentally support him as I'm exhausted from doing EVERYTHING else with 2 kids and no family support nearby. I know a lot of people who didn't marry/have kids with the right guy and now they're stuck because of finances.
Anyway bedtime took 2 hours and now toddler has woken up baby and I'm still trying to get them back to sleep!!
Also constant guilt about bringing kids into s world which seems to have no future to offer them....

The expense, the pressure and guilt teens put on you. The stretch marks.
The worry that will never leave once you have children.
In a relationship I find women always end up taking on jobs that you never signed up for, remembering birthdays, wrapping gifts, organising everything... there's a reason single women live longer than married women.

When your kid gets to teen years and mixes with "the wrong crowd". I ended up having to go to the police station more than once, in the middle of the night. That was fun !

These are certainly eye opening!!! Wouldn’t have even thought of about 90% of this!

They go through really annoying phases too. DD is 3 and her catchphrase at the moment is "no I won't!". DD, if you don't get down from there you'll fall and crack your head. "No I won't!". DD, if you try and practise jumping in the bath you're going to slip and knock your teeth out on the side. "No I won't!". DD, if you eat that random berry you've just picked up off the forest floor you will make yourself sick. "No I won't!" Absolutely bloody maddening. She always knows best 🙄

I’m a single parent and teacher. When my son was tiny, I lived my day life as ‘Miss’ and my home life as mummy. Not one person ever used my first name. I completely lost myself in those years, looking back it affected me profoundly. But I think that is a trait of motherhood in general, particularly when children are young. You as a person, you just become something in the background, all tired and harassed, the fixer of everything for everyone.

How many posts are you going to post about not having a H and children? I get that it must be difficult but you don’t do yourself any favours by actively choosing to stay stuck.

Rather than asking variations of the same question, why don’t you ask different ones. Does it really have to be DH plus kids? Don’t get me wrong, it was my ideal until it wasn’t and I have been a single mum for ten years. I am waasy happier parent (despite the limited funds and time). Thank god I didn’t sacrifice the chance to be a mother for the sake of an ‘ideal’ (DD was conceived in a on/off LTR).

Regret is for people who had choices.

OH and I spent all morning staring outside at the pissing rain, giving each other desperate glances and saying things like 'I just can't stand this anymore' while our 2 small boys screamed and fought and broke shit. He is now in panic mode as he has them all summer (works evenings) where I work during the day. I actually feel bad for him. Been there done that. The office is a fucking sanctuary. Oh, and yesterday, while trying to have a relaxing bath, my 6 year old came rushing in to the bathroom, urgently pulled down his shorts and spent 5 whole minutes doing a steady stream of the vilest smelling liquid shit imaginable, while groaning.