Reply to Do you regret being childless by choice later in life?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Nobody should have kids if they want them to be an extension of them or are having them purely so they can be looked after in later life. A colleague said to me (I am the nanny poster again) "You should have children as they will look after you later on in life." As others have said, that is a selfish reason to have them and of course, there are no guarantees that will happen.
[b]I am one of three and my siblings don't have kids/want them either.  I know my mother is secretly devastated that she won't ever have grandkids but I refuse to apologise for that.  I am my own person and need to live my life my way[/b]. [/quote]

I'm the PP of the few long posts above.  And that is exactly my situation.  It has actually really caused a rift between me and my mother.  My siblings don't have kids either, and it has put a strain on all of us dealing with her.  [/quote]

Nanny poster here, I am sorry to hear that. In my situation it makes me angry.  On Mothers day last year she chose to see a friend of the family who had just given birth over spending time with me. 
It is selfish to have children and expect them to meet expectations you want for them. Nobody should ever have kids for that reason. By all means, Be disappointed you won't ever get grandkids but don't make it public. That's just selfish and cruel. 
Sorry, hope things improve there :([/quote]

That's a shame that she chose not to spend mothers day with you.

Thank you for your kind words.

I'm going to write some things that will probably get me flamed, but I think they need to be said.

The sad reality about my mom is that, putting aside how her actions have affected me, I think she's very unhappy.  But if she were polled by someone trying to quantify if women were happier later in life having had kids or not, she would likely say she's happy, the kids are the best thing, yadda, yadda, yadda.  And it would skew the results because she isn't happy.  And while she may not regret kids, she's an example of how having kids doesn't guarantee you happiness in later years.  And my deep suspicion is that some of the childless women who regret not having kids might not have been any happier if they had had them.  It's just easier to fixate on that as being the reason.  A lot of people reach retirement (with and without kids) and find it's difficult to transition to that phase of life, especially if they can no longer do the things they used to do.

The thing is that for every childless/free older woman who has regrets and/or isn't happy there's an older woman who did have children who also has regrets of some sort (perhaps unrelated to children) and/or isn't happy.  But we frame the question as having kids being the make-or-break decision in life -- for women.

How many times has someone on here (or elsewhere on the internet) said they feel sorry for women who don't have children?  But how many posts do we see of women who have children but are unhappy for some other reason (bad marriage, lack of hobbies, lack of friends, isolation)?  No one ever makes statements of deep pity for those women.  We have this cultural narrative that even if you aren't happy, having kids = at least some kind of default happiness or, at the least, checks off some sort of "meaning" box so that there is something redeeming.   And that leads to this idea that women should be happy if they kids; if they aren't happy but are mothers, then their unhappiness doesn't matter.  They still have or had purpose, so it's fine.

I don't think that is good for anyone -- women or men, childless/free or with children.  It devalues people as having intrinsic integrity and worth.

It also devalues friendship.  And that's a shame because, for one, even if you have children, ideally, they grow up to have lives of their own.   Two, if we really want a civilized society, we can't see blood ties as the only ties that matter.  Bonds of friendship also strengthen society.  But as many posts reveal on here, many feel like the only relationships that matter, that are worth effort and worth maintaining, are familial bonds.  No wonder there's so much tribalism.  No wonder we don't have a strong social safety net.

And aside from all of that, we haven't really thought about eldercare in part because there's this tacit assumption that children will care for aging parents.  But it seems to me increasingly clear that when seniors reach a point that they need intense care, most adult children really aren't able to give them that kind of care and they find themselves with little support or options.  In times past, all of that fell to women.  They raised the kids and then they took care of the elderly.  But as a woman, I don't think it's fair to assume that women will be and should be caretakers all their lives.    But now that women do have options, it's even more important to, as a society, realize that we should all take an interest in ensuring there's adequate eldercare available.

Perhaps I'm rambling.  But I'm just tired of all of the judgment regarding childless/free women.   I read post after post after post by women with children who are unhappy about one thing or another or are in a bad marriage or whatever.  But even with all of that unhappiness, when the topic of childless women comes up, everyone acts like childless women are *truly* unhappy/pitiful.  It doesn't make any sense.  
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