'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

You're missing her point that some women who choose not to have kids is because they do actually have quite a good idea of how they would find motherhood, whether that's from listening to other women without judgement or from their own experience caring for others already. There's no need to get so angry and nasty because a women expresses that she chose not to become a mother because she knew and expected she would find it similar to the women who experience regret. It really does no one any favours to shut down discourse on any topic. You could actually engage with her post or scroll by it, but basically telling a woman to shut up is part of the problem of why these feelings amongst mothers are so taboo when you don't want to hear all women's opinions on mothers and yes that includes the very valid input of those who chose not to become a mother and why.

I 100 percent agree that parenting is harder than it was in my parents generation ( they raised me in the 70s and 80s). We had no wider family support but kids really did entertain themselves. From a very young age you just went out all day playing with friends in the neighbourhood. We free ranged far and wide. My parents did not have the burden of organizing and supervising our leisure time or friendships. There were no ‘play dates’ to arrange. They occasionally took us for bike rides or day trips. But that was it. I did one hobby once a week for a while my dad took me too. But apart from that, their free time was theirs. It was not spent ferrying me around.

Homework was less, none in primary and by secondary you were expected to organise it yourself. No school app for parents to check. Kids now do far more at school far younger than we did. The grammar they are expected to learn in primary is absurd. I’ve never even heard of the terms DS was expecting to learn. No bloody endless dress up days in primary either or endless school communications.

There is far less support and far more burden and pressure on parents, and on kids too.

Controversial opinion - anybody that doesn't regret it, doesn't really love their children.

Those that plan their families bring children into the world for entirely selfish reasons. It fulfills a need in their own lives, but the children are then stuck with a life of insecurity and toil. They might have debilitating health conditions, mental illnesses such as depression, etc.

Those that fail to thrive as adults are vilified as lazy, entitled, etc. - but really they've been lumbered with a life that's totally at odds with contentment and happiness.

Part of me definitely regrets having children. All I can do now is hope that they're happy.

Thank you so much @MrsOvertonsWindow that’s so thoughtful of you.

My DC are late thirties early forties, and I’m in my seventies, so society was a lot different when we started our family. I love them so much but deep down wish I could have been childfree by choice.

Before my first pregnancy I felt very strongly that we should wait until we were more settled and had had time to have some fun and travel. Things didn’t work out that way and I struggled with PND and hating my body for letting me down.

It’s horrible loving them and knowing deep down that I resent them at the same time. I’ve been told that I compartmentalise too much and it’s true that I never know who anyone wants me to be. My brain shuts off the socially unacceptable parts even if I go to GP or therapy.

I tried once to talk to GP. I said that I had no purpose (meaning beyond the daily drudgery) and he said but you have (number of kids) little purposes. I gave up at that point.

And it definitely felt like a life sentence as a PP has said. I thought they would at least leave home for university as I and my siblings had, and I would be free.

They did find flatshares and study and work, but often moved back temporarily as society was changing so rapidly and their awareness of life choices were so much greater than mine had been at that age. So on top of everything else, I was very envious and it was hard work showing how very proud I am too without the envy showing.

Mostly I try not to think too much. There is nowhere to go with my thoughts. We simply blundered along with society’s expectations as best we could. I think I made a shambles of it all.

I do not regret having my children. I think i am thankful that i was young and "just got on with it" I was married and it was just the norm to then have children. No thought was really given to it and it certainly wasn't a topic of conversation in the media or within the women of the family.Things are different these days and much more thought and discussion takes place and i think that is a good thing.
I do understand some of the regret, i myself feel a sense of grief for the life i could have had, a life where i never had to consider another persons needs. The minute you find out you are pregnant for the first time is the moment where your carefree life ends. You will never have another moment where even subconsciously you do not worry. My children are all adults and now i don't only have them to worry about, the Grandchildren have been added to the list.
Becoming a Mum means you are never just one person again.

Thank you.

I do find some of the reactions on this thread very interesting - from the initial references to “knuckling down” or “being on a smug high horse” to the attempts to explain away why a woman would regret children - PND, poor/non existent relationship, not realising that “it’s not forever, it just feels like it is when you’re in the trenches”, before moving on to the deflecting criticism of non-parents who give parenting advice on threads or where is and isn’t the right board for discussions.

Seemingly the idea that a woman might be perfectly well, supported in a stable relationship and understanding of her situation and still regret children is something that sits uncomfortably.

Why? Men’s roles have changed radically so far, why stop here?

This thread seems to be all about feelings. There are no 'wrong' feelings.

I don't regret having children, but by God have I struggled to adjust to being a mother. Yes, the constant demand, the shift to never actually having time off, and having to just keep going with extreme sleep deprivation (5 years and still going...)

But for me the hardest part is being judged as a parent as soon as we step outside our house. I can't even word it properly tbh, its not even all negative judgement - even the nice lady who comments on how well the children are behaving (when DS is not in meltdown) just makes me hyper aware that we're parenting on a stage and will be judged for a misstep. Add a child with additional needs who can have completely unpredictable and violent meltdowns and I honestly have to force myself to go out at times. As a natural people pleaser, learning to not care what people think about it is my biggest challenge.

Er no. You're immediate response to me was to swear - talk about provoked 😏
Your initial answer absolutely reads like a "I was aware of how Id feel before I had kids, thank goodness I was so lucky to have that mental capacity to understand this rather than these other women who weren't so lucky."
Totally patronising.

And im not the only one who felt like that as you can see from the reactions to my answer. So maybe there's food for thought there. Futher posts to other posters telling them how they should and shouldn't answer. "Don't your dares" etc etc - not cool.

Anyway, since we are talking about regret after having children because women thought they knew what they were getting into and the rose tinted glasses came off, it could equally be the same for you and other children women. Maybe if you'd have had kids, you'd have loved it - the thing is, no one knows how they will really feel until they actually live it.
The problem is, you can't go back once you take the leap!

I have definitely had moments of thinking "if I could turn back time I wouldn't choose to have children" and then other times (the majority) thinking how lucky I am to have them!

I think I know what the big taboo is about. It's to do with a mother's love for her child and how that is used to trap and silence her into a life of drudgery and caring - a type of silent martyrdom (you must nevert tell anyone, especially your children if you regret becoming a mother) so that men can get on with more interesting things.

Most of us think the nuclear family is the natural way for humans to live, but any evolutionary biologist will tell you that humans engage in alloparenting - shared parenting and that's how our brains are wired. We are certainly not wired for doing it solo or even as a couple. We are also not wired for teenagers living at home because they would have been fending for themselves in our evolutionary history.

The gap between our brains and our culture is where the taboo lies. Our culture (and men telling women what they are) uses motherhood to constrain women in a cruel way. We were never meant to give up ourselves, ignore our instinctual boundaries (e.g getting touched out, no time for self, child centered lives), but we are told it's a natural part of it.

On becoming mothers many women realise they have given up their agency and are understandably unhappy about it and it can feel like a prison sentence. But then we are shamed and told to keep quiet about it (cos you don't really matter any more).

As Susan Jeffers said in her book I'm Okay, You're a Brat, it is in the long term cruel and a bit vindictive NOT to warn your children how difficult being a mother is as you might lay the ground for them being equally trapped and unhappy down the line - not the same as saying you regret them. You frame it as a problem of society and a lack of support, not because of individual children.

"You frame it as a problem of society and a lack of support, not because of individual children." Yes, as Broken says, it is a societal problem, not inherently one which sits with individuals -mothers or children.

I agree with @Revoltingpheasants I found being a mother grueling and not enjoyable but I do, I absolutely do, love my children and I don't regret having children.
I feel lucky that they have turned out pretty well in spite of me, they are better people than I am and in many ways I feel redeemed by them.

I read the article (but have not seen the film). All the regretful mothers seem in a bind around their own selfishness. They want the best parts of being a mother, but also want the best parts of being childfree.

“self-described perfectionist” is going to get into complicated territory very quickly when assuaging her perfectionism is dependent on the compliance of a child/teenager/young adult. It’s a pity she didn’t have the self awareness beforehand, but the problem is in her, not in society, and definitely not in the child.

“Motherhood is full of sweet moments, but they do not make up for the freedom I could have had instead”. What on earth does this person think is the solution to this. She made a choice, and is now pouring more of her time and energy into this rumination, and comparing her child and reality to some fantasy in her head.

“People are more comfortable labelling it as [PND] – my children are adults now and I still grieve the life I never got to have.” Where to even start with this, she needs to go to lessons on Opportunity Costs until it sinks in. You Cannot Have Both, and it is profoundly selfish to moan that it is like that. She sounds like someone who wants to go on holiday but whines all the time they are there about the lack of home comforts.

it is amazing that it is full on whinge fest and none of them feel any responsibility to examine whether there is something in their own character driving their resentment.

… apologies that that was a bit of a rant. I am very conscious that some parents have children who have high care needs and have no support with years of exhaustion and no light at the end of the tunnel. And that feels very different to me.somehow.

I just wanted to make a point about therapy/counselling. It doesn't create the feelings out of nowhere. I use therapy/counselling to discuss existing feelings that I can't talk about in real life without either inviting damaging judgments or hurting the feelings of people close to me, and that are having a bad effect on me or my parenting. To get my feelings out in the open so that I can talk about them and find a way forward that works for me and for the people I care about.

If I was fighting to suppress the sense that I resent or fear my child or that I shouldn't have had children at all then my children are very likely to sense it no matter how hard I try to ignore the feeling. I might be directly making my children feel unloved but I might also be uncertain or overcompensating because I feel too guilty to do well-balanced firm discipline so we get a vicious circle of child misbehaving, I feel resentful and despairing, poor discipline, child misbehaves more.

Quite often the surface problem isn't the underlying problem. Does DC remind me of someone earlier in my life, and I'm still judging my DC by my own childhood experience and feelings? Am I feeling such regret because DH isn't stepping up and I can't ask him or he shuts me down?

The way out of the trap is often unexpected. I've had sessions where an unexpected solution came up, not because the therapist suggested it but just because I had put the bad feelings out there and looked at what was behind them so I could see past them to a solution I'd dismissed that could actually work.

Of course there are bad therapists and counsellors in the world but I would expect a good therapist to let me express my worse feelings safely and then once it's out in the open to contrast them with whatever love for my child I've expressed, or look back to see why I had a child at all and re-connect with those feelings, or maybe consider medical reasons why I can't connect with warm feelings; and then I can find a way forward myself.

Discalimer: This kind of regret is not a real-live example for me btw! I've never regretted having DC and DH has been a rock.

One more thing I would say is that if you can't handle mixed feelings then parenting might not be best for you. I'm of the Ozzy Osbourne school of parenting "I love you more than life itself BUT YOU'RE DOING MY HEAD IN!!")

I agree. I wonder how much support they have. I do think the loss of "villages" hasn't helped at all.

You're right, I haven't been clear. I think women who I've called pick-me girls feign a kind of regret at becoming mothers - the one thing you must never do is let on how deeply meaningful it can be. It's a tedious game that imo exists because academic culture always always lifts up the male experience and denigrates the female. And I also think this is bad for women who live with real regret at having had children.
Absolutely don't want to suggest that genuine regret would come from wanting to be not like the other women.

It's a very wise point that we don't tell our children about regrets because we don't want them to feel unloved.

But I was surprised when Kate Figes published a book "Life After Birth" in 1994 complaining that "no-one had told her" and I wondered who she'd asked. Her own mother Eva Figes had published a book "Patriarchal Attitudes" in 1970 which included a feminist critique of motherhood (including the views of John Bowlby father of attachment theory). Maybe we don't listen to our mothers when they're not telling us what we want to hear?

Yes, i cannot see the point in this sort of 'rear view' regret. Life is full of momentous and consequential choices. Only if you expect life to be a free ride full of 'self nurture' or 'self pleasing' might you become tangled up in this sort of pointless naval gazing. Every decision has positive and negative consequences.

..and our feelings are not static; they are in continual flow and flux.

I think solidifying a feeling into a fixed condition of 'regret' serves no useful purpose. At times we all look at the particular conditions of our lives and imagine other scenarios and pathways we could have taken.

An imaginal life of open ended or endless possibility only exists in one's creative imagination...at some point we all have to make decisions and commitments, recognising that life is not perfect and never will be. When we choose one thing, we close down other possibilities.

A criticism of swearing, a patronising interpretation of something I hadn’t said and a little smirk emoji. That’s me told, isn’t it?

And we can all play “reactions top trumps”:

Yes, OP.
Fortunately, by carefully observing others,
I realised this at the age of 13.
Not having children, although long term married, remains the very best decision I ever made for myself.

Is motherhood really deified? I think it is just as often demonised and made out to be a self subjugating and oppressive condition or way of life.

People always get anxious about those really big decisons in life: getting married, taking out a mortgage, having children...... because every such major choice in life is a risk. There are no guarantees - and forever holding back because of fear of consequences - is not a comfortable place to be either. Feeling we must minutely control the outcome/conditions of our lives can easily descend into neuroticism.

I can see how it can be one of a woman's peak life experiences, the flood and rush of over-powering love and desire to protect ( which reveal our instincts kicking in), and the subsequent investment in the well being and flourishing of that child....but alongside that comes frustration, guilt, overwhelming responsibility etc

Such is life.