Regret having children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious as to why so many childess adults are on the DC Urban Moms and Dads forums. Also wondering why there are so many parents in their early 40s and younger posting in the "Midlife Concerns and Eldercare" subforum. It would be nice to have a conversation with parents who are 50 and over, as advertised in the forum heading...

I'm a parent in her 40s. I participate in this forum b/c I have elder care concerns.

This thread did not specify that only parents 50 and over could participate. If that's your goal, create your own thread with the explicit criteria.

DP. This *forum* used to be titled 50 and over for that very reason. It was a safe haven from some of the young foolishness. The name changed and apparently now some of the posters have too.

I am one of the PPs and I am 45. I am pretty sure there are many parents here over 50 who struggle with similar problems and likely have kids younger than mine. Also, living until 90 is pretty much a best case scenario for most of us, so 45 is right about midlife. Who are all these 50+ folks who think they will live to 100?

[Anonymous]

No, not for one second. I have a career, a thirty year marriage and two great dogs, but nothing, and I mean nothing, gives me the joy and happiness I feel when I hear one of my two DC's voices. I do sometimes wonder how I would have had as fulfilled a life as I have had I chosen not to have children. My life would have been incomplete, for me, thankfully, and DH, there was no other choice. Dinner with them and their current companions this past weekend really brightened our upcoming week, wouldn't have it any other way.

[Anonymous]

Like I said, it really depends on how your children turn out. Some people are really unlucky like my sister. Her son is non-verbal, autistic and can't function without her and he's 17. She has to shuttle him everywhere, pay for therapies and her doctor husband dumped her without any support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I will raise my hand, and hang my head in shame.

I suspect most people here either have kids who have launched, and thus have some more distance, or, as some previous poster, have very young kids.

I have a tween and a teen, and if you had asked me even two years ago, I would have said that my kids are amazing, that I love them more than my own life, and that I couldn't imagine my life without them. The first two of those statements still hold true, but over the past year I have been longingly daydreaming about the day when they are finally out of the house.

They both have some mild special needs, and the hormones are not helping, but they are both difficult, rude, argumentative, stubborn and dare I say lazy. We have spent countless hours and $ on various therapies for both, we put every support imaginable in place to help them, we spent a lot of time exposing them to every possible beneficial EC but let them chose their own path and interests in which we have been unfailingly supportive. Yet, they barely get by academically, are selfish and inconsiderate of the effort that it takes to keep our household running and meeting their every need, and take little to no responsibility for their own failings - everything is always someone else's fault.

I am sure that we as parents are partially to blame for this, but I am not sure what else we could have done. I have read many parenting books, taken classes, I am in therapy myself for the anxiety that keeps mounting because I worry so much about my children. We support them academically, help with homework, remind about projects, instrument practice, take them to playdates, drive them to and from their chosen sports, make sure they have enough downtime, spend enough time outdoors, provide healthy meals, travel to both fun and educational places, and yet, none of it seems to make any difference.

I fervently hope that this is just a stage, and that my smart, funny, sunny kids will eventually return to us, but right now I am dejected and almost dreading walking through the door each afternoon, only to be faced with a new drama, or some other way that I have allegedly failed them. I am not sure how much more of this I can take. So maybe you just caught me at a bad time, but if you are asking me today whether I regret having children, the answer is "yes, absolutely".

There, flame away.

dp why would we flame you? Honestly, this is how you feel and to be perfectly honest it has nothing to do with us. ( rest of dcum)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious as to why so many childess adults are on the DC Urban Moms and Dads forums. Also wondering why there are so many parents in their early 40s and younger posting in the "Midlife Concerns and Eldercare" subforum. It would be nice to have a conversation with parents who are 50 and over, as advertised in the forum heading...

I'm a parent in her 40s. I participate in this forum b/c I have elder care concerns.

This thread did not specify that only parents 50 and over could participate. If that's your goal, create your own thread with the explicit criteria.

DP. This *forum* used to be titled 50 and over for that very reason. It was a safe haven from some of the young foolishness. The name changed and apparently now some of the posters have too.

This forum was pretty dead, in case you haven't noticed. Keep on this attitude and you'll be hearing echoes soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like I said, it really depends on how your children turn out. Some people are really unlucky like my sister. Her son is non-verbal, autistic and can't function without her and he's 17. She has to shuttle him everywhere, pay for therapies and her doctor husband dumped her without any support.

I have an adult child like this and it has made our lives so much more stressful and sad than families with typically developing children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sad how many people here feel the need to lie on even an anonymous forum.

If you say "I love/don't regret my kids, but..." you regret it.

Moo on.

Uhhh no. I'm the pp with the young kids with a small age difference - just because I don't enjoy the baby stage doesn't mean I wish I'd never had children. I enjoy my toddler very much, terrible twos and all. He is adorable and sweet and the things he says are hilarious. I just wish the baby was out of the screaming potato stage already and equally fun. I didn't enjoy my older one at all for the first eight months. There's no rule that every single stage of parenthood has to be enjoyable or else it means you regret having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think if there was full disclosure many people would not have chosen to have children. If I had known how hard it was going to be and how much of my life would have been affected, I may have made a different choice. Once they are here, there is no going back. Both my children had special needs that needed to be addressed and made the hard core parenting years much more intensive and much longer. They are currently in college and the time spent ameliorating their issues has proven to be worth it, but during the long slow slog it was really really hard. My career was one of the casualties and DH's took a hit too.

I completly agree with you. I think a lot of folks are being flat out dishonest because the truth would be looked down on.

I have 4 and if I could do it all over again, I would likely only have 1-2. I feel immense guilt saying this because I love my children dearly. It's a lot of work and I think in fairness to the children, parents should not have a lot. Trying to equally distribute my time and attention amongst 4 kids is damn near impossible. Another factor for me is that my husband is deceased, so I am now unexpectedly doing this on my own. Raising 4 kids alone was not supposed to be a part of the plan.

[Anonymous]

I don't have the emotional ability to ponder the idea that I regret having kids. Once you have kids, you have them. Sometimes for the rest of your life. I'm afraid that if I really spent a lot of time thinking about it, I would fall into a deep depression and would resent my children every time I looked at them. I don't want to live like that.

And now the glass in front of me is half full of whiskey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if there was full disclosure many people would not have chosen to have children. If I had known how hard it was going to be and how much of my life would have been affected, I may have made a different choice. Once they are here, there is no going back. Both my children had special needs that needed to be addressed and made the hard core parenting years much more intensive and much longer. They are currently in college and the time spent ameliorating their issues has proven to be worth it, but during the long slow slog it was really really hard. My career was one of the casualties and DH's took a hit too.

I completly agree with you. I think a lot of folks are being flat out dishonest because the truth would be looked down on.

I have 4 and if I could do it all over again, I would likely only have 1-2. I feel immense guilt saying this because I love my children dearly. It's a lot of work and I think in fairness to the children, parents should not have a lot. Trying to equally distribute my time and attention amongst 4 kids is damn near impossible. Another factor for me is that my husband is deceased, so I am now unexpectedly doing this on my own. Raising 4 kids alone was not supposed to be a part of the plan.

Well I disagree -so it's different for everyone isn't it! People are not being "flat out dishonest" when we say we don't regret! We really don't! Mine are 15 & 17 (for one of the posters who said people who don't regret must have young kids or adults - this posters' children have some special needs she said, that's hard). As well both posters here have 'issues', one being special needs and the other having four children and single parent. These are difficult circumstances, very hard. Raising children is hard work I agree with that. I don't think I'd do well w/ special needs or four children either. I have two, normal development, sweet boys/teens (but far from 'superstars'!)- so I am lucky in that regard. I just don't agree w/ the poster saying people are being dishonest, it's not the case. I think for the poster w/ four children she will be pleased when the hard slog is over - working and raising four alone must be overwhelming. It will be nice for her when the kids are older though. As well for the poster who kids had special needs and are now in college, she says it is worth it now, so going forward I hope she feels that she doesn't regret it afterall. I wish you all well, I know life can be hard.

[Anonymous]

No, I didn't know I could love someone more than myself before I had kids.

The younger years were sweet. The teen years were hard, I felt I was done with nurturing right before they were out of the house. All my girlfriends felt the same way too. Now they are my best friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if there was full disclosure many people would not have chosen to have children. If I had known how hard it was going to be and how much of my life would have been affected, I may have made a different choice. Once they are here, there is no going back. Both my children had special needs that needed to be addressed and made the hard core parenting years much more intensive and much longer. They are currently in college and the time spent ameliorating their issues has proven to be worth it, but during the long slow slog it was really really hard. My career was one of the casualties and DH's took a hit too.

I completly agree with you. I think a lot of folks are being flat out dishonest because the truth would be looked down on.

I have 4 and if I could do it all over again, I would likely only have 1-2. I feel immense guilt saying this because I love my children dearly. It's a lot of work and I think in fairness to the children, parents should not have a lot. Trying to equally distribute my time and attention amongst 4 kids is damn near impossible. Another factor for me is that my husband is deceased, so I am now unexpectedly doing this on my own. Raising 4 kids alone was not supposed to be a part of the plan.

I don't think this is right--it's not about full disclosure, and your post about your not planning to raise 4 children alone illustrates that vividly.

The reality is that THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW what it will be like to have a child before you have one. There is no way to know how it will affect you and your partner or how difficult your particular child will be to care for or whether you and your partner will like the unrelenting responsibility of being a parent. There is no way to predict job loss or financial disaster or a parent's death or a parent's or child's illness or disability. Even once you have a child, you can't reliably predict whether you will be glad you had another. Someone who enjoys parenting 1 or 2 may find 3 or 4 children completely overwhelming. Someone with 3 relatively easy healthy kids might have hated parenting 2 difficult kids. But we don't know it before it happens. And frankly, most of us don't listen when other people remind us of the potential downsides of pursuing something that we think we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you regret having children, then you are a miserable, self-centered excuse for a human being, and very obviously a crappy parent.

Or, a parent with a much different experience than the experience you are having.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you regret having children, then you are a miserable, self-centered excuse for a human being, and very obviously a crappy parent.

People feel what they feel, it's the actions attached to that regret that could make someone self-centered. But the actual regret doesn't make you anything other than regretful. But thanks for coming in with a nasty remark, you've made the world a better place.

[Anonymous]

Parenting is hard work - physically, emotionally, socially, financially. You are basically putting your kids first at all times and constantly guiding them and spending time with them - quality as well as quantity. Your own individual leisure becomes secondary or non-existent compared to the family time. However, if you are lucky you will enjoy being with them more than anything else.