Marriage, children and getting old- is it all a lie ?

[Whoknew24]

So this is a little random but curious to hear others thoughts. My daughter is a student and last week they had visited a few different care homes. To make things fun they did a questionnaire with the residents and one of the questions was the popular one of “what advice would you give your younger self” ? The largest majority from the x3 care homes they visited were don’t get married and a lot said don’t have children. I found this really interesting that the largest majority all near the end think and feel like this. Of course there were a few that were very happy with their lives so I’m not implying is was every person. My daughter also said the staff told them the majority who had families etc often went weeks with no visits etc.

i myself work for a local authority and constantly see elderly people with families, completely stuck in awful situation with no help or support at all from their children, families.

in my own family my gran had 4 children my dad and his 3 sisters, all alive but have zero desire to help my gran so it falls on me. And if im honest it’s a strain I could be doing without (I know I sound selfish) but it’s the truth. My gran was a good mum and a good gran and did the fact she’s alone I step up as no one else will. My other elderly gran also had 4 children and only one of them helps her and she absolutely hates doing it as well.

Im wondering is it just me and my circle who feel this way or is it more common than we think. I read on here so many people will say you’ll be lonely when you’re older if you don’t have children. My experience is those with children are anyway.

do you think we’ve been fed a lie about marriage and children ? I definitely feel that way. If I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have gotten married and had children. (I know I will be jumped on for this ) I love my children I do and I’ve sacrificed everything for them, but the continuous worry, stress etc I feel outweighs the positives. My husband feels like an additional child and after 21 years of carrying the mental, financial and physical burden I think how did I allow myself to make these choices.

Maybe deep down I’m selfish but I think a simple and easy life where I put only my needs first would have suited me better.

Soetu for the novel I’m just wondering others persepective ? I’ve spoken to close friends who say that in hindsight they love their kids but if they could go back wouldn’t have had them or gotten married and I just feel are we fed one big lie.

I know there’s those on here who adore their husband and life, or is it that just some of us prefer simplicity ?

if you got this far well done 😊

In terms of supporting the elderly, historically women didn't work
Im always reading this on here too!
Maybe I’m unusual ( or just working class😂) but I’m in my 40s and both my grandmothers worked, and all my aunts. Childcare was shared around unmarried great aunts/ grandparents I guess.
Or they farmed and worked around the children.

I think I’ve not explained myself properly ! I do not think children have a duty to care for their elderly parents. And I definitely don’t expect mine to care for me and I’ve told them that in no uncertain terms I personally don’t find it fair.

i was more so meaning on here there is a consistent theme of people saying about being lonely in old age if they avoid children and marriage.But from what I’ve witnessed it doesn’t make much difference either way. I was more so thinking have we all blindly went ahead and done what society expected and it ends up not being the best decision for everyone.

Yes I definitely agree with you on that one. And me too I would rather go if I had no quality of life and needed care.

is a consistent theme of people saying about being lonely in old age if they avoid children and marriage.

I don't think there are any magic bullets to save you from loneliness. Living is a lonely business and it takes constant effort to not be lonely. Children and a spouse may not save you, or they may.
What I would really have liked are more siblings- as mine lives in another country- but my parents could not afford more! But then some people hate their siblings, so....

I would say that if you're asking people in a care home, you've already got a certain demographic who are answering.

Many people who have close relationships with their parents either help them to live in their own home, or have them move in with them. So none of those situations are being represented.

People are in care homes because their needs are too great to stay in their own home unaided, and because that aid isn't available from their children (for various reasons). Many elderly people either refuse to accept how great their needs are, or refuse to accept that their children can't just do everything they need. Those people are going to be bitter and resentful towards their children even if objectively their children are doing nothing wrong.

I don’t think people in care homes are a cross section of the elderly population though - I know plenty of people in their 70s and 80s who are fit, healthy and lead a full and active life, highly doubt they feel the same way?

I also doubt many people have children to avoid loneliness in old age - and if you do, a general awareness that being a nice, grateful person who is a pleasure to be around is probably a much bigger factor in avoiding loneliness than having offspring who then feel obligated to care for you? Weird way of thinking.

But you may have gone ahead and blindly done what society told you to do. I certainly didn’t. I was supposed to leave school at 15, get a shop job, marry young, and being a SAHM in a WC suburb like my parents. Instead I stayed on at school, won a university scholarship, got thoroughly educated, worked in lots of countries, had a lot of fun in a footloose way, and married and had a child just short of 40 because I wanted to. never saw either in my future, and I certainly didn’t do either because it was expected of me. I see friends who are longterm single and childfree having thoroughly fulfilling lives.

I think a few things have shifted, socially, which we haven't yet figured out how to deal with. First, as has been mentioned, are the changes in healthcare which mean that we are now keeping people alive for longer in ill health. This is particularly true for women, who live longer than men and generally have lower pensions and therefore less money. There are hard questions to be asked about whether or not treating heart disease at 79 so that someone can live long enough to then develop dementia at 81 with a heart likely to keep pumping for another five years is really the best way to do things.

Secondly, the contraceptive pill has given women control over our fertility, and we have used it.

Thirdly, women are now expected to work full time, to work like men. Men can work like this because they don't have to do the work of pregnancy/childbirth/breastfeeding/child rearing. Women are now expected to do both and to also carry the shift of elder care, too, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Something has to give, and I think it is often extended family and elder care, especially as a lot of families are fractured and living very separate lives now (which again I think can partly be attributed to the change in work - working mothers become working grandmothers, so a lot of women have very little support from their own mothers once they become mothers themselves, and without that life long co-operation, there's no natural progression into helping your mother out a bit more once she gets old).

Women don't have it all, we're expected to do it all, and I think a lot of women look back and feel like they gave a lot and got nothing in return.

Remember though, it is somewhat a self selective survey. The elderly people with close knit families wont all be sat around alone in care homes to be asked these questions.

True. My mum is constantly telling me how glad she is to have had us. She's very close to my DD.

I think it’s more complicated than just ‘those families aren’t close knit’.

The reality is that now, people move away. They’ve met their partner at Uni and they are from a different area. They move for work, a better life balance etc…
And women work. Both partners work and there is no leeway.

So even if you are close to your family, then there is no way you can be as involved as you’d he been if parents were living close by and you were a SAHM or were working part time. Not helped by the fact that becoming a carer gives you crap all financially.
Plus, yes it’s women who are expected to do it all (see the OP and her dad doing nothing for example)

Isn't there another body of research that says all those people in care homes / at the end of their life, if asked, say that the happiest time of their life was when they had young children at home. I think that's probably true for a lot of people, me included (it's not over yet, and yes it's quite exhausting at times!)

As a completely separate point, a lot of the people now old and in care homes, particularly women, had very little agency over their lives, got married early 20s, immediately had children, couldn't work (often expected to give job up on marriage), couldn't even get a mortgage in their own names. No financial independence, no opportunity to travel the world with some pals before doing all of this. By doing it all a bit later, and choosing a life partner as a fully developed adult, hopefully we won't feel like this!

That most people will find fulfillment via one life-long romantic relationship is a lie. Now people live into their 90's and 100's it is increasingly normal for people to have several important relationships in their life so society and legal / financial systems need to adjust to this reality. We cant stick with a 1950's model of life expectancy and one long marriage as the basis for financial security.

I think marrying DH is definitely one of the better decisions I have made, he’s a bloody star. Having DD has been a double edged sword. I love her so much that it causes me physical pain if someone is unkind to her and I think I am never going to feel completely at ease ever again. I found the early years to be devastating and really lost a sense of myself and it’s still a grind. I wouldn’t be without her but having children is not for the fainthearted. I would like to see her when I’m old and infirm but equally I want her to grab as much of what life has to offer as possible so I wouldn’t want her caring for me.

I think you can end up alone when you are old anyway so theres no point having kids thinking they will look after you. Many people move away for work or for life now. We did, so we can’t expect DD to stay put really and tbh I wouldn’t really want her to.

Fwiw I think the feeling if ‘not getting married’ by which I assume is ‘dint tie yourself to a man’ and ‘dont have children’ is a reflection of all the hard work done by women that is never recognised. You never get anything ‘back’ from it.

It’s the realisation that there is A LOT you could have done if you didn’t have to put either a husband or a child first. All the time.

And all of that is true tbh. Women as a whole give up a lot to do what society has expected them to do (children, looking after the home, becoming carers) whilst been expected to take in the same responsibilities as men financially.

Isn't there another body of research that says all those people in care homes / at the end of their life, if asked, say that the happiest time of their life was when they had young children at home.

I don’t know about research but this certainly wasn’t my happiest time. At all.

My happiest time was when I was single, with no children.

I don't think it is a lie, but I have to say I underestimated how much I would worry about my children. I also did not foresee the current economic crisis, the severity of climate change, and AI.

This, a hundred times over. My children have given me my moments of deepest love and joy, but also desperate worry (both specific worries - one of my DC is struggling hugely with MH - and the general worry of what on earth the future holds for them).

Now I am well into middle age I am more aware that I might have been able to create a different path to fulfilment that didn't involve having children. But I think in your 20s and 30s there such a powerful narrative that children=fulfilment that most of us don't question anywhere near deeply enough.

I think people married because it’s what you did, my mum had never shown any interest in any of us or our children, was never very sure why she had children. She’s now 84 and in good health and cannot understand why no one visits or calls her. J don’t think my mum has phoned me in the past 5 years! What I’m trying to say is just because you are now old it doesn’t mean we need to forget the past 50 odd years

I would be interested to know if the people being asked this were more men or women? I suspect a lot of women, particlarly of that generation, probably do feel that way.

I agree with others that the care home thing is probably also a decider in that many people in care homes may well be there because they don't have support etc.

I think that in the past a lot of people chose to get married and have children because it was expected, rather than becuase it was what they wanted. I am glad that is shifting now. I also think that many, again especially women, did not have a lot of autonomy or control once married - so they carried it all and it was exhausting, and they lost a lot of themselves.

@thesunisastar this may sound unbelievable to those on here who are younger, but I am in my fifities and had never heard of MH problems when I was young. By which, I mean we had heard of things like schizophrenia, but not general depression or anxiety. If I had told my mum I was feeling anxious, she wouldn't know what I meant.

100% this. I am late 40s. I look back at my mum and a couple of my friends' mums or my mum's friends and I think.... my god, no one was helping these women.

Not having children is the most devastating thing to happen to me in my life so far. My late thirties/forties were consumed by grief for the children and family I would never have, the grandchildren I'd never have.

I still feel that way - to an extent - but over the subsequent years I have come to really appreciate my quiet and simple life, lived with few compromises, and the ability to be spontaneous. Yes, I miss out on a lot - my heart aches when I see families out at restaurants in all their messy, chaotic glory, and I wish I had that. But then I get home to my small, cosy house, decorated exactly how I want it, and I have the whole evening to myself to do what I want. I have peace. Relative contentedness. I take lots of trips and make lots of plans for the future, centred entirely around my own interests and things I want to do. A few years ago a band I love were playing in Paris. There were a few tickets left so I bought one, booked a Eurostar and just went the next week on my own. Three days in the Parisian spring sunshine to myself, it was wonderful. I am lucky to have a core group of extremely close friends, and a wide extended family. I never got what I really wanted, but I cannot complain too much about my life. I am totally free.

I do worry about the future though, before it sounds like I'm seeing the world through rose-tinted specs. I cared for my dad with dementia for five years. It nearly killed me. I know there'll be no-one around to do that for me, not that I'd expect an adult child to do it. But not having anyone to advocate for you is scary. Without me speaking up on his behalf, my dad would have withered away in the care system. So many things went catastrophically wrong that I had to sort out. I bury my head in the sand about this, I think. It's too awful to contemplate.

I think the sad truth is that many women do go through life meeting the needs of others while their own needs go unmet. A lot of the threads on here illustrate this. It must be natural to reflect on this when you're older and looking back and ask "Was it all worth it?" And by that point, your children aren't cute anymore and they're stressed and busy, and the grandchildren may be surly teenagers and you're being cared for by stressed staff who have about 5 minutes for you. And you're looking back on a life spent serving others, rather than fun hobbies, trips away with the boys, work nights out and golf days. Because for some reason it was always you who had to stay home with the kids. And you may have cared for your husband at home for years (after first caring for his and your elderly parents), made his favourite meals, bought in his favourite biscuits, made things nice for him. But now he's dead and there's no one left to care for you, so here you are in a home. Tbh I can understand being a bit miffed. Too many women's lot is a lifetime of caring and not being cared for.

This ! Agree with everything you’ve said 😊

It's not a representative sample though OP so responses are skewed. Some of those people are probably in care homes because their partner/children can't/won't look after them so naturally they have regrets about that..if you took a proper sample of that age group responses could be very different..