'Like a trap you can't escape': The women who regret being mothers

[IwantToRetire]

I'm not going to post any extracts from the article as better to read the whole content.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgkvge4rkmo

Agree on this.

This too

Shortshriftandlethal, I agree about the centrality of the bond, but at the same time, I don't think this means it's right for people to judge fathers less.

I think the father's role is equally important, but I'd partly concur with some authors I've read recently who argue that often father's role becomes much more crucial as the child grows older, especially into teen years.

I know this isn't strictly related to the main topics but I thought I might link a few books & on father absence that I've come across recently while researching.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fatherless-America-David-Blankenhorn/dp/006092683X

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd3jlee33yo

https://goodmenproject.com/families/the-critical-impact-of-non-residential-fathers-on-their-daughters-kcon/

Effects on girls specifically:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Absent-Father-Effect-Daughters-Desire/dp/0367360853

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fatherless-Daughters-Turning-Power-Forgiveness/dp/074320557X

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whatever-Happened-DaddyS-Jonetta-Barras/dp/0345434838

https://www.daddylessdaughters.co.uk/post/what-fatherlessness-really-feels-like

@Butterflydreaming”the grammar they are expected to learn”.

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE. And because they’re too intellectually young to accept the learning, it takes a bloody age (at least with my kid) for it to go in - whereas if he learned it later on, it’d be much quicker!!!

I think those are Gove’s reforms from his time in education.

Sorry for the slight thread derail.

@Haemagoblinbrillant. Thoughtful, insightful posts like this are why I stay on this site.

I'm just trying to find a more positive way forward. What's the point in living life nurturing ongoing regret? Yes, we all have fluctuating or even enduring feelings, and frustrations over conditions in our lives, but life is, surely, there to be enjoyed as best one can? Appreciate the good, life enhancing things we have. Seek to look at life with a more positive lens. Make the most of what you have and what you have chosen.

Nobody here is putting pressure on their children to reproduce.......they tend to do it of their own accord and out of the conditions of their own lives. My daughter is a single parent and without our support she could not have coped or been able to enjoy being a parent as much as she has. We've really been a part in our grandddaughter's life and have really appreciated being there for all of her milestones; school assemblies etc. I'm not suggesting that all grandparents be quite so involved, but for many there can be a real joy in having grandchildren. I was a parent first at 19, and then a grandmother at 50...and still have my own life and hopefully lots more of it left to live.

I have another grandchild - my son's first child - but they live in Barcelona and so are involvement is not so close or intense, but still it's lovely to see images of all her milestones - and when we do visit, ot they come here......it can be a real pleasure. It is not compulsory to take enjoyment in things, but it can certainly make life far more manageable.

What's the matter with wanting to be a grandparent? Wanting something isn't the same as putting pressure on someone else to provide it.

Or is this another feeling that women aren't allowed to talk about in public, not even anonymously or in general terms?

Talk about it all you like, as you'll see above I'm advocating for people talking about what drives decisions to - or not to - have children. I'm just pointing out that saying "The trenches are worth it when you get to be a grandparent" might lead to disappointment if it's assumed the first thing will lead to the second. I've certainly seen threads on MN of parents being sad that they won't be grandparents, for whatever reason.

One gets the sense that some want affirmation or validation for their decision not to have children. No positive slant or life affirming take on children or families is permitted.

I don't think anyone suggests that being a parent is easy or that it never involves struggle or deep frustration......though perhaps if one expects a life free from any of those difficulties then the thought of knowingly entering into a life that involves any of that would seem like madness. And of course, we all have the impact of our own parenting and our own parents' desires, frustrations and failings - as a model for ourselves.

But ultimately we are creatures with the same drives and instincts and purpose as any other - and at one level that means reproducing and having young, and most human beings still do that.

I don't think anyone suggests that being a parent is easy or that it never involves struggle or deep frustration......though perhaps if one expects a life free from any of those difficulties then the thought of knowingly entering into a life that involves any of that would seem like madness.

This is so true I think, and I have really appreciated your take ShortShrift.

Different people have different things they want from Life (and that's totally fine ofc). Some people might want an easier life and some might want other experiences.

To use an analogy... when I got broken up with for the first time I was utterly devastated, I'd been with the guy for two years and we had been totally in love. I stopped eating and lost heaps of weight in my misery... and someone older said to me that he'd never been in love with anyone his whole life and no one had with him. It just never happened to him. He'd never had that mind warping feeling where you're crazy about someone and all pop love songs are about you. Some people go through life never having experienced romantic love or heartbreak. That's probably a lot easier to live with but I'd rather have had both than neither. But I completely get that many people would rather avoid the one to prevent the other.

So by that analogy, I'd rather have had all the shit that comes with motherhood, even including having come close to death in childbirth which took me years to get over psychologically, but also the everyday literal shit in nappies etc, than not experience any of it at all.

(I'm not saying the two things are the same, I'm just making an analogy with any big life experience that someone might choose to avoid)

One gets the sense that some want affirmation or validation for their decision not to have children. No positive slant or life affirming take on children or families is permitted.

That's a low blow. Yes, I've decided not to have children and it's a decision I've revisited many a time over the years, partly to make sure I'm making the right decision for me and partly in the face of criticism from others (including family members and partners), including the "You love them when they're here/you just get on with it/it'll be the making of you" that made me sometimes doubt myself.

But ultimately I decided it wasn't for me. I'm genuinely pleased for those friends and relatives who've had children and absolutely loved it, but I still feel very sorry for those I've known who will admit on the quiet that they desperately wish they'd made different decisions. Their argument is usually that they were swept away with the 'lovely' image of parenthood when they found the reality very different, or that they were told the things I was, only to find they weren't true for them. Of course I'll never know for sure but on the balance of probabilities I suspect I would have felt like them.

I got to make an informed decision because - via the women around me throughout various parts of my life - I saw the downsides as well as the upside. It's why throughout the thread I have pushed back on those who've repeated the 'You love them/get on with it/no-one ever REALLY regrets children" etc. and advocated for those regretful voices to be heard. Surely making an informed decision is a good thing when it's something that cannot be reversed?

And to intimate that someone who is saying "Let's hear and accept the downsides" is "trying desperately to validate their own choices" (you'll note above I referenced being thankful for my decision) is as untrue as it is unpleasant in its derogatory response to someone with a different opinion.

'Living life to the full' can also mean experiencing the full range of human feeling - from the darkest caves to the highest peaks, and everything in between.

Of course, there are some who must carry a heavy additional burden if they have children with life long or ongoing special needs. One cannot plan for this in advance.

This reminds me of something quite emotional...

In my early 20s, one of my best friends died by suicide. At her funeral, the vicar said something about how sad it is for parents to lose a child but that they would have rather had those 22y with her than none at all. I sat there in the congregation almost exploding with rage and grief, I thought how dare he. But now I'm a mum I think I almost get it. That was a darkest cave, maybe the worst thing that could happen.

So, I do get why someone wouldn't want to risk all these awful possibilities and avoid it altogether. It must objectively seem like madness, as ShortShrift said, that a majority of humans go on to be parents. But whatever happens I'm still glad I didn't miss out on it

Makes me think of Alfred Tennyson :

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Great post

Probably also that they didn't want their children to one day find out ..

I see what you mean, but morally and practically, fathers should be held to account.
There's also strong evidence that fathers being around is increasingly important as kids enter adolescence , so boys but also girls. The effect father absence often has shows that the consequences of that connection being severed can also be momentous. That may be a more crucial stage than when the child is younger

As I said in pp, fathers having a crucial role is part of what makes us human. Otherwise we'd be like tigers etc with their perennially deadbeat dads...

I agree mainly with this.

But when you say : ' Even feminism was created within patriarchy, and bears its hallmarks, i.e. the presupposition that what men did (politics, war, industry, academia, art) and had (physical dominance, sexual freedom) was inherently valuable and desirable and women should have access to it, which implicitly supported the patriarchal assumption that what women did (childbearing, care-giving, community-building, crafting, story-telling and oral history transmission) and had (endurance, longevity, freedom from overriding sexual instincts) was weak, valueless, trivial.'

Surely wanting access to stuff like politics, academia, art etc didn't necessarily mean feminists were devaluing traditionally female domains? I mean, surely we needed to win access to politics, art, sexual freedom etc?

And plenty of feminists have affirmed the value of things like caregiving, community, crafting etc. Gloria Steinem for one, plenty of feminist historians, the cultural feminism strand etc, and many radfems. I agree too many have ignored those things, though.

When you say : ' there are strengths to women that men overall do not have', would you also say vice versa?

When you say : ' there are strengths to women that men overall do not have', would you also say vice versa?

I teach teenage boys and this comes up a lot. I once had the most ardent Tate admirer in my form, and one day he was saying that men could beat women at almost any sport.

I told him that sports, for the most part, were originally developed to showcase what men are good at. Women win at bigger "competitions", like living longer. I told him that athletes go to high altitude places and train there for months to increase their blood count by a few percents to give them an edge, but in pregnancy, women almost double their blood count in just the first trimester. (I was pregnant at the time and said it like I was bragging!)

So yes, of course men have strengths we don't have. They have literal strength, speed, and height that on average surpass women's. But we "win" at far more important stuff. Not to mention we generally care about each other more than men do.

I've had to give this lecture to my dd too, who is only 5 and loves football and sometimes says that it'd be easier to be a boy.

'who will admit on the quiet that they desperately wish they'd made different decisions. Their argument is usually that they were swept away with the 'lovely' image of parenthood when they found the reality very different, or that they were told the things I was, only to find they weren't true for them'

I am not sure there is any one 'image' of parenthood? Or any one truth.

I think the difficulty here is you are attempting to.imagine how you would feel based on others' experiences.

It is almost impossible to know how one would feel because it changes you so enormously. Motherhood is transformative - physically emotionally and in its impacts. Yes Lifelong. I am not the same person I was pre kids. Nor as I was post partum or in the toddler years.

None of us nor our lives are static, so trying to predict or guess how a future self may feel about a future hypothetical situation is ... hard.

(I dont mean transformative in necessarily a sparkly shiny way. I feel it remakes you in many ways).

I love this!

Otoh I'd argue that stuff like strength or longevity should arguably be de-emphasised. Men do better at a lot of sports because they're naturally physically stronger. Ofc sports players work hard, but that's on top of that. And women's longevity ditto. Things that people can't control aren't relevant to their character etc .

I ageee though that in the situation you were in in the class, that reply was more suitable.

I really got through to him at the time! They were all discussing "sports" that could showcase what women are uniquely good at and I told them the stuff we are better at (like higher pain thresholds and resistance to disease) aren't gamifiable and they all got a bit serious.

I then had his younger brother in my form group two years later and he was way less Tate-y so I'm hoping the trend is on its way out!

I did also point out to them that nationally girls do better at GCSE and A levels... but they were less impressed by that than my increased blood count lol

@ArabellaScott That is true but when you know you value quiet and solitude and independence (not just from others but the freedom to come and go as you please) as well as hobbies which take up a lot of time and money, as well as intensely disliking being tied down/not being able to walk away from a situation, there is at least a chance that children aren't for you.

Sure, maybe I'd have changed beyond my wildest thoughts but...maybe not. And if you find you don't like it, you can't undo the decision. Surely it's not hard to see that someone wouldn't want to take the risk?

As for there not being one 'image' of parenthood, I'd agree but that doesn't mean that there isn't sometimes a somewhat 'disneyfied' representation of parenthood that is detached from the reality of what some experience. I can only take the word of those who said they found parenting wasn't anything like what they'd expected and that the upsides weren't worth the downsides.

Well absolutely, fucking hell, if you dont want kids don't have them!

Parenting cant be like you imagine because its not really possible to imagine until you've done it. And once you're doing it its constantly changing. Was my point.

General abstract "you'.