I don’t really miss my life before kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this thread, it's a nice reminder of the blessings of living a life childfree.

I work with kids, spend lots of time with them, love them a lot and am grateful that my work is about building healthy kids to meet the future.

But I'm also very grateful my life belongs to me and especially that I don't have to grapple with parental anxiety, which I think some people are nearly crippled by.

I have boatloads of existential anxiety, but doom and gloom are much easier to take when it's only you who will be facing the post-apocalyptic world.

It's funny that OP was accused of being smug and mean but this is apparently fine

How is my post smug and mean? I love kids. I am grateful not to have the ever present anxiety of one's heart walking around out there in the world. When I feel sad about not having kids, a few hours of true crime programming reminds me how horrifically you can lose a child and I'm grateful again not to have one. I have mad respect for the folks who live with that kind of dread.

I'm not mean or smug.

[Anonymous]

I’m with you, OP. I liked my life pre-kids, but it is so much better now. I don’t miss the old life at all. Many of the things DH and I enjoyed doing before are family friendly activities conducive to bringing the kids along (for example, we were much more likely to go to a museum or for a hike than to a bar, even pre-kids). We didn’t stop traveling when the kids were born— we adapted & brought them. I do dread becoming an empty nester.
But it’s ok for different people to feel all sorts of different ways about this topic & have different experiences.

[Anonymous]

Generally i'm pretty happy with the life I have with my children. But happy people just don't really need to go around talking about whether happy on an anonymous internet forum that's largely used for people to complain or ask questions.

I also have a pretty healthy relationship with all my in-laws and I don't feel the need to go around talking about that on the family relationships forum where people are mostly complaining about difficult relationships with their family. It doesn't really serve any purpose and it makes people who are struggling feel bad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are some things I miss of course (sleeping in, quiet mornings with long coffees). But on the whole, I don’t miss my life before kids at all and can’t relate when people talk about how much they miss their 20s, the freedom to travel, the parties and the fun. I did that, and found all that quite meaningless.

Life with kids feels richer, fuller and more meaningful than anything before. There is day to day drudgery but I feel bursts of joy at little things my children in a way I never used to feel. I don’t see this sentiment shared very often. Anyone relate? Or was I just a boring person before kids?

I could not agree more. I literally only miss one thing which is sleeping in and to be honest I’m glad that I don’t really do that anymore as fun as it seemed. I don’t miss one other thing I don’t understand parents who complain about parenting…

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you started this thread, OP. It's actually lovely and uplifting to hear that there are plenty of moms out there who are truly content and finding joy in motherhood.

I don't feel the same as OP about my pre-kid life. I loved it, and I think it was very meaningFUL. I slept in and had lots of long, fun nights and weekends, but I also traveled, dated, met my husband and built a strong marriage, built and nurtured wonderful friendships, and built the foundation of a rewarding career.

But I don't miss it; I don't wish i was still living it now. I'm deeply enjoying this new season as a parent. The fact that it's less conventionally "fun" (as one PP keeps harping on) is not the point at all. The amount of fun one is having doesn't alone determine if one is fulfilled and content. And some of the fun of my 20's is honestly no longer appealing to me, except perhaps in small doses (like an occasional weekend getaway with DH). Being a parent makes me happy because it is joyful, more so than because it is fun.

That being said, I do have plenty of fun with both my DDs (ages 5 and 10), particularly the 10 yo -- we go ice skating together, we get pedicures together, we snuggle up and have Friday movie nights together, we are reading the Harry Potter books together and nerding out over them, we have starbucks and ice cream dates, she is involved in a musical theatre program and loves it, so we go see shows together, including a girls trip to NYC with another mom and friend, we had a blast planning a sleepover party for her 10th birthday. I mean, I'm 42, ha!, this is my kind of everyday fun!

[Anonymous]

I loved my life before kids and I do sometimes miss the carefree aspect of not having to take anyone else’s comfort into consideration when making plans. I also miss having leisure, focus, alone time, and hobbies (my kids are 2 and 4). But I also adore my kids and my life with them; like others have said, I love the smallness of my world; I love watching them grow; I love playing with them and teaching them and caring for them. Basically, I don’t think I was happier in my 20s and nor do I think I am happier now — I think I’m differently happy. And I have no regrets with making the change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Generally i'm pretty happy with the life I have with my children. But happy people just don't really need to go around talking about whether happy on an anonymous internet forum that's largely used for people to complain or ask questions.

I also have a pretty healthy relationship with all my in-laws and I don't feel the need to go around talking about that on the family relationships forum where people are mostly complaining about difficult relationships with their family. It doesn't really serve any purpose and it makes people who are struggling feel bad

np - OP doth protest too much?

Some parents do have difficulty talking about the negative aspects of their life. Like they arent allowed or supposed to say it out loud. Especially so if there was difficulty conceiving, you must only be grateful blah blah.

[Anonymous]

Not me. I miss my life before kids!

[Anonymous]

But it's fine. I got money and stuff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad you started this thread, OP. It's actually lovely and uplifting to hear that there are plenty of moms out there who are truly content and finding joy in motherhood.

I don't feel the same as OP about my pre-kid life. I loved it, and I think it was very meaningFUL. I slept in and had lots of long, fun nights and weekends, but I also traveled, dated, met my husband and built a strong marriage, built and nurtured wonderful friendships, and built the foundation of a rewarding career.

But I don't miss it; I don't wish i was still living it now. I'm deeply enjoying this new season as a parent. The fact that it's less conventionally "fun" (as one PP keeps harping on) is not the point at all. The amount of fun one is having doesn't alone determine if one is fulfilled and content. And some of the fun of my 20's is honestly no longer appealing to me, except perhaps in small doses (like an occasional weekend getaway with DH). Being a parent makes me happy because it is joyful, more so than because it is fun.

That being said, I do have plenty of fun with both my DDs (ages 5 and 10), particularly the 10 yo -- we go ice skating together, we get pedicures together, we snuggle up and have Friday movie nights together, we are reading the Harry Potter books together and nerding out over them, we have starbucks and ice cream dates, she is involved in a musical theatre program and loves it, so we go see shows together, including a girls trip to NYC with another mom and friend, we had a blast planning a sleepover party for her 10th birthday. I mean, I'm 42, ha!, this is my kind of everyday fun!

I can relate to lots of this as well. I had many what would call a "great" life pre kids & marriage- living in NYC, good full time job, lots of friends, plenty of dates to choose from, travel, fun, etc....but I did enough of it and don't miss it. Yea sleeping till 10am was nice but the bad dates, loneliness and uncertainty of my life at the time I don't miss. I love a good party but I party differently & drink way better wine in my 40s than I do 15 years ago (You're supposed to). Not having my own family and not knowing when that was going to happen wasn't fun.

I do understand there are different seasons of parenting just like everything else and some stages are more enjoyable than others and it depends on who you are. In addition, NOT all women are cut out to be Mothers 24/7 and that should be acknowledged. There are women who feel they are a better asset to their families by working full time and don't necessarily enjoy singing nursery songs and playing kid games and it doesn't mean they love their kids less. We are all different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Generally i'm pretty happy with the life I have with my children. But happy people just don't really need to go around talking about whether happy on an anonymous internet forum that's largely used for people to complain or ask questions.

I also have a pretty healthy relationship with all my in-laws and I don't feel the need to go around talking about that on the family relationships forum where people are mostly complaining about difficult relationships with their family. It doesn't really serve any purpose and it makes people who are struggling feel bad

np - OP doth protest too much?

Some parents do have difficulty talking about the negative aspects of their life. Like they arent allowed or supposed to say it out loud. Especially so if there was difficulty conceiving, you must only be grateful blah blah.

This is true. Sometimes if I even mildly complain about some aspect of parenting or some annoying thing my kids do, there are certain people who will get very worked up about it, like because I complained one time about how messy my DD is, it must mean I'm a terrible mother whose expectations are too high and I hate motherhood. No, I was just irritated that one day about DD not tidying her room when asked. I got over it.

But I also disagree that a happy person wouldn't make a post like OP's because the catch-22 of motherhood also says that if you express your happiness about your kids or your life, you are insufferably smug (see, i.e., some of the responses on this thread). I do sometimes feel this overwhelming happiness about motherhood and this deep sense of satisfaction in my children and my life, but there are very few people I would express it to. My DH. That might be it. I have a couple friends who would receive it well if they were in the right mood, but you might catch someone on a bad day who does not want to hear it.

So I actually understand the impulse to post about it here. You still might offend someone, but it won't be your friend or your neighbor. That's why I think people post the bad stuff AND the good stuff on DCUM. Better to trigger an anonymous stranger than someone in your actual life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are some things I miss of course (sleeping in, quiet mornings with long coffees). But on the whole, I don’t miss my life before kids at all and can’t relate when people talk about how much they miss their 20s, the freedom to travel, the parties and the fun. I did that, and found all that quite meaningless.

Life with kids feels richer, fuller and more meaningful than anything before. There is day to day drudgery but I feel bursts of joy at little things my children in a way I never used to feel. I don’t see this sentiment shared very often. Anyone relate? Or was I just a boring person before kids?

I could not agree more. I literally only miss one thing which is sleeping in and to be honest I’m glad that I don’t really do that anymore as fun as it seemed. I don’t miss one other thing I don’t understand parents who complain about parenting…

Oh please. With your boring kid.

[Anonymous]

I liked foreign travel back then, went all over the world, but now I am done with it. Not really interested at all, unless it's somewhere reasonably local I can take the kids. Seeing things through their eyes is so much more fun.

[Anonymous]

I took a 2 year sabbatical from work before we tried for kids. DW took a year. We traveled in the year we were off, and got that impulse out of our system. We realized during our travels that although we liked the excitement of travel, we were homebodies at heart. So we enjoy spending time at home with our kids.

[Anonymous]

I felt the same way as OP until my kids became teens. I could do without the anxiety. I envy my childless friends.