'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

I don’t understand the repeated “but what is it exactly?” questioning of posters who say they feel constrained or feel a lack of freedom. Surely it isn’t hard to fathom that yes, everyone is bound by rules and constrained in some way, but children add an extra layer to this? Someone who wants to go on holiday has to book leave, for example, but you can’t just go solo rock climbing with small children or go at the drop of a hat if your kids are in school.

And even if those constrictions seem inconsequential and/or temporary to some, it’s surely understandable that to others they are not seen or felt like that?

That sounds a difficult situation. I'm sorry to hear that, and I hope it eases soon.

Well they are temporary. But sure, sometimes children constrain choice, and it can be hard.

I'm minded of.Oliver Burkeman's writing on the closing down of possibilities, which happens with every choice we make and as we age.

Yes, but motherhood closes more choices than most other decisions...

I think that is very debatable. Not having children also closes many choices.

I mean either path is its own thing and stuffed with variables. And we can never know what would or might have been.

Perhaps reasonable accommodations similar to what is provided for in Menopause policies currently, that would reflect the needs of mothers during Matrescence ; fast tracking after an agreed period that again, stretches beyond maternity leave. Any measure that accounts for the biological inflexiblity of mothering rather than framing everything as 'choice'.

I used to regret having children. There have been many threads on this topic on MN over the years. This one surprised me, only cause I realised I didn’t anymore. They are teens now and genuinely quite lovely people to be around.

And of course I love them, and as someone said I think part of my problem was having a second. But…I think if I could have really known what it was like to have children (which you can’t really), if I could go back and advise my late 20s self, then I probably wouldn’t have.

It is definitely about who I chose to have them with (now divorced- but I’ve settled them with him bent their father). But also my career hasn’t gone as far as I’d have liked, and the travel. I wish I had been able to travel more.

And I wasn’t as cut out for it as I thought I would be. One dc is autistic and has taken a lot (out of school for 18months, EHCP tribunals, serious anxiety). And the other missed out because of the sibling. They don’t really get on, we’ve attempted some holidays, without much luck. I often get very jealous of other families doing stuff together, travelling together.

But I’m in a much better better place than I was. They are great humans, despite my shit parenting.

That sounds like a good idea. Workplaces need to accommodate biology.

That sounds really hard, I'm sorry.

Isn't this maybe to some extent more related to the lack of support for single parents/increasing lack of village? Parenting 2 children alone is a different level of on call, to parenting with a supportive partner and/or with grandparents/siblings/friends nearby etc who can offer support.

Yes, I'm finding these posters extremely dismissive and tiresome

Is it so hard to accept that different people have different experiences, hobbies and things that energise or fulfil them? Some of which are hard to engage with fully post children?

I don't regret my child, but I am struggling massively as an introvert who loves getting stuck into deep and focused tasks with constantly being interrupted and never having any solitude.

Almost every hour is spent serving other people and not being able to fill my own cup - she is a terrible sleeper so for my sanity we cosleep but this means early nights and not being able to engage in my hobbies. (Having read up on different sleep training options, it's also not something I want to change up so understand this is a rod I've made for my own back in the short term but believe it will have the best longterm outcome)

Every time I sit at my piano to play she fusses. If I try and silently read my own book while she is playing on the floor she fusses. She is a terrible sleeper, had horrible colic as a newborn. She hated all the baby classes, kicks up a fuss in her car seat. She is not an easy baby, she was born this way. Others who have met her agree that this is just her nature rather than poor parenting.

It's really frustrating to read a bunch of posts about reframing perspectives or playing semantics when at the core of it, some mums just struggle and some babies are harder work than others.

And no, it's not that I didn't understand that children can be hard. I'd had years of teaching, babysitting and interacting with kids under my belt before having my kid. I didn't go into it lightly. I read books on parenting, watched shows, engaged in all the advice I could. I guess I naively believed that there is a (non damaging) solution to any parenting problem, and sometimes there just isn't, or at least not in that moment and you just have to wait it out (for developmentally normal behaviours).

It's not a character flaw to not enjoy spending hours doing tedious and repetitive tasks with your toddler and to have occasional (or even persistent) feelings of regret. Can we at least have a bit of a whinge about it without someone prattling on about reframing their bloody perspective and seeing the cup as half full?

Firstly I am sorry you are finding it so tough. Secondly I don't rhink anyone is suggesting parenting a high needs toddler is easy. Thirdly are you a single parent ? Where is the other parent while you are getting no peace ?

I find ‘where is the dad? Are you a single parent?’ questions so, so tiresome. It seems to assume that most parents are living it up, life is as normal except they are taking it in turns to indulge hobbies and get peace and read books, s’no big deal, right?

Usually the answer in my case is ‘at work.’ DH is generally away in the kids’ waking hours for three days a week (Tuesday - Thursday) leaving the house around 7am and back at around 7pm. I'm either at work or I have responsibility for the children and any time I have to myself is brief and generally spent rushing around on a deadline because I've got to get back to relieve DH. So for instance on Thursday afternoon, I had a rare few hours to myself to get my hair done but once it’s done that is it, it’s back home.

The freedom to just decide I'm off to do something has gone. The things I previously got joy from doing aren't enjoyable with children and I can't justify getting childcare to do them.

That isn’t to say it’s a regret, but it is an observation and it’s one I’m allowed to make. Incidentally, that freedom would be more or less back now; I say more or less because of course once you have a child you can’t just completely live life with gay abandon but ds isn’t much trouble on his own. When you add his two year old sister into the mix life is incredibly restrictive.

I often think the ‘no one talks about …’ tropes are nonsense; they are generally what everyone talks about, but I genuinely think no one talks about how with very little children you do lose the ability to do anything that isn’t specifically aimed at them for a few years, or perhaps some people don’t but with very different toddlers to mine. For a period of around a year I just couldn’t go into the shopping centre with my ds because it is peppered with those toy cars you pay to have a go on and I certainly don’t begrudge him a go but he’d want to go on every single one and have an almighty tantrum when forced off out of necessity.

I don’t even try to do anything ‘adult’ unless it is clearly booked in advance and designed to be so, eg hair appointment, night out with friends etc. But this is a small handful of times a year and the rest of the time I am trapped in preschool world: playgroups and parks, soft play and swimming, ducks and dinosaurs.

I am trying to stay factual here as this isn’t a complaint, it’s trying to be honest and explain what life with children, especially multiple children, is like. At one point it really was awful here and DH and I just used to split up because we used spend the entire time with both of them screaming, winding one another up, taking toys off the other and arguing. Since the start of the year it seemed to be improving but we’ve had a bit of a setback this week so maybe not.

My DS sleeps through no trouble. DD wakes up usually at least twice so I never get uninterrupted sleep so I am always tired, and have to go to bed early as the night will be up and down, down and up.

It probably all sounds a bit bleak and it isn’t but I’m more realistic now. My current life is

Monday - up at half six, ds comes in for a cuddle when he wakes, listens to his Tonie box while I shower and dress. DD then wakes, usually when I’m just out of the shower and dripping wet. I somehow manage to get myself and her ready and after an invariable tantrum because she doesn’t want to leave her dad or brother I take her to nursery and then go on to work myself, she usually stops screaming the car halfway to nursery.

I teach, so the MN myth of a day sipping hot tea and having uninterrupted toilet breaks doesn’t happen. I am teaching solid 840-11, in different classrooms on different floors (you lose a lot of perks when part time) then break duty, then teaching again 1120-1220. I do have a PPA (free period) 1220-1320 and I spend that catching my breath, doing admin tasks like putting homework sanctions and positives on, marks on the tracker, calling parents, I do get to pee alone in this period. Then teaching again 2-3. I leave work around 340, get DD from nursery at quarter to four to get home for four-ish. Ds is often playing outside if the weather is OK. It’s far more of a pain when it’s winter, or raining because he’s inside and restless and bored and makes an indescribable mess in the time it takes me to get home. I make dinner, serve dinner (fending off numerous ‘MUMMY’ and sobs about stubbed toes and wails about wanting to watch this on TV not that. Then after dinner DS has his shower and pyjamas and goes downstairs for some TV time, while DD has her bath and stories, then DS comes up for his reading and stories. They are both finally in bed maybe 745. I then have just over an hour for my own dinner and doomscrolling before I go to bed.

The next three days are easier in a way as I’m not in work and so can be a bit more chilled, however I have to feed and entertain DD myself, so breakfast, I always get at least one child coming in the bathroom while I attempt to shower and dress, get the children ready and take DS to school. DD and I generally go to a group or activity in the morning then home for lunch. She doesn’t generally nap in the day now. A few months ago she would nap for around 90 minutes after lunch, until 2ish and that was great, but those days are gone. She’ll often play in the garden but she’ll need me there, or she’ll do some puzzles with me or I might persuade her to read the same two books (we have a house of stories and DD will only currently read two.) We go to get DS at around 3, home for around 330. This is where life is starting to get a bit easier as they will entertain one another outside a bit although it’s still peppered with screams as one upsets the other. Dinner at 5, same routine: ds up for shower, then dd up for bath and books (Mog and the Baby and Bear Hunt, every single night, I am so sick of these books!) then ds then my ‘hour’ 😅 At some point after dd is asleep and ds is in his bed with me reading DH comes in, unless he is away.

Then Friday is as Monday except no break duty and no lunch as I have PPA last period so I have to do a lunch duty. I lost it completely last week as there was a fire alarm. I was most fucked off. (I know, we don’t technically ‘have’ to do lunch duty but like a lot of things in teaching there’s voluntary and ‘voluntary.’)

And then it is the weekend; two days of rest except not really because that isn’t realistic with little children, especially aged four and under. DD has a little dance class Saturday mornings; DS has swimming (DDs swimming is on Thursdays) the rest of the time might be a family trip somewhere like a national trust place or a farm or a park or something. And there are lovely moments but they are moments and a lot of it is very tiring, especially on broken sleep and near constant demands and talk. My ds will get stuck on a phrase and repeat it for what feels like forever; this morning he wanted to tell me he had seen a blackbird (we’ve been reading Follow the Swallow if anyone knows it; makes a change from Mog and the bloody baby anyway!) which was very cute but what he wanted to say was just mummy there’s a girl blackbird like Rowena. What he actually said was mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy there’s, there’s, mummy there’s, mummy, there’s a bird, mummy, mummy there’s, there’s, there’s, a bird, a bird mummy that’s, mummy that birds, mummy, that’s a brown, it’s, it’s, mummy that birds brown like, like, a bird like Rowena. Meanwhile my hair is growing. That’s actually fine but he was alone with me; if DD had been there he’d never have got that out. And it took me a while to understand him too so interspersed with lots of sorry and excuse mes and pardons.

I am hoping it will get easier when DD is around three and a half; I do remember that being a turning point in many ways. And of course she will be at school when she’s four and while that’s easier in a way that’s also kind of it and I wish I’d enjoyed these days more. But I am carrying a heavy load and I wish that voicing that didn’t bring criticism to me.

You’ve misunderstood me.

What I mean is that I want to have a family. My ‘autumnal years’ are probably now; I’m in my mid forties. What I meant was very simple; I wanted children, I wanted a family. I didn’t have children to have babies and toddlers but to have that family.

I don’t really know why this apparently means I expect their lives to revolve around mine; I don’t and indeed don’t expect or want them to. Time will tell; my own parents are long dead and I may well also be by the time my children are young adults. But I will love them forever. Hopefully that’s an acceptable reason. If it isn’t, I don’t really give a hoot.

This sounds incredibly difficult. 💐 If I can ask one thing (I understand if not), you say that you can't justify getting paid childcare. However, could your DH not take care of the children, while you do something else to give you a break? Is there any other family member/friend who could help out?
I know this isn't the case very often, and makes it much harder...

@Carla786 well, he does, but it’s always going to be limited because well … it is, isn’t it? I mean, he can’t regularly take time off in the week and how much of a ‘break’ is two hours spent rushing from A to B to get C done? That sounds probably negative and isn’t meant to, it’s just reality.

It’s interesting you say it ‘sounds difficult’ as it’s just life, it’s just how things are . Time will tell how things transpire. I can’t really relate to posts on here that say ‘well we can travel, why, a night out is easy’ but perhaps that’s because I do have a two year old in the mix. My instinctive response to the idea of ‘travelling’ is along the lines of ‘no fucking way’; my DD won’t even eat the food I make her never mind tasting the culinary delights of Mexico, Poland or whichever location takes your fancy! But I am not a big traveller and am happy with a few days in Center Parcs or a week in a Welsh holiday cottage.

It could well be that in two years, when DD is approaching five and DS is seven I shall re read this thread and reassure myself it did all work out, I slept again, I could develop my interests and this was all just a phase. I don’t even think I have a particularly difficult or tough time of things. I’m very lucky to only work minimal hours and have the rest of the time with the children, we have a lovely home, we have a nice life in a lot of ways but it does absolutely revolve around children and their needs and wants. This will hopefully shift and change but it doesn’t stop it being extremely draining in the thick of it.

Certainly nowadays a woman would have to be living under a rock not to constantly be bombarded with all the negatives of parenthood.

There are many negatives and many positives, and so many variables that every woman's experience is different. I was one of those women who knew I wasn't cut out for motherhood and planned never to have children; then I accidentally fell pregnant, and what do you know, being a mother has been the most rewarding and happy part of my life. What can other women conclude from my story? Absolutely nothing. They're not me.

@Revoltingpheasants if it’s any consolation, your days sound really familiar at the moment. I agree with you about just having to revolve things around the kids. When people say ‘you could still go abroad on holiday’ I briefly think maybe but the types of holiday we used to enjoy involved lots of travelling around and sight seeing, not just chilling by a pool, and I’m not sure the stress of the journey would be worth it. We stuck with Haven last year on the basis there was lots to keep kids entertained and if the toddler is happy then that means we have something approaching a rest (rest here meaning ‘can drink a coffee while she watches the entertainment for 30 mins!’).

And I remember a younger childfree colleague saying to me and another, both of whom had under 3s ‘gosh what a week for us all, at least it’s the weekend soon’ and me and the colleague looking at each other sharing the same thought that actually the highly stressful week at work was probably more restful than the weekend would be.

Yesterday all I aimed for for Mother’s Day was a walk at a national trust place. I thought it should be achievable. But it was a disaster. The baby was uncomfortable in the carrier because weaning is taking some adjustment for his digestion, and the 3 year old was tired after swimming in the morning and a poor night’s sleep and so kept stopping and sitting down and being dramatic and having tantrums. It was crap.

On another day the walk may have been nice. But when it’s rubbish, it’s really rubbish. Compounded of course by strangers judging your awfully behaved child (she isn’t normally) or parenting.

I think I just wanted to say solidarity really. It’s tough and it’s a merry go round of tough and also good bits, but it’s the sheer relentlessness of it I could never really have grasped pre-children. I love them to bits and I do actually love being a mum but there are moments when it’s just too tough.

I dont mean to be dismissive. It is sometimes very fucking hard, I doubt anyone denies that. But it will change.

We have some posters/the OP article arguing that once one is a mother that is it, its a trap, you cant escape. Logic and my pedantry suggest this is not a hard fact. Children grow, circumstances change, we age.

Mothers in the trenches of the early years have my sympathy. The days feel endless, I know. They aren't.

I mean - feeling regret for becoming a mother. Some women, per the article we are discussing, feel regret for the long term, perhaps forever, not just when dealing with 2 under 2 or whatever.

There are posters saying repeatedly “it will pass” but what if it doesn’t? Trying to reason people out of their feelings is… annoying.

Yes, it is annoying to hear but everyone says it because it's true. It's all a phase.

Dh and I were in a pizza place once when dc1 was a toddler, (it was called Mamma Dough) and I can't remember why but we got talking to another family with teens. The mum was giving us anecdotes about her teens as toddlers and finished up with "and remember however hard it gets, it's only ever a phase" and now that woman is called Mamma Dough when we remind each other about it.

Another funny thing... I was once in an uber and got chatting to the driver (a dad) and my dc1 was about 6 months at the time, not in the car. I was saying how hard it was that dc1 couldn't talk yet, "I wish she could talk so I know what she wants". He said "just wait, soon she'll be able to talk, then you'll know what she wants!!" I didn't get it but that's toddlers summed up in a nutshell lol. Aaargh blue cup!

I guess my point, if I have one, is similar to what a pp said which is that it's a clichéd truism because it's true. It's just a phase. Hopefully the next phase will be better but sometimes worse

There are posters saying repeatedly “it will pass” but what if it doesn’t? Trying to reason people out of their feelings is… annoying.

I think with the exception of having children with disabilities, it always passes. Of course you're a mother for life but when the kids are in their 30s (say) there's not much restriction of freedom is there? Once you control for work and finances

I have never wanted kids, nor has anyone ever commented about me not having kids (apart from a male misogynist colleague who muttered barren at me in a pub when in his cups. I have no idea whether I am barren or not, it has never been tested, but in his head no kids = barren). So I have felt no pressure.

I think women who have kids who are expected to also work full time have set themselves up for a life of drudgery and I that is even with a collaborative partner. I am sure for some the benefits outweigh the negatives but on the outside looking in, it looks like a millstone round your neck for life.

Plus this country and the world is so fucked up at the moment, it is doubly stressful.

So how do you explain the article of women who say they regret children?

An ex colleague of mine said a similar thing once, that she loved her children but if she had her time again she’d make the choice not to have them. I’ve seen threads on MN saying the same. Clearly for some it’s not just a phase, it’s a lifetime of wishing you’d made a different choice. Why isn’t that accepted? Why the determination to convince that no one regrets children?

It does sound like you are doing it pretty much single handed tues-thurs at least. It isn't clear if your older child ? DS is at school you talk about him being home when you get in, also you don't seem to be using your full 30 hrs - 2 days 8-4 ish ? When I returned to work after DS (DC1) my childminder encouraged me to give him to her when I wasn't working. I would recommend trying even just to get 4 hours a week childfree.

From Jessie Buckley's Oscar acceptance speech last night (a mother, playing a mother, in Hamnet):

I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.
❤