I regret having kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Special needs is really tough. Give yourself some grace. It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have enjoyed parenting minus the special needs.

+1 that makes sense, unfortunately. I’m sorry

[Anonymous]

Special needs can change how you feel about parenting. It’s harder accompanied with more worry. It’s unfair.

[Anonymous]

OP, I understand. We are the same. We had a gap between our first and second, and I wasn’t aware of the extent of our first’s special needs until our second was born. It is a struggle parenting him every day and it only gets worse as he gets older. There is zero joy in parenting him. I am however grateful for my second because I have a glimpse into how parenting can be more pleasant. I am grateful for her everyday. It is hard to not be resentful of parents who have two “normal” kids. I can’t imagine what that must be like. But he is here and we have to grit our teeth to get him to college or at least independence at 18.

[Anonymous]

OP, I suggest you check out the special needs forum. The people there are super-kind and many are very informed and can help you navigate the burdens that come with having a SN kid.

My SN kid is now 20, and she is high functioning enough so I just thought she was a difficult kid...and after a few neuropsych evals over the years, she's finally come back HFA--and she and I are both happy about that because it explains so much. Anyways just want to say that you are not alone in your sentiments and it's okay to feel the way you do. It may be depression etc, but it may not be, it may just be a rational reaction to getting deeply and irrevokably involved in something you didn't realize you were signing up for.

But please get therapy because at least for me, my weekly therapy hour is the one and only hour of the week where someone focuses on ME.

[Anonymous]

Modern American parenting is uniquely soul sucking in human history:

1) Massive social inequality incentivized “investing” in your kid and cultivating them into bourgeoisie middle class professionals. Well guess what? Not only are there not enough spots for everyone to do this successfully, but some kids won’t ever fit that mold. Therefore, we have huge increases in diagnosed special needs.

2) Care work is devalued so usually both parents have to work and then do the care job after the paid one.

3) lack of extended family and local connections as everyone is busy working


Stop blaming yourself. Your children are people for whom you have love and care. You are not going to be able to control everything about how they turn out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask how it took until after number two was born (when the first one would have already been seven) for you to come to this realisation? Was it the stress of going from one to two kids?

OP. It’s complicated. The severity of #1s special needs came to light when I was already a few months pregnant with #2. And raising #1 just gets harder with as they get older. The hardships forced me to come to terms with truths that were not in my awareness. Also think I’m just becoming more introspective with age (I’m 48).

I get it — it’s complicated. My oldest has profound special needs, which we also didn’t have a sense of until #2 was about a year old. The reality is that my oldest has an incredibly limited quality of life. I’m not sure we did her any favors by bringing her into this world (note, we did not have an in utero diagnosis). I don’t want her to outlive me, because she requires 24/7 care and the likelihood of her being abused is incredibly high. Do I “regret” having her? Yes, in some sense, maybe I do. I also love her a lot.

We haven’t slept through the night in almost 14 years. I’m sure the level of sleep deprivation we have has taken 5-10 years off our own life expectancy. Am I exhausted from changing diapers, making sippy cups, etc endlessly — yep. Do I hate it? Sure, I do.

But that said, I think therapy might help you. My husband and I have just sort of chosen to live in happiness. We laugh, have fun, outsource a bunch of her care (which is realize isn’t possible for most) and just keep moving forward with as much positivity as possible. We don’t dwell on the miserable parts, but we joke around about them. We have done a few sessions of counseling together and then I’ve done some on my own. It helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask how it took until after number two was born (when the first one would have already been seven) for you to come to this realisation? Was it the stress of going from one to two kids?

OP. It’s complicated. The severity of #1s special needs came to light when I was already a few months pregnant with #2. And raising #1 just gets harder with as they get older. The hardships forced me to come to terms with truths that were not in my awareness. Also think I’m just becoming more introspective with age (I’m 48).

I get it — it’s complicated. My oldest has profound special needs, which we also didn’t have a sense of until #2 was about a year old. The reality is that my oldest has an incredibly limited quality of life. I’m not sure we did her any favors by bringing her into this world (note, we did not have an in utero diagnosis). I don’t want her to outlive me, because she requires 24/7 care and the likelihood of her being abused is incredibly high. Do I “regret” having her? Yes, in some sense, maybe I do. I also love her a lot.

We haven’t slept through the night in almost 14 years. I’m sure the level of sleep deprivation we have has taken 5-10 years off our own life expectancy. Am I exhausted from changing diapers, making sippy cups, etc endlessly — yep. Do I hate it? Sure, I do.

But that said, I think therapy might help you. My husband and I have just sort of chosen to live in happiness. We laugh, have fun, outsource a bunch of her care (which is realize isn’t possible for most) and just keep moving forward with as much positivity as possible. We don’t dwell on the miserable parts, but we joke around about them. We have done a few sessions of counseling together and then I’ve done some on my own. It helps.

You sound like my neighbors who seem to have an amazing marriage/life perspective with a child with profound special needs in need of lifelong care. My marriage is fine, but I’m truly not sure if it is strong enough to survive that sort of strain. Much smaller things create a lot of tension in our home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask how it took until after number two was born (when the first one would have already been seven) for you to come to this realisation? Was it the stress of going from one to two kids?

OP. It’s complicated. The severity of #1s special needs came to light when I was already a few months pregnant with #2. And raising #1 just gets harder with as they get older. The hardships forced me to come to terms with truths that were not in my awareness. Also think I’m just becoming more introspective with age (I’m 48).

I get it — it’s complicated. My oldest has profound special needs, which we also didn’t have a sense of until #2 was about a year old. The reality is that my oldest has an incredibly limited quality of life. I’m not sure we did her any favors by bringing her into this world (note, we did not have an in utero diagnosis). I don’t want her to outlive me, because she requires 24/7 care and the likelihood of her being abused is incredibly high. Do I “regret” having her? Yes, in some sense, maybe I do. I also love her a lot.

We haven’t slept through the night in almost 14 years. I’m sure the level of sleep deprivation we have has taken 5-10 years off our own life expectancy. Am I exhausted from changing diapers, making sippy cups, etc endlessly — yep. Do I hate it? Sure, I do.

But that said, I think therapy might help you. My husband and I have just sort of chosen to live in happiness. We laugh, have fun, outsource a bunch of her care (which is realize isn’t possible for most) and just keep moving forward with as much positivity as possible. We don’t dwell on the miserable parts, but we joke around about them. We have done a few sessions of counseling together and then I’ve done some on my own. It helps.

You sound like my neighbors who seem to have an amazing marriage/life perspective with a child with profound special needs in need of lifelong care. My marriage is fine, but I’m truly not sure if it is strong enough to survive that sort of strain. Much smaller things create a lot of tension in our home.

Same poster. My husband and I joke that we are really, really good at the hard stuff, but the little things are where we annoy the crap out of each other pretty much every day. We definitely are not living some perfect life. I will say that (i) money for outsourcing helps and (ii) we are lucky that neither of us was prone to anxiety/depression. Those two things are what ultimately allow us to focus on the good of it all. But if you are the OP, I will say that therapy helps. My husband and I went together twice. We just weren’t being out best selves and our therapist helped us come up with some really basic solutions. In our case, I think extreme sleep deprivation was part of our problem. It is hard to be patient and kind when you are utterly exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re wealthy send them to summer-long sleepaway camps, junior boarding school & then boarding school

Sad “solution”

There's a middle ground that allows parents with lower capacity for the rougher parents of parenthood to recharge. Be strict about bedtimes and wake times, do weekly date nights, maintain your career, lean on grandparents if they're involved, have hobbies and friends. This is what I do (also stopped at one because I could sense that parenting was not going to be a strength for me). I love my child and don't regret having a kid but it is 100% harder than I expected, partly due to forces outside my control (pandemic, hello)

[Anonymous]

Meant to write rougher PARTS* of parenthood, typo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see now how naive I was about what parenthood is like, and my reasons for wanting kids were short-sighted, stupid, and selfish.

And now I’m paying for it. I will never be free.

No need to feel sorry for my kids. They have a good life, and I block out these feelings during the day. It’s only at night when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet and still enough for these feelings to creep up that I’m overcome with sorrow.

That is all.

Yes, you will. It's a long slog from 4 to like 8 or 9, but then it gets a lot easier and time really speeds up. You will have lots of freedom while they are still at home, and then they will be gone.

But, in the meantime, get some therapy.

+1 my kids are now almost 18 and about to go off to college, and another almost 15 yr old. There is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I can see it 3 years ahead.

Parenthood is tough. I love my kids dearly, but in a lot of ways I cannot wait to be an empty nester.

IMO, under 10 is the longest years. Once they hit MS, it seems to go by faster.

Hang in there, OP. And yes, get some therapy, a hobby, something to make yourself feel better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see now how naive I was about what parenthood is like, and my reasons for wanting kids were short-sighted, stupid, and selfish.

And now I’m paying for it. I will never be free.

No need to feel sorry for my kids. They have a good life, and I block out these feelings during the day. It’s only at night when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet and still enough for these feelings to creep up that I’m overcome with sorrow.

That is all.

Yes, you will. It's a long slog from 4 to like 8 or 9, but then it gets a lot easier and time really speeds up. You will have lots of freedom while they are still at home, and then they will be gone.

But, in the meantime, get some therapy.

+1 my kids are now almost 18 and about to go off to college, and another almost 15 yr old. There is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I can see it 3 years ahead.

Parenthood is tough. I love my kids dearly, but in a lot of ways I cannot wait to be an empty nester.

IMO, under 10 is the longest years. Once they hit MS, it seems to go by faster.

Hang in there, OP. And yes, get some therapy, a hobby, something to make yourself feel better.

Did you read the special needs part? For some parents it’s never going to end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see now how naive I was about what parenthood is like, and my reasons for wanting kids were short-sighted, stupid, and selfish.

And now I’m paying for it. I will never be free.

No need to feel sorry for my kids. They have a good life, and I block out these feelings during the day. It’s only at night when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet and still enough for these feelings to creep up that I’m overcome with sorrow.

That is all.

Yes, you will. It's a long slog from 4 to like 8 or 9, but then it gets a lot easier and time really speeds up. You will have lots of freedom while they are still at home, and then they will be gone.

But, in the meantime, get some therapy.

+1 my kids are now almost 18 and about to go off to college, and another almost 15 yr old. There is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I can see it 3 years ahead.

Parenthood is tough. I love my kids dearly, but in a lot of ways I cannot wait to be an empty nester.

IMO, under 10 is the longest years. Once they hit MS, it seems to go by faster.

Hang in there, OP. And yes, get some therapy, a hobby, something to make yourself feel better.

Did you read the special needs part? For some parents it’s never going to end.

Yes. This is an important piece of information to acknowledge.

[Anonymous]

I completely get this feeling and have felt the same. Therapy has helped a lot, as a venting time but also to help dig into these feelings and feel less hopeless. And honestly, if you're feeling depressed, meds are fabulous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see now how naive I was about what parenthood is like, and my reasons for wanting kids were short-sighted, stupid, and selfish.

And now I’m paying for it. I will never be free.

No need to feel sorry for my kids. They have a good life, and I block out these feelings during the day. It’s only at night when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet and still enough for these feelings to creep up that I’m overcome with sorrow.

That is all.

I have those thoughts in the dark of the night too. Mine are 24 and 26 and I know that I will never be free.