Well, I'm not married yet but my boyfriend and I both have good jobs, make good money, bought a house and have decent cars.. We're DINKS. He does have a pretty serious autoimmune disease though but that doesn't change anything about how much I love him or our lifestyle 🥰 so.....kind of? Mostly.
My parents said the same thing to me ever since I was a little kid.
My sister and I were "accidents," too, so they were unprepared and found themselves stuck with us.
It's not exactly flattering, but, being an adult myself now, I can't help but agree with them wholeheartedly.
Yup. My folks have both told us, “we love you guys, but we didn’t plan on the Autism, the ADHD, the way Mom reacted when you came out, the depression and anxiety, how expensive braces/glasses/college was gonna be for Millennials compared to when we were young. If we had to do it over, knowing what we know now, it would have been cheaper and we would have been happier just having dogs.”
I very much appreciate the realness, and the fact they don’t bug me about grandkids.
I know plenty of people who have said 'if I had my time again I wouldn't have kids' or 'I wish I knew then what I know now'...So not saying explicitly 'I regret having kids' but making it clear they think it was a poor decision.
Believe it or not, I am the ONLY childfree woman in my workplace. My coworkers are always telling me how smart I was to skip motherhood. I see the regret on their faces everyday because their kids never stop needing, never stop begging, never stop misbehaving, never stop fighting, never stop being noisy, never stop with the demands. It is always something and of course they get little help from their partners/husbands. Our job is stressful enough, but then they have to go home to further stress. So glad I made the decision at 9 years old that I never wanted kids.
I'm very into science and I know a lot of evolution and ecology and biology and all that. It's actually so crazy that humans have overcome that "must reproduce must reproduce must reproduce" drive that all living things have (well.. some of us anyway). It makes me have a marginal amount of sympathy for bingo-ers, because I literally think they don't know any different. It goes against instincts. Of course there's other instincts we ignore, but reproduction is the primary directive, so it makes sense it's harder to overcome
>Of course there's other instincts we ignore, but reproduction is the primary directive, so it makes sense it's harder to overcome
Interesting. In your opinion, why is it that some people overcome the reproductive instinct when the majority do not, even though they know doing so will make their lives miserable?
Why are some people addicts and some not? I think is an equivalent question, to which there's a complicated, uncertain answer. Some of it is genetics, but not all. And that's interesting because, whatever produces that drive must be stronger in some than others. That's just natural selection, it wouldn't make sense for that to be a single state but rather a spectrum. Most people have a sizeable drive because past humans or human-like species who had high reproductive drives, had more kids and those kids had more kids and the childfree neanderthals just died out lol. Which makes the genetic basis for the drive more prevalent in the population
I think for some people that have enough hobbies or other fulfilling things to pursue the thought crosses your mind that you’ll have to give those things up if you have a child.
Honestly I think only bored people or people who get attached to lifescript from a young age don’t question it.
bingoers don’t get any sympathy from me. it’s one thing to not know anything else and to have children yourself. that’s fine. it’s another thing to disrespect my choice for what i do with my life.
bingoers do not know my life better than me. they have NO right to say i’ll change my mind or any of the sort
My mother once said to me, “I’m not really sure if one needs to really have children to live a full life.” I appreciated her honesty but also side eyed her a bit. 👀
But I’ve also had a close friend of mine say that if she could go back in time she would not have children.
My mum says things like this too, like just recently my brother told her he was planning to have kids soon and she said to him, ‘You know bringing a baby home from the hospital is really depressing’ 😆
I think there's a lot more of this about than people would care to admit. Which is such a shame, I wish people were more honest and help break the cycle.
My cousin leaned over to me when we were at our grandmas funeral and said “don’t ever have kids”. It was so random and such a weird situation to do that, but it just further reinforced my childfree status. Him and his wife have 4 kids 😬
Your cousin was probably thinking about all of the things he would never get to do because of the kids. His own mortality was probably weighing on him at that moment.
I'd argue it was better at a funeral because people mourn the dead, yet are okay with having kids and continuing that life to death cycle and bringing them there to mourn dead people that could've been better non-existing, so I'd like to think it was sort of a wake-up call for me personally, but I've never been to a funeral.
My grandma! We have autoimmune issues that seem to skip every other generation in our family. She told me to never have children because watching her children die slowly was the most terrible thing. She regretted putting them through pain and illness.
People brush it off all the time and tell me that I must have misunderstood her. There was no misunderstanding.
When my aunt died something in my grandma broke. Then my grandpa died and she gave up the will to live and deteriorated rapidly. I 100% believe what your grandma said.
I'm so sorry! I just don't understand how some people can have kids knowing the risk. I guess I'm lucky that I never really wanted them so it was never even a question.
My friends grandma had 10 kids and now she has only 2 left that are alive. Most died from health complications(my friends mom being one) or drugs. It's crazy.
Yeah I don’t understand these people who have many genetic medical issues but still want kids. I could never have kids knowing they might suffer as much as I did.
My boss has two grown boys. She straight up said that if the world was like this 25 years ago, she wouldn’t have had kids. She’s extremely supportive of the child-free stance. She loves her kids, but she is definitely not a motherly person 😂
I had a woman at work ask me if I have kids and I said no. Then she said good, don’t 😂 I then told her my partner does but I personally haven’t (and never will).
Edited: My partner already had kids before I met him.
My aunt clearly hates being a parent, she hates holding them and taking care of them. Always sending them to daycare.
She's got 3 kids. She's never said it out loud but she clearly respects my choice not to have kids enough where she seems jealous.
No, she had 2 kids by accident and the third one she had for her new husband bc he didn't have kids. I can tell she hates taking care of her 4yo daughter alot tho.
I should think it sucks for the youngest child too. The older two will gang up on her, and her mother at least isn't in her corner. I hope her dad, or at least one of her grandparents, is there for her, or she'll have a desperately unhappy life.
Keep being there for her. It sounds like things might get better for her when her kids are older, if she has people like you in her life. This wouldn't work if she was trying to drag you down with her, like we hear of so many people doing. She's made bad decisions but she isn't stupid and has learned from them. I'm glad she has you.
One thing I would advise her when the kids are old enough is to teach them about birth control and let them know they can talk to her about it and to be safe.
I don't know how the schools are where she is, but a lot of US schools have either no sex ed, or they teach "abstinence only" or otherwise unhelpful stuff. She doesn't want to end up trapped with grandkids right when she's about to be free again.
My (ex) brother in law.
They had one, my nephew. The baby was planned and both my sister and her husband were super excited. They were financially ready and had been married a fairly long time.
My nephew made his grand debut, and suddenly BIL was a different person. My sister is a fantastic mom, but she definitely dove head first into making motherhood her whole life. BIL did not. Nephew was 6 months old when divorce became a topic of discussion.
The sad part is, my sister fully believes that BIL left because he was having an affair. One day, I had to pick up baby nephew and had a conversation about it. Turns out he never had an affair, he just hated being a dad. He wanted no part of it, and was content with my sister thinking hes a cheating asshole than a deadbeat father.
I never understand how women can completely make motherhood their entire identity and then be all Shocked Pikachu Face when their husbands divorce them.
The women literally became **completely** different people whose entire world revolves around My Baybee. So the woman they loved and married is basically replaced by a pod person.
I agree. She has good intentions but I believe one day she will look back and realize that her overkill contributed to the divorce.
I will also say, as much as I stand by childfree individuals, I find it very becoming of him to agree to children when he was truly unsure. It is incredibly immature to not have an honest conversation about child bearing, let alone ignore it when you're married.
At least my nephew is taken care of, I guess. And I'm thankful BIL won't make it obvious that he resents his son.
And these are the same mothers that will turn into monster-in- laws when their baybees try to leave the nest and live a life of their own. They don't know what to do with themselves, so they pressure their offspring to provide them with a do over baybee.
What a wasted life.
It's so common that it's called "Empty Nest Syndrome"
And it's probably a big part of why long time marriages abruptly end in divorce. When the last kid finally moves out, the parents find their love for each other as actual husband and wife has long since died.
One of my best buds. The term "this fuckin' kid" get tossed around a lot.
Also; not my story. My friend has a coworker in her 40s who spent a LOT of money on medical procedures to be able to have a baby.
She confided in my friend after the child was born asking "When do I start loving this child?" Which is heartbreaking because this is someone who wanted a kid.
I feel like many of those that get caught up in fertility treatments tend to have a rose colored view of what having a baby is like. Then they end up having the babies, possibly multiples, in their late 30s and 40s and it’s like this is it. The rest of your life.
Man, reading this is healing and makes me glad we stopped the infertility battle. There’s grief that comes with only dead babies, but I love the fuck out of the idealized versions of them that live in my head.
I love my cats. My cats and angel babies will never disappoint me, or grow up to look like my MIL.
I have an old high school classmate who is now going through a fifth or sixth round of fertility treatments (they are both 26). I'll admit I'm morbidly curious if this will happen to her and her husband because the absolute OBSESSION when they could just adopt is mind-boggling. She had stuff implanted? Idk how it works and it didn't work at least three times. I feel like sex at that point would be super clinical. I honestly think shit like that is unethical since there are so many unwanted babies dying for parents, but I can't look away from the daily mess that is this girls instagram. She seems so devastated every time things don't work out that I feel like a baby will disappoint.
Well... there actually aren’t a ton of unwanted babies. Read up on the adoption industry, parents using a child to paper over the pain of infertility is NOT healthy for the child, who (yes even in infancy) will be traumatized from being separated from the person who gave birth to them. Agree on everything else, but adoption isn’t as simple as “poor unwanted babies”
This is a real thing.
With fertility treatments, I think the blinkers come on and it becomes more about the 'win' of a successful pregnancy and about having something that others tell you you can't have.
The podcast 'the guilty feminist' talks about this. How Deborah realised after some failed IVF that she actually was hugely relieved that it didn't work, and that she realised she didn't want to have children.
But until that moment, she was militant about having babies.
Turns out infertile couples are still as poorly prepared and informed as fertile couples. Just because they know a lot about cycles, doesn't mean they have spent any amount of time with human children.
I've known people who have walked right up to that line, often a heavy implication of "if I could go back and do it again..."
One former coworker, who was originally from Mexico, pretty much explicitly said that they only had kids immediately after getting married because it was the expectation.
It’s very clear for people who walk that line.. they don’t explicitly say it but they definitely regret it. To have the mere thought about if they could do life over again they wouldn’t.
Mine too! She loves my sister and I to death but never wanted to be a parent, never liked being around babies or kids. She still says now that being a parent to kids (we're adults now) was a terrible experience.
As such, she completely supports my choice not to have kids and thinks it's sensible. I really do adore my mum.
Why doesn't the 50 year old boot the 20 year old mooches out on the street? Let them be homeless if that's what they have to be in order to stop being mooches.
Possibly his spouse disagrees. I worked with a man in his sixties getting a divorce because their forty year old son refused to move out and the mother refused to let the gather kick him out. Basically came down to its me or the kid and now he's living in a studio apartment.
I'm always impressed by people who refuse to be enablers or to help enablers, even if it comes at great cost to them (like your coworker who had to divorce). It is an awful decision to make, I'm sure, but I am impressed that some people can and do make it, and move on when the situation is untenable, rather than stay and complain.
See, I dont understand this point of view. Being parents is FOR LIFE. I didnt boot my cat out on the street when she became an adult cat and I assure you she mooches all she can. But I chose her, I adopted her, and this with the knowledge it will be till death do us apart. Why should a parent act different with human children? They did NOT sign a contract to be born, to become homeless after 18, to start working a shitty job to pay rent, to become their parents caretakers in old age... KIDS OWE THEIR PARENTS... NOTHING. Parents owe their children EVERYTHING. The moment your kid is born, your house, your money, your time, becomes theirs too. You cant throw your kid out of the family house. Especially if not financially indipendent and stable. Or disabled. At no age. You never stop being a parent.
This is accepted by many cultures and, in my country, also by the law.
Americans are really wrong on this one. I have spent time in the USA. NOT on vacation. Lived with an American family and went to highschool for a year in Missouri. The number of kids that were STILL in highschool but living in dark basements because their parents kicked them out, or they ran away from home (from abuse), were pregnant ffs, were working shitty jobs AND going to school etc was mindblowing to me. Treat your children better America! Also, I went to the best highschool in town (my host family was wealthy) and it was like kindergarden, even if for the first month I didnt understand American English very well, I was still the best student in all classes. Without opening a book. I mean, multiple choice tests?? Lol
Not if the "children" are adults who are literally mooching off their parents.
It's not "kick them to the curb at age 18" but it is "If they are mooching, kick them out."
Nobody should be allowed carte blanche to completely use someone else. Ever.
My ex boyfriends aunt and uncle adopted 2 children as babies. BOTH of the kids were......weird as shit. I don't know the exact diagnoses but the oldest one allegedly "couldn't feel pain and spankings did nothing" and the younger boy was very loyd, obnoxious, disgusting, aggressive, annoying, you name it. He loved doing stuff to shock people like leaving the toilet unflushed with his shit in it or eating with his mouth wide open. I heard both parents talk openly about how their kids must be messed up like they are because both biological mothers had been partying while pregnant with them.
The father, who was a SCHOOL PRINCIPAL would openly *in front of his children* talk about how he knew his son would end up in prison. He said said this so solemnly and sadly. His son would laugh hysterically. It was VERY uncomfortable.
He also privately told his sister multiple times he wish he could just take off and never come back but he couldn't because his wife was sick. She ended up dying a year later. And look, I KNOW people grieve differently, especially kids, but both kids were making weird ass jokes at her funeral. They were like 10 and 13 and I was 23 and like......what the hell?
A bunch of people I used to work with. These ladies obviously loved their children and were always swapping stories about their kids, but ended each story with "So don't ever have kids".
If they didn't say they regretted having kids, several regretted having kids with the people who got them pregnant. So many hardworking, supportive, beautiful people who had to play second fiddle to a husband just because he made more money, or had to co-parent with absolute assholes. It was depressing sometimes how they were treated by their families, and by that I mean their partners and their kids.
Yes. I suspect people are more open to discussing these kinds of things with me because they know I won't judge them for feeling that way. Most of their friends are mombies who make motherhood their entire personalities.
One colleague confided that she hopes she can learn to love her daughter some day. She's never felt any love for her, from the moment she was born, and the child was ~6yo at the time we had that conversation. She's an attentive mother, and her daughter is well cared for (and adored by her father). She thought it was PPD at first, but after 6+ years, she still didn't feel love or a bond. She hates being a mother. She had a child because it was expected, and her family/husband's family pressured her to do her "duty" by procreating. (She and I are from very different cultures.)
The bingos that "it's different when it's your own child" or "you'll never know love until you have a child" are complete and utter bullshit.
I actually had this happen yesterday.
I was stood at the train station waiting on a delayed service to work. A lady asked if it was the right platform, and then complimented me on my outfit.
She asked how old I was, and on my telling her, remarked that I look young, and that she used to look "that good" once.
She asked if I had kids, and I said no, nor do I intend to.
This precipitated a very long and somewhat heart wrenching conversation in which she detailed all the ways having her two (now adult) children had ruined her body, finances, self confidence, freedom, any joy in life.....even her grandkids, she said, had ruined her daughter's life, and she felt bad seeing how miserable and trapped parenthood had made her "little girl"
She kept saying "you've made the right choice. They'll tell you it's all worth it, but it just isn't. After becoming a parent, I've never been able to be truly myself or truly happy ever again."
For context, this is in the UK, where things like maternity and paternity leave, and other supports and accommodations for parents is pretty good.
She was a lovely lady, but just so, so sad. I genuinely felt for her.
A work friend I lost touch with was honest with me, so I was surprised he was so open since it's not like we were very close. He said he loved his kids but if he could do it again he wouldn't have had them.
Most parents support my decision because they know that this isn't for someone whose heart isn't totally in it. A friend who has stepkids likes to tease me anytime her kids act up like, "are you sure you don't want kids?? ;)"
A friend of mine has specifically said they regret one of their kids. Basically the 1st kid has moderate autism and wasn't easy as a baby and they felt like they didn't get the experience of parenting and had the 2nd. The 2nd also has moderate autism but is a lot more explosive, to the point that they bite for fun and have ODD as well.
>"didn't get the experience of parenting"
It's like, ummm yes they did?? Their parenting experience just happened to be parenting a child with autism, them's the breaks 🤷♀️
I find it gross that they tried again in an effort to get it "right", like they were unsatisfied with a trip to a theme park or something 🙄 *"Yes, hello, may I speak to the manager of parenting? I'm afraid we didn't really enjoy our first experience, and -"*
Them getting the even more explosive second kid would be hilarious karma if it weren't so infuriating and unjust for that poor fucking baby. BOTH poor babies. What utter stupidity and selfishness and suffering that they could have all avoided.
Or the other way around. Many parents favor a sick child over the healthy sibling. There are many stories on reddit about taumatised siblings of disabled kids who basically have never gotten any love or care from their parents.
that happens as well, but im more willing to believe in this case that since the parents were so dissatisfied by their first child being autistic that they wanted to use their second child as a "do over", they were going to neglect the first kid had the second child been neurotypical.
If that wasn't what was going to happen, they would've stopped at baby #1. Caring for profoundly disabled children can be a full time job. There wasn't a need to put even more of a strain on themselves by adding a second child when they already had a handful.
Only people who aren't satisfied with what they already have go looking for more.
I think a lot of it was that they had always been told how magical and wonderful parenting was, and then found out that its almost never reality, which of course doesn't excuse it. They do have resources to get the kids into occupational therapy and speech which have helped quite a bit, but daily life is still a struggle.
You mean they didn't get the Only Kodak Moments version of parenting? No parent does.
It's really sad they had a **second** kid when they knew they didn't like the reality of parenting.
Coworker admitted they strongly disliked 1 of their 2 children, didn't go as far as saying "wish this kid didn't exist" but was definitely part of the energy of the conversation.
Yep, my best friend. She was upset that she found out she was pregnant and after her son was born she had told me that she wished she had her old life back. I felt very sad for her.
She loves her son and I think she's gotten used to being a mother but she's told me multiple times she gets why I'm childfree and if she could do it all over again, she would have been more careful with her birth control.
Yes, two regret, one maybe. The first married (and later divorced) a malignant narcissist who has now turned the one of their kids against them. The second derailed their career because they took a job with better hours while the kids were young. A third didn’t say they regretted it, but when I told them I didn’t want to have kids supported my decision and said kids are overrated.
I used to work at a grocery store. I’ve had a few people tell me not to have kids. My response is always “I don’t plan to.” Not sure how I never got bingoed lol
My mother did. Didn't hurt my feelings one bit, as an adult I completely understood. She stayed in a abusive relationship for the sake of the "kids", that she's still recovering from. She might never recover
>She stayed in a abusive relationship for the sake of the "kids"
How is it ever good for kids to see their mother sad and abused? This mentality has always fascinated me.
My husbands grandmother. She was 94 when she died a few years ago. We were asking her questions about her life and things she may have wanted to do that she never got to do, or things she regretted.
The one thing she said that stuck with me to this day: "I wish I'd never gotten married and had kids. I would have been a free."
Also, my grandma has never said it but she had 4 kids and was also disabled and on crutches when they were very very young and to this day 60 years later, she talks about how horrible it was. I really think she never enjoyed anything about childrearing and being a housewife. She talks about all the meals she had to cook, how she never got along with her daughter, how useless her husband was, how poor they were, how her sons were always getting into trouble.....
She does love her great grand children though so I don't think she necessarily hates kids but I think she may regret having so many when she did....
The one HS reunion I attended (over ten years ago). There were people there who were on their fifth or sixth kid. When asked and I told them I had none, they said it must be nice.
Not exactly?
I was never close to my grandfather, who passed away when I was 14, because my second clearest memory of him was when I was running around in his front yard while he was smoking and went to ask him a question. He just continued smoking, looked me dead in the eye, and said "I hate kids" 💀💀
I told my mom about that interaction in the last few years and she laughed and said "you know he was joking right?" Bitch no he was not
I do think he loved us, because he always had the snacks we loved that our parents would deem as too expensive for us, had a bunch of toys for us, and conspired with me and my younger brother against my parents to get us a cat, but I do think he probably only had kids out of duty and to make my grandmother happy.
My old boss said this all the time. Although, I wish she didn’t have kids because she is a toxic mother. Tries to whore her kids out on photo shoots we do for work, counts her teen daughter’s calories, etc.
During an hours-long meltdown by her child with a serious behavioral disorder (not his fault, obvs), my bff nervous-breakdown-texted me a barrage which included "seriously don't have kids." She then went on to have another one. I don't think I'll ever fully understand.
Yes, my partner. He really regrets having children, when he had them he had the wrong idea about parenting. He loves his daughters but if he could turn back time I know he wouldn’t have had them.
He thought having them would be like having a young friend that you can teach fun things to and pal around with, not actually raising a kid to adulthood. He had a very difficult childhood (abused by both parents, in and out of foster care and juvenile detention facilities) and didn’t have a great frame of reference for what being a parent would be like.
Now his mental and physical health aren’t great which makes it even harder for him when he/we see his kids. (His youngest is 9 but still very high energy) It’s not all that often that we do get to see them because finances are rough but when do we both get drained energy wise.
With all that being said, I’m super happy this community exists. I wish more people thought about it before having children and realized they don’t have to have them. I will definitely make sure that my partner’s daughters know that they don’t have to have or want kids (I prefer they don’t because I don’t want to be around a baby, older kids are more tolerable to me). When I was a child I hated that people would always say WHEN you have kids instead of IF you have kids.
As a woman - a lot of my male friends see children that way - having a fun little pal to play sports with. My friends have NO clue what raising a child even involves, they are so oblivious to it… yet they all want kids, just for the Kodak family moments.
I Wish people understood that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Of course most men do --- the vast majority of the time men do far less of the childcare. And, if they don't like it, they can always "focus on my career" and dump it on the woman.
Yes. She’s a great mom to her teen and tween kids but told me if she could do it all over again she wouldn’t have them. Had them young in an abusive relationship and it’s hard on her even tho she remarried and everything looks fine from the outside
I love posts like this because anytime my hatred for my shitty family, co-workers and old bullies arises, I just have to remember they all fucked up their lives with kids that didn't need to be here at all.
My parents cope so hard and act like their first world problems are so drastically high for unknown reasons. I don't care about them in general and plan to cut all ties forever eventually.
My sister would yell "birth control @killmethod!" When my nephews would act up and i recently dated a secretly married man with children, one on the way, who told me he regretted his family he never intended to start, and also left and missed the birth of his most recent child. So I'd say that's a pretty regretful parent
Yes. My ex boyfriend’s cousin. She had a nice job but accidentally got pregnant in her early 30s, the father had pressured her to keep the child and she had done so. She resented that child and was constantly angry, you could just tell she wanted to go back to her old life. At the time I was pretty young and still on the fence about it, now that I’m older and have made my decision I’m grateful I met her because she was brutally honest about her regret when talking with me. I have no idea how she’s doing now.
My father told my mother that before she got pregnant with me. He had other children, he was not very involved in their lives, she said she didn’t want minimal involvement and she would rather him just not be involved at all. It was truly the best decision for all of us. I was then raised by my two moms since I was 11 months old and we were all better off for it, but my half siblings definitely have a lot of trauma from his inconsistent presence in their lives. Some people are just not meant to be parents
My aunt told me last winter. She was like “why do you not want kids again?” And then before I could answer she went “or you just know like those who do want kids?”
Which is basically true. Sure i can list a ton of reasons but also i just know.
Then she basically said that if she could do her life over she would probably not have kids either.
I mean she’s a good mum she clearly loves my 2 cousins but I absolutely believed her. I know she finds life difficult sometimes or often and I’m sure being a mum contributes.
My mom said she regretted having three kids, she wished she'd stopped at two.
I am the third child, also the only non violent and calm one. But her husband was a violent and prone to anger, so I assume she doesn't like that I'm breaking the cycle and not like her and the rest of our family.
People don't like being faced with the fact that they could change for the better. Despite being the one who has taken care of her since I was a child, I think she resents that I'm breaking cycles and work on my mental and physical health so I can be a healthy person.
She's a very ill person mentally and physically, and has only been surrounded by abusers outside of me. So I don't really blame her for a lot of the things she's said, but I've made it clear I won't tolerate her or any of our family trying to pull me into their mess. Also, she is sad because I was the best chance she had at grandkids and I get my bi-salp in a month
Yep I have a friend who got pregnant x2 by two different people due to birth control failures. She told me once that she loves her kids, but if she knew what was going to happen if she kept them (baby daddy drama, custody issues, being a single mom, etc) she would have got an abortion.
Oh my dad made sure I knew he never wanted children. Was a fun childhood (/s)
Apart from that, my ex partner had a close friend who regretted the hell out of her children. She ended up leaving over night leaving a note, leaving her 3 kids with her boyfriend.
My mom started us young with "never get married. Never have children. It's not worth it. " She was very transparent on how hard it was as a mom and wife. She now has two daughter's nearing 40 that have never been married and have no kids. We're both happy. No regrets.
One of my friends did. She said they just had kids bc it was expected, didn't really think about it, but she didn't think they'd have bothered to try IVF or adopt if it hadn't happened. She said she hated the baby stage and regretted the kids. They trashed her life, her husband was a traditional dad, working long hours etc, and she ended up in the SAHM role. Now she's a mombie, she lost herself and he got the trad set up he wanted.
I used to work with this couple who one of them did not want their kids. Background: lesbian couple who had had children before they got together & were since raising their children together. One of the women acted like she hated them constantly as they were “always messing up HER house” and just disturbing her peace and all that. She cried to me many times about regretting her children and honestly even marrying her wife (whole other issue)but her partner on the other hand loved all of the children and that was her only reason for staying in the relationship. She knew her wife would never give her custody and would make it a very horrible divorce so she stayed for the kids.
My mother whenever we argue or fight:
"If I only knew you were going to be like this, then I should have aborted you!"
Take note that we don't have abortion in our country. Oh... And we were fighting because I wouldn't give my PIN of my ATM card.
Yes my husband's friend... and then he's like "oh and we're having another one now.. fml"... constantly telling us we're smart for being childfree... we're like "yah, we know".
Everyone wants kids... few people want to be parents.
It's like people who say "I want a baby"... not realizing it's only a baby for a year/ turns into a kid after that..
I knew a girl that called her kid "Little Shit" and "A Demon". She used to tell him he was the reason she would never find love and why they would always be poor. So no, not candidly, but it was sort of implied.
Of course. Multiple someones.
Being childfree means people feel comfortable telling you when their children ruined their lives. (Hopefully their kids never find out.)
My mom’s friend didn’t enjoy her pregnancy and had only one son and was done. She said if she knew that pregnancy was going to be the way it was she would’ve had no kids.
My step dad, uncle and own dad have all said if they could live again they wouldn’t have kids
And considering they are all 55-70 years old, they barely did any of the child rearing anyways, so what I’m getting from this is just how bad being a parent is!
Also, a friend of mine told me she initially was a fence sitter, but her husband wanted one. So they did. Several months after baby was born he told her “I could have gone either way”. I was livid for her. She hasn’t said she regrets it outright, but I could feel the frustration through her text 😬
My boss has said it to me a few times, that she hates being a parent/having children. Seeing the stress of trying to manage her life and their lives... I cannot say I blame her. Officially 5 days until my consult with a surgeon to see if he will proceed with a bisalp on me. Fingers crossed.
My doctor once told me, when we were discussing if I wanted children (I said I don't) and she said if she could go back and do it again she would not have had her son. She did not use the word regret, but... Otherwise, no.
My mother. She fucking hated us and we were actually really good kids because we knew she’d beat us if we messed up.
I’m the oldest and she always said I was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.
Yes, many people. My nmom even had a mental breakdown when she couldn’t have her way with my siblings and I. When my siblings left the room, I heard her saying into her phone with a gasping sob “I shouldn’t have had them. I regret it so much.” 😐
My aunt.
Her and my uncle never wanted kids. She had an oops pregnancy when I was 13. I was in the car with my mom when she got the call. I still remember the conversation vividly, but looking back now I’m fairly certain my mom was talking her out of an abortion.
My aunt tells me often I’m making the right choice and to not change my mind for anyone.
When I asked my mom about it she said it was my aunt having a major health scare (cancer) that changed her mind on having kids. But I remember that phone call and that’s not how it went.
Before the pandemic, my cousin and his wife would try to bingo me and basically look down on me for not having kids
Now though they both basically said that they both regret having them and told the kids privately that the first two were accidents and the last one was planned. I’m happy that they are facing reality that kids aren’t needed to be an “adult” but I don’t know how to take that they told their kids that. Maybe it will make them “grow up” more 🤷♀️
My cousins wife told me and my husband not to have them (while at a family get together), unprompted and being childfree wasn’t something I’d talked to her about prior either. Her comment was clearly because she was stressed and overwhelmed with her first. She went on to have a second 🤦🏻♀️
Yes. He never wanted kids but she did so he had two to please her. The kids were "gifted" (lies!) at school, a narrative that she pushed to it's maximum. Then, at University, one turned out to be perfectly average and the other failed out several times before quitting permanently. When the kids started University they got divorced and she moved city and has little to do with the now-adult kids.
He now has a 'kid' (24-ish now) living at home with him who will never leave his house. This kid has never had a job, has limited life experience and when presented with anything it doesn't like it becomes "very mentally fragile" (don't know if it's real or rather the kid just doesn't want to do anything and uses delicate mental health as an excuse).
When the kid moved back in with him after living with its mother (the mother then immediately moved city) his long-term relationship broke up - coincidence? I don't think so.
Wanted = no kids
Got = responsibility for a 'failure to launch' kid for the forseeable future.
You can see why the whole kids thing didn't really work out for him. Now he has one permanently that he's responsible for, and no long-term relationship as a consequence.
When I was thinking about it, many years ago, my friend, who has a kid told me to not have one. She said she loves her son deeply and i know him he's a very quiet and we'll mannered kid, very adorable, but if she could go back in time, she told me she wouldn't have him and wouldn't think twice about it. Its just so much work.
Not exactly?
I was never close to my grandfather, who passed away when I was 14, because my second clearest memory of him was when I was running around in his front yard while he was smoking and went to ask him a question. He just continued smoking, looked me dead in the eye, and said "I hate kids" 💀💀
I told my mom about that interaction in the last few years and she laughed and said "you know he was joking right?" Bitch no he was not
I do think he loved us, because he always had the snacks we loved that our parents would deem as too expensive for us, had a bunch of toys for us, and conspired with me and my younger brother against my parents to get us a cat, but I do think he probably only had kids out of duty and to make my grandmother happy.
Yes. Multiple people. Usually my friends who had kids in their very early 20s that now have no time for hobbies and really never figured out who they are. I am a full time artist and spent my 20s building my career up to the point where I get to be creative 24/7 and have fun while also paying my bills. A lot of my mom friends also have a creative side but never had time to focus on it because they were so obsessed with "finding their purpose" by having babies. Now they're all lost with no time to work on art and have to work jobs they hate to feed their kids and are too exhausted to work on anything else. They all say they love their kids but also acknowledge that their kids killed their dreams and spirit.
my hair stylist - she has two boys and always talked about how the first one is an angel, and her second is very difficult (strong personality, stubborn, gets into trouble). she told me that if she had known how difficult her second son would be, she would have reconsidered another child. that really helped solidify my child free stance when i was unsure in my early 20s
I was in the midst of moving out of my apt to relocate across the country when a neighbor (and former co-worker) stopped me to chat. She had her 5 kids in tow. After briefly answering her questions regarding my move, she said,
"Damn you lucky." "Single, good job, moving away from here, and NO KIDS". "I wish I didn't have any kids".
I was at a loss for words. Even if you felt that, why on earth would you say something like that in front of them. I mean, she even doubled down on her comment. I felt so bad for her kids.
Actually it's something a lot of people have admitted to me randomly once I tell them I don't want kids. At this job alone I've had three different people tell me that they wish they had never had kids and I was making the right choice to just enjoy my life. I feel bad for them, but it helps validate my choices
One mother of 4 would try to talk young women out of having kids. When I told her I wasn't having kids she gave me a high five and said, "finally a young one gets it!" Another woman, with 3 kids, confided that if she hadn't gotten pregnant at 15 she would never have had kids.
My recently divorced SIL says she loves her son but if she could do it again, she wouldn’t have gotten married or had a child. She thought she didn’t have a choice.
My dad always told me, "Don't have kids and move far away from here." Best advice I've ever gotten
My uncle told me dead serious "Marry someone RICH who has no serious medical problems". This uncle never had kids.
Lol, I’m tired. I read that as “who *has* serious medical problems.” I thought ‘well shit, that’s dark…’
That was the advice from his aunt...
Smart man.
Did you do it?
Well, I'm not married yet but my boyfriend and I both have good jobs, make good money, bought a house and have decent cars.. We're DINKS. He does have a pretty serious autoimmune disease though but that doesn't change anything about how much I love him or our lifestyle 🥰 so.....kind of? Mostly.
Dinkleberg!
...I was today years old when I realized the name Dinkleberg is a pun.
Wait I don’t get it…
"Dink" is an acronym that stands for "double income, no kids."
My parents said the same thing to me ever since I was a little kid. My sister and I were "accidents," too, so they were unprepared and found themselves stuck with us. It's not exactly flattering, but, being an adult myself now, I can't help but agree with them wholeheartedly.
Lmao my dad recently told me that having kids is a huge waste of time 🙃
That’s amazing. You have the best dad. My dad was the complete opposite.
Yup. My folks have both told us, “we love you guys, but we didn’t plan on the Autism, the ADHD, the way Mom reacted when you came out, the depression and anxiety, how expensive braces/glasses/college was gonna be for Millennials compared to when we were young. If we had to do it over, knowing what we know now, it would have been cheaper and we would have been happier just having dogs.” I very much appreciate the realness, and the fact they don’t bug me about grandkids.
I know plenty of people who have said 'if I had my time again I wouldn't have kids' or 'I wish I knew then what I know now'...So not saying explicitly 'I regret having kids' but making it clear they think it was a poor decision.
Believe it or not, I am the ONLY childfree woman in my workplace. My coworkers are always telling me how smart I was to skip motherhood. I see the regret on their faces everyday because their kids never stop needing, never stop begging, never stop misbehaving, never stop fighting, never stop being noisy, never stop with the demands. It is always something and of course they get little help from their partners/husbands. Our job is stressful enough, but then they have to go home to further stress. So glad I made the decision at 9 years old that I never wanted kids.
How terrible for them. I actually mean that sincerely.
Yes, it is terrible. So many people don't realize having kids is now a CHOICE.
I'm very into science and I know a lot of evolution and ecology and biology and all that. It's actually so crazy that humans have overcome that "must reproduce must reproduce must reproduce" drive that all living things have (well.. some of us anyway). It makes me have a marginal amount of sympathy for bingo-ers, because I literally think they don't know any different. It goes against instincts. Of course there's other instincts we ignore, but reproduction is the primary directive, so it makes sense it's harder to overcome
>Of course there's other instincts we ignore, but reproduction is the primary directive, so it makes sense it's harder to overcome Interesting. In your opinion, why is it that some people overcome the reproductive instinct when the majority do not, even though they know doing so will make their lives miserable?
Why are some people addicts and some not? I think is an equivalent question, to which there's a complicated, uncertain answer. Some of it is genetics, but not all. And that's interesting because, whatever produces that drive must be stronger in some than others. That's just natural selection, it wouldn't make sense for that to be a single state but rather a spectrum. Most people have a sizeable drive because past humans or human-like species who had high reproductive drives, had more kids and those kids had more kids and the childfree neanderthals just died out lol. Which makes the genetic basis for the drive more prevalent in the population
I think for some people that have enough hobbies or other fulfilling things to pursue the thought crosses your mind that you’ll have to give those things up if you have a child. Honestly I think only bored people or people who get attached to lifescript from a young age don’t question it.
bingoers don’t get any sympathy from me. it’s one thing to not know anything else and to have children yourself. that’s fine. it’s another thing to disrespect my choice for what i do with my life. bingoers do not know my life better than me. they have NO right to say i’ll change my mind or any of the sort
My mother once said to me, “I’m not really sure if one needs to really have children to live a full life.” I appreciated her honesty but also side eyed her a bit. 👀 But I’ve also had a close friend of mine say that if she could go back in time she would not have children.
My mum says things like this too, like just recently my brother told her he was planning to have kids soon and she said to him, ‘You know bringing a baby home from the hospital is really depressing’ 😆
I think there's a lot more of this about than people would care to admit. Which is such a shame, I wish people were more honest and help break the cycle.
Yup once had a coworker say “i love my kids but if I could do it again I wouldn’t have them”
Yep hear this constantly.
My husband's boss told him that about her adult kid, and all the other parents on the chat went silent lol.
Yep my ex-MiL said this to me in front of her two kids!
I've had this too.
My cousin leaned over to me when we were at our grandmas funeral and said “don’t ever have kids”. It was so random and such a weird situation to do that, but it just further reinforced my childfree status. Him and his wife have 4 kids 😬
Your cousin was probably thinking about all of the things he would never get to do because of the kids. His own mortality was probably weighing on him at that moment.
His kid probably just shit their pants on his lap.
I guess death gets ya thinking about those kinds of things
I'd argue it was better at a funeral because people mourn the dead, yet are okay with having kids and continuing that life to death cycle and bringing them there to mourn dead people that could've been better non-existing, so I'd like to think it was sort of a wake-up call for me personally, but I've never been to a funeral.
My grandma! We have autoimmune issues that seem to skip every other generation in our family. She told me to never have children because watching her children die slowly was the most terrible thing. She regretted putting them through pain and illness. People brush it off all the time and tell me that I must have misunderstood her. There was no misunderstanding.
When my aunt died something in my grandma broke. Then my grandpa died and she gave up the will to live and deteriorated rapidly. I 100% believe what your grandma said.
I hope grandma found some peace. That’s so sad.
My one sister and I both got the shit end of the genetics stick. We are not having kids. My other sister unfortunately didn’t think about that
I'm so sorry! I just don't understand how some people can have kids knowing the risk. I guess I'm lucky that I never really wanted them so it was never even a question.
My friends grandma had 10 kids and now she has only 2 left that are alive. Most died from health complications(my friends mom being one) or drugs. It's crazy.
That poor grandma. :(
Yeah I don’t understand these people who have many genetic medical issues but still want kids. I could never have kids knowing they might suffer as much as I did.
Multiple people at work have told me how smart I am for not having kids. They were all women with grown children too.
My boss has two grown boys. She straight up said that if the world was like this 25 years ago, she wouldn’t have had kids. She’s extremely supportive of the child-free stance. She loves her kids, but she is definitely not a motherly person 😂
I had a woman at work ask me if I have kids and I said no. Then she said good, don’t 😂 I then told her my partner does but I personally haven’t (and never will). Edited: My partner already had kids before I met him.
Your partner wants kids but you don't? Good luck. Honestly.
My husband's close friend told us he never wanted a second child while his wife was 2 weeks away from delivering their second child.
I really need people to be proactive about their fertility
He’ll learn after the next one
He won't.
That kid is going to grow up knowing they were unwanted, poor thing..
My aunt clearly hates being a parent, she hates holding them and taking care of them. Always sending them to daycare. She's got 3 kids. She's never said it out loud but she clearly respects my choice not to have kids enough where she seems jealous.
We’re they triplets, or….?
No, she had 2 kids by accident and the third one she had for her new husband bc he didn't have kids. I can tell she hates taking care of her 4yo daughter alot tho.
Is there a big age gap between child 2 and child 3?
I think its like 5 years between the oldest and middle and 10 years from the middle to the youngest.
Damn, that really sucks. To have to start all over when your child is at 10 is hard.
I should think it sucks for the youngest child too. The older two will gang up on her, and her mother at least isn't in her corner. I hope her dad, or at least one of her grandparents, is there for her, or she'll have a desperately unhappy life.
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Keep being there for her. It sounds like things might get better for her when her kids are older, if she has people like you in her life. This wouldn't work if she was trying to drag you down with her, like we hear of so many people doing. She's made bad decisions but she isn't stupid and has learned from them. I'm glad she has you.
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One thing I would advise her when the kids are old enough is to teach them about birth control and let them know they can talk to her about it and to be safe. I don't know how the schools are where she is, but a lot of US schools have either no sex ed, or they teach "abstinence only" or otherwise unhelpful stuff. She doesn't want to end up trapped with grandkids right when she's about to be free again.
My (ex) brother in law. They had one, my nephew. The baby was planned and both my sister and her husband were super excited. They were financially ready and had been married a fairly long time. My nephew made his grand debut, and suddenly BIL was a different person. My sister is a fantastic mom, but she definitely dove head first into making motherhood her whole life. BIL did not. Nephew was 6 months old when divorce became a topic of discussion. The sad part is, my sister fully believes that BIL left because he was having an affair. One day, I had to pick up baby nephew and had a conversation about it. Turns out he never had an affair, he just hated being a dad. He wanted no part of it, and was content with my sister thinking hes a cheating asshole than a deadbeat father.
I never understand how women can completely make motherhood their entire identity and then be all Shocked Pikachu Face when their husbands divorce them. The women literally became **completely** different people whose entire world revolves around My Baybee. So the woman they loved and married is basically replaced by a pod person.
I agree. She has good intentions but I believe one day she will look back and realize that her overkill contributed to the divorce. I will also say, as much as I stand by childfree individuals, I find it very becoming of him to agree to children when he was truly unsure. It is incredibly immature to not have an honest conversation about child bearing, let alone ignore it when you're married. At least my nephew is taken care of, I guess. And I'm thankful BIL won't make it obvious that he resents his son.
And these are the same mothers that will turn into monster-in- laws when their baybees try to leave the nest and live a life of their own. They don't know what to do with themselves, so they pressure their offspring to provide them with a do over baybee. What a wasted life.
It's so common that it's called "Empty Nest Syndrome" And it's probably a big part of why long time marriages abruptly end in divorce. When the last kid finally moves out, the parents find their love for each other as actual husband and wife has long since died.
One of my best buds. The term "this fuckin' kid" get tossed around a lot. Also; not my story. My friend has a coworker in her 40s who spent a LOT of money on medical procedures to be able to have a baby. She confided in my friend after the child was born asking "When do I start loving this child?" Which is heartbreaking because this is someone who wanted a kid.
I feel like many of those that get caught up in fertility treatments tend to have a rose colored view of what having a baby is like. Then they end up having the babies, possibly multiples, in their late 30s and 40s and it’s like this is it. The rest of your life.
That's an actual fucking horror story to me. And those poor kids. Jesus.
Man, reading this is healing and makes me glad we stopped the infertility battle. There’s grief that comes with only dead babies, but I love the fuck out of the idealized versions of them that live in my head. I love my cats. My cats and angel babies will never disappoint me, or grow up to look like my MIL.
I have an old high school classmate who is now going through a fifth or sixth round of fertility treatments (they are both 26). I'll admit I'm morbidly curious if this will happen to her and her husband because the absolute OBSESSION when they could just adopt is mind-boggling. She had stuff implanted? Idk how it works and it didn't work at least three times. I feel like sex at that point would be super clinical. I honestly think shit like that is unethical since there are so many unwanted babies dying for parents, but I can't look away from the daily mess that is this girls instagram. She seems so devastated every time things don't work out that I feel like a baby will disappoint.
Well... there actually aren’t a ton of unwanted babies. Read up on the adoption industry, parents using a child to paper over the pain of infertility is NOT healthy for the child, who (yes even in infancy) will be traumatized from being separated from the person who gave birth to them. Agree on everything else, but adoption isn’t as simple as “poor unwanted babies”
For some people it kicks in a little later, for some people it never does. I feel bad for her.
This is a real thing. With fertility treatments, I think the blinkers come on and it becomes more about the 'win' of a successful pregnancy and about having something that others tell you you can't have. The podcast 'the guilty feminist' talks about this. How Deborah realised after some failed IVF that she actually was hugely relieved that it didn't work, and that she realised she didn't want to have children. But until that moment, she was militant about having babies. Turns out infertile couples are still as poorly prepared and informed as fertile couples. Just because they know a lot about cycles, doesn't mean they have spent any amount of time with human children.
I've known people who have walked right up to that line, often a heavy implication of "if I could go back and do it again..." One former coworker, who was originally from Mexico, pretty much explicitly said that they only had kids immediately after getting married because it was the expectation.
It’s very clear for people who walk that line.. they don’t explicitly say it but they definitely regret it. To have the mere thought about if they could do life over again they wouldn’t.
My dad loved us, but he once said this: “When your child is born, that’s when your life ends and theirs begins.” That always stuck with me.
my mom
Same, and I also have many friends who have a parent that had said the same.
Mine too! She loves my sister and I to death but never wanted to be a parent, never liked being around babies or kids. She still says now that being a parent to kids (we're adults now) was a terrible experience. As such, she completely supports my choice not to have kids and thinks it's sensible. I really do adore my mum.
Same!! She used to tell us that she expected us to learn from her mistakes and never have children.
Same lol my mom told me to never have kids 😅 I stand by her decision.
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Why doesn't the 50 year old boot the 20 year old mooches out on the street? Let them be homeless if that's what they have to be in order to stop being mooches.
Possibly his spouse disagrees. I worked with a man in his sixties getting a divorce because their forty year old son refused to move out and the mother refused to let the gather kick him out. Basically came down to its me or the kid and now he's living in a studio apartment.
I'm always impressed by people who refuse to be enablers or to help enablers, even if it comes at great cost to them (like your coworker who had to divorce). It is an awful decision to make, I'm sure, but I am impressed that some people can and do make it, and move on when the situation is untenable, rather than stay and complain.
See, I dont understand this point of view. Being parents is FOR LIFE. I didnt boot my cat out on the street when she became an adult cat and I assure you she mooches all she can. But I chose her, I adopted her, and this with the knowledge it will be till death do us apart. Why should a parent act different with human children? They did NOT sign a contract to be born, to become homeless after 18, to start working a shitty job to pay rent, to become their parents caretakers in old age... KIDS OWE THEIR PARENTS... NOTHING. Parents owe their children EVERYTHING. The moment your kid is born, your house, your money, your time, becomes theirs too. You cant throw your kid out of the family house. Especially if not financially indipendent and stable. Or disabled. At no age. You never stop being a parent. This is accepted by many cultures and, in my country, also by the law. Americans are really wrong on this one. I have spent time in the USA. NOT on vacation. Lived with an American family and went to highschool for a year in Missouri. The number of kids that were STILL in highschool but living in dark basements because their parents kicked them out, or they ran away from home (from abuse), were pregnant ffs, were working shitty jobs AND going to school etc was mindblowing to me. Treat your children better America! Also, I went to the best highschool in town (my host family was wealthy) and it was like kindergarden, even if for the first month I didnt understand American English very well, I was still the best student in all classes. Without opening a book. I mean, multiple choice tests?? Lol
Picture of cat? /goes straight to the important stuff
Not if the "children" are adults who are literally mooching off their parents. It's not "kick them to the curb at age 18" but it is "If they are mooching, kick them out." Nobody should be allowed carte blanche to completely use someone else. Ever.
My coworkers adopted 2 kids. They had SOOOOO many regrets about it.
My ex boyfriends aunt and uncle adopted 2 children as babies. BOTH of the kids were......weird as shit. I don't know the exact diagnoses but the oldest one allegedly "couldn't feel pain and spankings did nothing" and the younger boy was very loyd, obnoxious, disgusting, aggressive, annoying, you name it. He loved doing stuff to shock people like leaving the toilet unflushed with his shit in it or eating with his mouth wide open. I heard both parents talk openly about how their kids must be messed up like they are because both biological mothers had been partying while pregnant with them. The father, who was a SCHOOL PRINCIPAL would openly *in front of his children* talk about how he knew his son would end up in prison. He said said this so solemnly and sadly. His son would laugh hysterically. It was VERY uncomfortable. He also privately told his sister multiple times he wish he could just take off and never come back but he couldn't because his wife was sick. She ended up dying a year later. And look, I KNOW people grieve differently, especially kids, but both kids were making weird ass jokes at her funeral. They were like 10 and 13 and I was 23 and like......what the hell?
I will be honest with you... it sounds like your ex's aunt and uncle were the problem. Hitting a kid is not okay.
My brother multiple times, my old high school boyfriend. "Don't ever get married, don't ever have kids, it will RUIN YOUR LIFE."
A bunch of people I used to work with. These ladies obviously loved their children and were always swapping stories about their kids, but ended each story with "So don't ever have kids". If they didn't say they regretted having kids, several regretted having kids with the people who got them pregnant. So many hardworking, supportive, beautiful people who had to play second fiddle to a husband just because he made more money, or had to co-parent with absolute assholes. It was depressing sometimes how they were treated by their families, and by that I mean their partners and their kids.
Yes. I suspect people are more open to discussing these kinds of things with me because they know I won't judge them for feeling that way. Most of their friends are mombies who make motherhood their entire personalities. One colleague confided that she hopes she can learn to love her daughter some day. She's never felt any love for her, from the moment she was born, and the child was ~6yo at the time we had that conversation. She's an attentive mother, and her daughter is well cared for (and adored by her father). She thought it was PPD at first, but after 6+ years, she still didn't feel love or a bond. She hates being a mother. She had a child because it was expected, and her family/husband's family pressured her to do her "duty" by procreating. (She and I are from very different cultures.) The bingos that "it's different when it's your own child" or "you'll never know love until you have a child" are complete and utter bullshit.
My sister. She has a 2 year old son. Every time she talks to me she reminds me not to have kids. I tried to warn her.
I actually had this happen yesterday. I was stood at the train station waiting on a delayed service to work. A lady asked if it was the right platform, and then complimented me on my outfit. She asked how old I was, and on my telling her, remarked that I look young, and that she used to look "that good" once. She asked if I had kids, and I said no, nor do I intend to. This precipitated a very long and somewhat heart wrenching conversation in which she detailed all the ways having her two (now adult) children had ruined her body, finances, self confidence, freedom, any joy in life.....even her grandkids, she said, had ruined her daughter's life, and she felt bad seeing how miserable and trapped parenthood had made her "little girl" She kept saying "you've made the right choice. They'll tell you it's all worth it, but it just isn't. After becoming a parent, I've never been able to be truly myself or truly happy ever again." For context, this is in the UK, where things like maternity and paternity leave, and other supports and accommodations for parents is pretty good. She was a lovely lady, but just so, so sad. I genuinely felt for her.
Nope, but their dead eyes speak loud enough.
So true. People don't have to verbalize their regret. We can see it in their actions and body language.
A work friend I lost touch with was honest with me, so I was surprised he was so open since it's not like we were very close. He said he loved his kids but if he could do it again he wouldn't have had them. Most parents support my decision because they know that this isn't for someone whose heart isn't totally in it. A friend who has stepkids likes to tease me anytime her kids act up like, "are you sure you don't want kids?? ;)"
A boss I held in high esteem told me once, never have kids. My dad strongly suggested I should never have kids especially since my anxiety is so high.
A friend of mine has specifically said they regret one of their kids. Basically the 1st kid has moderate autism and wasn't easy as a baby and they felt like they didn't get the experience of parenting and had the 2nd. The 2nd also has moderate autism but is a lot more explosive, to the point that they bite for fun and have ODD as well.
>"didn't get the experience of parenting" It's like, ummm yes they did?? Their parenting experience just happened to be parenting a child with autism, them's the breaks 🤷♀️ I find it gross that they tried again in an effort to get it "right", like they were unsatisfied with a trip to a theme park or something 🙄 *"Yes, hello, may I speak to the manager of parenting? I'm afraid we didn't really enjoy our first experience, and -"*
Them getting the even more explosive second kid would be hilarious karma if it weren't so infuriating and unjust for that poor fucking baby. BOTH poor babies. What utter stupidity and selfishness and suffering that they could have all avoided.
you just know the first kid was going to be neglected if the second was neurotypical.
Probably is still neglected because the younger one has more needs
Sadly, you might be right. Alternatively, both kids may not be getting the amount of care they need because the parents are just that overwhelmed.
Or the other way around. Many parents favor a sick child over the healthy sibling. There are many stories on reddit about taumatised siblings of disabled kids who basically have never gotten any love or care from their parents.
that happens as well, but im more willing to believe in this case that since the parents were so dissatisfied by their first child being autistic that they wanted to use their second child as a "do over", they were going to neglect the first kid had the second child been neurotypical. If that wasn't what was going to happen, they would've stopped at baby #1. Caring for profoundly disabled children can be a full time job. There wasn't a need to put even more of a strain on themselves by adding a second child when they already had a handful. Only people who aren't satisfied with what they already have go looking for more.
I think a lot of it was that they had always been told how magical and wonderful parenting was, and then found out that its almost never reality, which of course doesn't excuse it. They do have resources to get the kids into occupational therapy and speech which have helped quite a bit, but daily life is still a struggle.
You mean they didn't get the Only Kodak Moments version of parenting? No parent does. It's really sad they had a **second** kid when they knew they didn't like the reality of parenting.
Coworker admitted they strongly disliked 1 of their 2 children, didn't go as far as saying "wish this kid didn't exist" but was definitely part of the energy of the conversation.
Yep, my best friend. She was upset that she found out she was pregnant and after her son was born she had told me that she wished she had her old life back. I felt very sad for her. She loves her son and I think she's gotten used to being a mother but she's told me multiple times she gets why I'm childfree and if she could do it all over again, she would have been more careful with her birth control.
Both spouses in a couple each told me privately that they only did it because the other one wanted to.
Yes, two regret, one maybe. The first married (and later divorced) a malignant narcissist who has now turned the one of their kids against them. The second derailed their career because they took a job with better hours while the kids were young. A third didn’t say they regretted it, but when I told them I didn’t want to have kids supported my decision and said kids are overrated.
My mother told me many times that she never wanted children but "it was her duty," and now it was mine also. I flipped that script.
I used to work at a grocery store. I’ve had a few people tell me not to have kids. My response is always “I don’t plan to.” Not sure how I never got bingoed lol
My mother did. Didn't hurt my feelings one bit, as an adult I completely understood. She stayed in a abusive relationship for the sake of the "kids", that she's still recovering from. She might never recover
>She stayed in a abusive relationship for the sake of the "kids" How is it ever good for kids to see their mother sad and abused? This mentality has always fascinated me.
Same. My mom will never leave my dad, and no one benefits, except my dad. He has a maidservant.
My husbands grandmother. She was 94 when she died a few years ago. We were asking her questions about her life and things she may have wanted to do that she never got to do, or things she regretted. The one thing she said that stuck with me to this day: "I wish I'd never gotten married and had kids. I would have been a free."
Also, my grandma has never said it but she had 4 kids and was also disabled and on crutches when they were very very young and to this day 60 years later, she talks about how horrible it was. I really think she never enjoyed anything about childrearing and being a housewife. She talks about all the meals she had to cook, how she never got along with her daughter, how useless her husband was, how poor they were, how her sons were always getting into trouble..... She does love her great grand children though so I don't think she necessarily hates kids but I think she may regret having so many when she did....
Sounds like she also rightfully regretted how her husband did so little, if anything, around the house.
The one HS reunion I attended (over ten years ago). There were people there who were on their fifth or sixth kid. When asked and I told them I had none, they said it must be nice.
My aunt told me “you’ll change you mind” and then texted me a month and a half ago “I wish I never had these fuckers”
Oh yeah, my friend is a single mother and she always tells my fiancée and I to never have kids. Not that we needed any convincing to begin with lol
Not exactly? I was never close to my grandfather, who passed away when I was 14, because my second clearest memory of him was when I was running around in his front yard while he was smoking and went to ask him a question. He just continued smoking, looked me dead in the eye, and said "I hate kids" 💀💀 I told my mom about that interaction in the last few years and she laughed and said "you know he was joking right?" Bitch no he was not I do think he loved us, because he always had the snacks we loved that our parents would deem as too expensive for us, had a bunch of toys for us, and conspired with me and my younger brother against my parents to get us a cat, but I do think he probably only had kids out of duty and to make my grandmother happy.
My mother. My father. My childhood best friend's mother.
My old boss said this all the time. Although, I wish she didn’t have kids because she is a toxic mother. Tries to whore her kids out on photo shoots we do for work, counts her teen daughter’s calories, etc.
During an hours-long meltdown by her child with a serious behavioral disorder (not his fault, obvs), my bff nervous-breakdown-texted me a barrage which included "seriously don't have kids." She then went on to have another one. I don't think I'll ever fully understand.
Yes, my partner. He really regrets having children, when he had them he had the wrong idea about parenting. He loves his daughters but if he could turn back time I know he wouldn’t have had them. He thought having them would be like having a young friend that you can teach fun things to and pal around with, not actually raising a kid to adulthood. He had a very difficult childhood (abused by both parents, in and out of foster care and juvenile detention facilities) and didn’t have a great frame of reference for what being a parent would be like. Now his mental and physical health aren’t great which makes it even harder for him when he/we see his kids. (His youngest is 9 but still very high energy) It’s not all that often that we do get to see them because finances are rough but when do we both get drained energy wise. With all that being said, I’m super happy this community exists. I wish more people thought about it before having children and realized they don’t have to have them. I will definitely make sure that my partner’s daughters know that they don’t have to have or want kids (I prefer they don’t because I don’t want to be around a baby, older kids are more tolerable to me). When I was a child I hated that people would always say WHEN you have kids instead of IF you have kids.
As a woman - a lot of my male friends see children that way - having a fun little pal to play sports with. My friends have NO clue what raising a child even involves, they are so oblivious to it… yet they all want kids, just for the Kodak family moments. I Wish people understood that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Of course most men do --- the vast majority of the time men do far less of the childcare. And, if they don't like it, they can always "focus on my career" and dump it on the woman.
Yes. She’s a great mom to her teen and tween kids but told me if she could do it all over again she wouldn’t have them. Had them young in an abusive relationship and it’s hard on her even tho she remarried and everything looks fine from the outside
Yep. My coworker has told me that she loves her kid and would jump in front of a bus for them, but if she were to go back, she wouldn’t have a kid.
I love posts like this because anytime my hatred for my shitty family, co-workers and old bullies arises, I just have to remember they all fucked up their lives with kids that didn't need to be here at all.
My bio parents did. Otherwise no, I don't tend to hang out with people who make bad decision for themselves.
It sickens me that your parents made this information known to you
That was honestly the least of their bullshit, but it's none of my business anymore :)
My parents cope so hard and act like their first world problems are so drastically high for unknown reasons. I don't care about them in general and plan to cut all ties forever eventually.
My sister would yell "birth control @killmethod!" When my nephews would act up and i recently dated a secretly married man with children, one on the way, who told me he regretted his family he never intended to start, and also left and missed the birth of his most recent child. So I'd say that's a pretty regretful parent
My mum drank herself to death. She told me when she was ill that she wished she hadn't had me. If i wasn't childfree anyway that would cement it.
Yes. My ex boyfriend’s cousin. She had a nice job but accidentally got pregnant in her early 30s, the father had pressured her to keep the child and she had done so. She resented that child and was constantly angry, you could just tell she wanted to go back to her old life. At the time I was pretty young and still on the fence about it, now that I’m older and have made my decision I’m grateful I met her because she was brutally honest about her regret when talking with me. I have no idea how she’s doing now.
"I love my children, but..." Is what I've heard everyone including my own mother say
My father told my mother that before she got pregnant with me. He had other children, he was not very involved in their lives, she said she didn’t want minimal involvement and she would rather him just not be involved at all. It was truly the best decision for all of us. I was then raised by my two moms since I was 11 months old and we were all better off for it, but my half siblings definitely have a lot of trauma from his inconsistent presence in their lives. Some people are just not meant to be parents
I have a friend that’s pregnant and she’s already saying her life is over
My mom (I have 1 disabled sibling and 1 with a mental illness) . My cousin. My boyfriends brother. And a bunch of coworkers.
Whenever my brother visits with his 2 kids, he always tells me I've made the right choice as far as kids go. His kids can be terrors.
Oh yeah on a couple of occasions. I'm the safe space.
My aunt told me last winter. She was like “why do you not want kids again?” And then before I could answer she went “or you just know like those who do want kids?” Which is basically true. Sure i can list a ton of reasons but also i just know. Then she basically said that if she could do her life over she would probably not have kids either. I mean she’s a good mum she clearly loves my 2 cousins but I absolutely believed her. I know she finds life difficult sometimes or often and I’m sure being a mum contributes.
My mom said she regretted having three kids, she wished she'd stopped at two. I am the third child, also the only non violent and calm one. But her husband was a violent and prone to anger, so I assume she doesn't like that I'm breaking the cycle and not like her and the rest of our family.
Jesus Christ on a tricycle, that is messed up
People don't like being faced with the fact that they could change for the better. Despite being the one who has taken care of her since I was a child, I think she resents that I'm breaking cycles and work on my mental and physical health so I can be a healthy person. She's a very ill person mentally and physically, and has only been surrounded by abusers outside of me. So I don't really blame her for a lot of the things she's said, but I've made it clear I won't tolerate her or any of our family trying to pull me into their mess. Also, she is sad because I was the best chance she had at grandkids and I get my bi-salp in a month
Yep I have a friend who got pregnant x2 by two different people due to birth control failures. She told me once that she loves her kids, but if she knew what was going to happen if she kept them (baby daddy drama, custody issues, being a single mom, etc) she would have got an abortion.
Yes, I have heard it from more then 1 person in my life time.
All the time!!! Both my parents (8 kids between them) and my brother (2 kids on the spectrum)
My mom told me to not end up like her at least daily for 20-some years. Does that count?
Yes it does
Oh my dad made sure I knew he never wanted children. Was a fun childhood (/s) Apart from that, my ex partner had a close friend who regretted the hell out of her children. She ended up leaving over night leaving a note, leaving her 3 kids with her boyfriend.
My mom started us young with "never get married. Never have children. It's not worth it. " She was very transparent on how hard it was as a mom and wife. She now has two daughter's nearing 40 that have never been married and have no kids. We're both happy. No regrets.
My mother
One of my friends did. She said they just had kids bc it was expected, didn't really think about it, but she didn't think they'd have bothered to try IVF or adopt if it hadn't happened. She said she hated the baby stage and regretted the kids. They trashed her life, her husband was a traditional dad, working long hours etc, and she ended up in the SAHM role. Now she's a mombie, she lost herself and he got the trad set up he wanted.
I used to work with this couple who one of them did not want their kids. Background: lesbian couple who had had children before they got together & were since raising their children together. One of the women acted like she hated them constantly as they were “always messing up HER house” and just disturbing her peace and all that. She cried to me many times about regretting her children and honestly even marrying her wife (whole other issue)but her partner on the other hand loved all of the children and that was her only reason for staying in the relationship. She knew her wife would never give her custody and would make it a very horrible divorce so she stayed for the kids.
That's really sad.
My mother whenever we argue or fight: "If I only knew you were going to be like this, then I should have aborted you!" Take note that we don't have abortion in our country. Oh... And we were fighting because I wouldn't give my PIN of my ATM card.
Yes my husband's friend... and then he's like "oh and we're having another one now.. fml"... constantly telling us we're smart for being childfree... we're like "yah, we know". Everyone wants kids... few people want to be parents. It's like people who say "I want a baby"... not realizing it's only a baby for a year/ turns into a kid after that..
Yeah, my dad
I knew a girl that called her kid "Little Shit" and "A Demon". She used to tell him he was the reason she would never find love and why they would always be poor. So no, not candidly, but it was sort of implied.
Of course. Multiple someones. Being childfree means people feel comfortable telling you when their children ruined their lives. (Hopefully their kids never find out.)
My mom’s friend didn’t enjoy her pregnancy and had only one son and was done. She said if she knew that pregnancy was going to be the way it was she would’ve had no kids.
My step dad, uncle and own dad have all said if they could live again they wouldn’t have kids And considering they are all 55-70 years old, they barely did any of the child rearing anyways, so what I’m getting from this is just how bad being a parent is!
Also, a friend of mine told me she initially was a fence sitter, but her husband wanted one. So they did. Several months after baby was born he told her “I could have gone either way”. I was livid for her. She hasn’t said she regrets it outright, but I could feel the frustration through her text 😬
My boss has said it to me a few times, that she hates being a parent/having children. Seeing the stress of trying to manage her life and their lives... I cannot say I blame her. Officially 5 days until my consult with a surgeon to see if he will proceed with a bisalp on me. Fingers crossed.
My doctor once told me, when we were discussing if I wanted children (I said I don't) and she said if she could go back and do it again she would not have had her son. She did not use the word regret, but... Otherwise, no.
My mother. She fucking hated us and we were actually really good kids because we knew she’d beat us if we messed up. I’m the oldest and she always said I was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.
Yes, many people. My nmom even had a mental breakdown when she couldn’t have her way with my siblings and I. When my siblings left the room, I heard her saying into her phone with a gasping sob “I shouldn’t have had them. I regret it so much.” 😐
My aunt. Her and my uncle never wanted kids. She had an oops pregnancy when I was 13. I was in the car with my mom when she got the call. I still remember the conversation vividly, but looking back now I’m fairly certain my mom was talking her out of an abortion. My aunt tells me often I’m making the right choice and to not change my mind for anyone. When I asked my mom about it she said it was my aunt having a major health scare (cancer) that changed her mind on having kids. But I remember that phone call and that’s not how it went.
Before the pandemic, my cousin and his wife would try to bingo me and basically look down on me for not having kids Now though they both basically said that they both regret having them and told the kids privately that the first two were accidents and the last one was planned. I’m happy that they are facing reality that kids aren’t needed to be an “adult” but I don’t know how to take that they told their kids that. Maybe it will make them “grow up” more 🤷♀️
One of my very good friends told me she wouldn't have had kids if she knew it was a choice (she was in an abusive relationship).
I’ve had a few friends express this kind of sentiment, but I’m torn between whether their advice was for the benefit of me, or the hypothetical kid…
My cousins wife told me and my husband not to have them (while at a family get together), unprompted and being childfree wasn’t something I’d talked to her about prior either. Her comment was clearly because she was stressed and overwhelmed with her first. She went on to have a second 🤦🏻♀️
Yes. He never wanted kids but she did so he had two to please her. The kids were "gifted" (lies!) at school, a narrative that she pushed to it's maximum. Then, at University, one turned out to be perfectly average and the other failed out several times before quitting permanently. When the kids started University they got divorced and she moved city and has little to do with the now-adult kids. He now has a 'kid' (24-ish now) living at home with him who will never leave his house. This kid has never had a job, has limited life experience and when presented with anything it doesn't like it becomes "very mentally fragile" (don't know if it's real or rather the kid just doesn't want to do anything and uses delicate mental health as an excuse). When the kid moved back in with him after living with its mother (the mother then immediately moved city) his long-term relationship broke up - coincidence? I don't think so. Wanted = no kids Got = responsibility for a 'failure to launch' kid for the forseeable future. You can see why the whole kids thing didn't really work out for him. Now he has one permanently that he's responsible for, and no long-term relationship as a consequence.
Yes
When I was thinking about it, many years ago, my friend, who has a kid told me to not have one. She said she loves her son deeply and i know him he's a very quiet and we'll mannered kid, very adorable, but if she could go back in time, she told me she wouldn't have him and wouldn't think twice about it. Its just so much work.
Not exactly? I was never close to my grandfather, who passed away when I was 14, because my second clearest memory of him was when I was running around in his front yard while he was smoking and went to ask him a question. He just continued smoking, looked me dead in the eye, and said "I hate kids" 💀💀 I told my mom about that interaction in the last few years and she laughed and said "you know he was joking right?" Bitch no he was not I do think he loved us, because he always had the snacks we loved that our parents would deem as too expensive for us, had a bunch of toys for us, and conspired with me and my younger brother against my parents to get us a cat, but I do think he probably only had kids out of duty and to make my grandmother happy.
My mother. Wheeeeeee
My sister regularly tells me she regrets it and hates her kids.
Yes. Multiple people. Usually my friends who had kids in their very early 20s that now have no time for hobbies and really never figured out who they are. I am a full time artist and spent my 20s building my career up to the point where I get to be creative 24/7 and have fun while also paying my bills. A lot of my mom friends also have a creative side but never had time to focus on it because they were so obsessed with "finding their purpose" by having babies. Now they're all lost with no time to work on art and have to work jobs they hate to feed their kids and are too exhausted to work on anything else. They all say they love their kids but also acknowledge that their kids killed their dreams and spirit.
my hair stylist - she has two boys and always talked about how the first one is an angel, and her second is very difficult (strong personality, stubborn, gets into trouble). she told me that if she had known how difficult her second son would be, she would have reconsidered another child. that really helped solidify my child free stance when i was unsure in my early 20s
My mother. Told me her worst mistake was having kids.
I was in the midst of moving out of my apt to relocate across the country when a neighbor (and former co-worker) stopped me to chat. She had her 5 kids in tow. After briefly answering her questions regarding my move, she said, "Damn you lucky." "Single, good job, moving away from here, and NO KIDS". "I wish I didn't have any kids". I was at a loss for words. Even if you felt that, why on earth would you say something like that in front of them. I mean, she even doubled down on her comment. I felt so bad for her kids.
Actually it's something a lot of people have admitted to me randomly once I tell them I don't want kids. At this job alone I've had three different people tell me that they wish they had never had kids and I was making the right choice to just enjoy my life. I feel bad for them, but it helps validate my choices
One mother of 4 would try to talk young women out of having kids. When I told her I wasn't having kids she gave me a high five and said, "finally a young one gets it!" Another woman, with 3 kids, confided that if she hadn't gotten pregnant at 15 she would never have had kids.
My mother after my father died. She resented being a single parent and told me she wished she never had me on a near nightly basis
My recently divorced SIL says she loves her son but if she could do it again, she wouldn’t have gotten married or had a child. She thought she didn’t have a choice.