Regret not having kids?
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Anonymous
Go and read the post "How Old Were Your Parents When They Started to Need Your Help?" in the Midlife and ElderCare section on DCUM. This is the norm!! |
Anonymous
In fact there are many other long threads in this forum about all the care that very concerned and caring people are helping their elderly parents with - for many people it is A LOT OF WORK! |
Anonymous
It’s just like how married people think singles are all out on dates, going shopping or having brunch all the time. I stopped doing that stuff in my early thirties. On Friday and Saturday nights, I’m home reading and cuddling with my dog. I have a job and bills to pay, and I’m tired, just like every other middle aged person. One of my friends married when we were both about 25. Ten years later her husband leaves her and she’s texting me all the time to ask if I want to get mani pedis, or and go out for dinner and cosmopolitans. I’m like Hon, Sex and the City isn’t real and I haven’t had one of those since 2002. I stay home every night and have a hookup or two per year. She got married again pretty quickly. |
Anonymous
And how many biological children have gone on to kill their parent or parents? Your logic is ridiculous. Thanks for the anecdote. |
Anonymous
I used to volunteer at a senior home. Lots of seniors with kids who have little to do with them. If the kids were nice or they had the money they'd get them a full time nurses aide. I actually had a few seniors beg me to take them home or at least give them a day outside the facility. Very sad. Just because you have children does not mean they will look after you even if you were a good parent. |
Anonymous
It's not whether we "need" a serious reason or not. It's that so many people with kids seem to assume that we kid free by choice people are out living as if we are still in our 20s. Like we're not having kids because we're Peter Pans. They use this as a hook to denigrate us as immature and narcissistic and whatever else. Maybe what we actually are is self-aware enough not to give in to the extreme societal pressure or the threads like this designed to make us doubt our choices. Choices we've made for all sorts of reasons, that perhaps the "life has no MEANING without kids" can't conceive of - and don't bother asking about, because they are not self-aware enough to recognize the existence of other people's lives. |
Anonymous
In my case it's not health issues or family dysfunction. I just didn't want kids. I never had the urge. I appreciate the flexibility that not having kids gives us. But it's not the reason for it. We just didn't want kids. That's the reason. I love being an aunt! I love kids. I just didn't want them for myself. |
Anonymous
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I think the decision of whether a woman has kids or not should be independent of what the man wants. Sounds like your sister gave up what she wanted to be accommodating for a man who wasn’t really involved with his existing kids and didn’t want any more. She recognized he probably wouldn’t be very involved with their children and would likely abandon them, too. So it was a decision based on the circumstances, rather than on what she really wanted.
I was in a similar situation - madly in love with a man who had older kids and didn’t want more, had a vasectomy scheduled and everything. I considered not having kids because I wanted to be with him so badly, but decided kids were more important to me and broke up with him. He did therapy for a year and then reached out wanting to get back together knowing I wanted my own kids. I was very clear that he wasn’t going to waste my time and fertility, we needed a strict timeline of marriage, getting pregnant, etc and we were going to get started right away. And that he was going to be an involved father, this wasn’t a favor he was doing for me and he isn’t off the hook. He agreed, we had kids, he’s a great dad. I would have absolutely regretted if I had stayed with him and not had my own children. But I also would have regretted it I hadn’t been upfront about my expectations and ended up with a deadbeat father. |
Anonymous
It is a lot of work. I say this as someone who supervised my mom’s home hospice with 24/7 CNAs—by “supervised” I mean my sister or I slept in mom’s spare bedroom almost every night for six months to make sure the CNAs showed up, give the meds, do things CNAs aren’t allowed to do like clip fingernails, and so on. This is while I continued to work FT job—the CNAs switched shifts at 8am so I’d know of there was a problem before I went out the door to work. That said, I wouldn’t blame anybody for using a nursing home when a loved one is unable to take care of themselves. CNAs are very expensive (on top of mom’s mortgage and condo fees which still needed to be paid). And I was lucky that mom lived near enough, and not across the country, so I could manage her home care. |
Anonymous
| There are so many parents who regret having children— it’s just that it’s taboo to admit. But like another poster said— grass is always greener on the other side. |
Anonymous
I'd rather regret not having kids, than regret having them. As for OP;s friend I kinda of don't believe that she really wanted kids that much or truly regrets not having them, I think she misses not being able to tick that social marker off her box |
Anonymous
| I know a couple who were married for many years. She wanted kids but he didn’t. He ended up leaving her, got a successful dream job, remarried and had kids. At that point, she was too old to have children and very hurt by putting her life on hold for him all those years. She ended up adopting. Her husband was mostly unemployed when they were together. I don’t know how she bounced back but she ended up adopting. |
Anonymous
So true. It is also true that openly admitting you regretted having them is taboo. |
Anonymous
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I think as we age and grow and change over time, we may want different things. Kids are biologically not possible naturally for women at a certain age. Therefore as women, it's a hard decision. What you feel at age 25.38,42,57 may all be different. Whereas a man could naturally father a kid at an older age, I suppose adoption is possible for someone but unless you are very well off and could position yourself as a quality candidate to parent, as a woman, good luck with having a kid at an older age.
But if you have a kid you may regret the days and nights and the energy and money on them but chances are I think at least you won't have that yearning and one day they leave you and you still have a life. It's a really hard thing to say you'll never change. It's also silly for people not to admit regrets and mistakes. Those people aren't capable of growing. It's another thing if you choose not to have kids and are at peace with that choice - however - reiterating that time doesn't guarantee you will always feel the same way. Personally I would rather err on having kids. Getting married over not. To have people and family in your life is worth the gamble. You gotta try and take that risk of happily ever after v no options ever. |
Anonymous
Yearning - people choose not have kids because they don't have that yearning. Most reasons I have heard is that people simply don't want that experience in life. They don't want to have children hence there is no yearning for children or that lifestyle. I would suggest if you feel any yearning at all then yes have kids. To say its silly of people not to admit mistakes is insinuating that you think people that don't have kids do regret but won't admit it. Because you would regret not having kids, you possibly can't understand others may feel differently. Happily ever after - the fairy tale dream every little girl is sold, you will meeting prince charming get married have 2.2 children and live in a nice big house with a yard and a dog and have big Christmas's with all the family smiling, drinking hot chocolate. Movie after movie of the same life script. Yes people buy into it and want to live it, to live happily ever after or there is the fear of regret. Some people simply want different things. This might blow your mind but you can have people and family in your life without having kids. Besides the real scenario is if you have kids and do resent the time and money, kids can pick up on that and it can lead to ongoing lasting problems and broken relationships. Just go to the family forum and see all the problems. It certainly is a gamble. It really is simply if you want kids have them if you don't then don't. I know for certain if I didn't travel I would regret that in my life, I know it in my bones, so yes there are things we just know about ourselves, if you really don't want kids then you know it in your bones. Its the same feeling as when you do want them. |