Does anyone really truly regret having a kid or kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children are older- teens to adults- and if I had it to do over again I wouldn't. At all.

Uhh care to elaborate on that?

[Anonymous]

I love my child, but if I could do it again, I wouldn't. The past 4 years have been stress and exhaustion and nearly destroyed my marriage. I'm holding out hope that it's better at 24 instead of 4, but then I see my siblings and brother in law still stressing out their parents at 30, and it worries me.

[Anonymous]

Parenthood takes the patience of a saint. It's enough to break even those who think they have it all together. But if you have a lot of love to give it can be a wonderful thing. I love my kids so much but possibly like all parents I sometimes am not sure I can keep going every day it is so exhausting. I have two in diapers and work long hours. I also know this is just a really hard phase then they are young. And that life without them would be free but yet empty. The wright of a family is a heavy burden but the lightness of no family leaves you floating around. Alone.

[Anonymous]

2 has been awful for my marriage. 1 was way easier and I could do everything.

[Anonymous]

DH and I were fence sitters too, I remained fairly lukewarm about the whole thing throughout pregnancy, and have zero regrets. We had an easy baby that slept well, but that first month was still a huge adjustment and even though I dearly loved DS there were certainly times I wondered what we had done. But things got better and better, by 6 months I was really enjoying him, and he gets more fun as time goes on. He's 4 now and I am so glad we made this choice. It's hard to even express how much I love him. We enjoyed our life before kid and would have had plenty of adventures had we not had a kid, but he brings so much joy and I can't wait to have more adventures with him.

From a fence sitter perspective, one thing to consider is how you will balance your own identity and having a child. I work outside the home and have no guilt about that. I'm not cut out to be SAHM, and DS enjoys being around kids his age. Or maybe you will relish being a SAHP. Whatever your situation, own it and don't feel guilty about it. If you have family around that can watch your child on occasion I think that is a huge help as well. Child gets to bond with loving family members, parents get a break.

Of course there are any number of things that can make parenting a challenge above and beyond the adjustment to parenting in general (which is easier for some than others). We happened to luck out with an easy going baby/toddler/preschooler who likes his sleep (who knows what the future will bring). It is constant and not all rainbows and puppies, but he truly brings an immense amount of joy to our lives and I wouldn't change it for anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to ask people with older kids this question, not people with young kids.

Exactly. It's easy to gush over a kid when they're still cute and small. But dealing with mouthy older kids, schooling issues, bad attitudes, peer pressure, disrespect, boy is it challenging. You love your kid in these moments, but you definitely deal with not liking them a lot sometimes. And a God forbid your kid grow up to be a loser of some kind, like a criminal or addict. Then you'll really wish you never had them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to ask people with older kids this question, not people with young kids.

Exactly. It's easy to gush over a kid when they're still cute and small. But dealing with mouthy older kids, schooling issues, bad attitudes, peer pressure, disrespect, boy is it challenging. You love your kid in these moments, but you definitely deal with not liking them a lot sometimes. And a God forbid your kid grow up to be a loser of some kind, like a criminal or addict. Then you'll really wish you never had them.

I read that post to be saying the opposite

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 has been awful for my marriage. 1 was way easier and I could do everything.

This

[Anonymous]

On the Family rships board, there is a thread about how happy people are to not live close to their parents. The posters are happy to only visit their parents once a year. I think that is sad. They complain how their parents don't help with grand kids and whatnot. I wonder how those grandparents feel about having kids who grew up to not want to be around them, or their adult kids think the parents are super boring and not helpful.

Reading that thread makes you wonder what is the point of having kids, if they'll just grow up to not give a shit about you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the Family rships board, there is a thread about how happy people are to not live close to their parents. The posters are happy to only visit their parents once a year. I think that is sad. They complain how their parents don't help with grand kids and whatnot. I wonder how those grandparents feel about having kids who grew up to not want to be around them, or their adult kids think the parents are super boring and not helpful.

Reading that thread makes you wonder what is the point of having kids, if they'll just grow up to not give a shit about you.

Well, I don't understand the mentality of having kids and then having expectations of what their lives will be like as adults in relation to you. People decide to become parents to satisfy their own desire to have children. The point of having kids is having kids--not so they'll grow up and take care of you or put you on a pedestal for choosing to have unprotected sex (or IUI or IVF or adopt, what have you).