Women Who Have Kids: Are You OK With It? Any Regrets?

[E B]

No regrets. They can be hard, but they can also be wonderful and are worth it all.

 

[december-fire]

Laila, congratulations on baby #5!

May the new baby be colic-free and a good sleeper!

StephanieLynn,

Didn't you read the fine print on the paperwork you signed at the hospital when they gave you your babies?
It says right in the paperwork that you agree to feel guilty for everything that has, is or will happen in the World.
Depletion of the ozone layer? That's Mom's fault.
Child has tantrum at being forced to eat vegetables? That's Mom's fault.
Spouse can't find car keys? That's Mom's fault.
Thankfully, should you ever forget, someone will remind you that its your fault things are the way they are because you:
worked (or didn't work) outside the home,
let (or didn't let) your child eat treats,
or whatever else creative people will come up with.
Do what you think is best, given your knowledge at the time, and what you're able to do given your resources at the time (energy, patience, money, whatever).

Regarding the topic of the thread, I have the two greatest kids in the World and no idea why I was so blessed.
I worked outside the home (yes, I know, bad mommy) and would think 'geez, I can handle a demanding career and stressful work situations but I'm not meant to be a Mom'. I'd worry about my parenting choices and whether I was doing the right thing. There was seldom a clear 'right' or 'wrong' choice. However, the one constant throughout the whole time, was my incredible love for my children. I grew up thinking that maybe I'd get married and, if I did, maybe I'd have children. Having a university education, career and traveling were consistent goals from the time I was 11 yrs old. But I didn't have any real desire for the whole marriage and children thing. Shortly before my 26th birthday, I decided I wanted children (guess hormones kicked in ), felt that I'd achieved a financial level which would allow me to provide for them, and I wanted two children, two years apart, before I was 30 yrs of age. Thankfully, I had no issues conceiving and was blessed with a child at 27 and 29 yrs of age. I've never had any desire for grandchildren.

People should do what's right for them.

 

[AprilBaby]

Love my kids and having grandkids is even better!

 

[jaysonsmom]

I have 2 kids, going through the awkward teen (hormonal) years, but I love them to pieces, even though they are not always the sweet complacent kids they used to be. I believe I was meant to be a mother. I have loved kids and wanted kids since I was a teen.....but waited until I had an established career, and 29 before I had my first.

I feel truly blessed because despite being a full time working mom, I have raised 2 kids awesome, motivated human beings.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I got married at 26 and had my first child at 30. I spent a good chunk of time in between worrying about whether or not I'd be a decent mother. Patience isn't my strong suit and I can be a tough cookie. Looking back, I wish I hadn't spent so much time worrying about it. My children have taught me so much more than I could ever teach them. They have taught me patience in a way that nobody else could, they have taught me to be flexible when necessary, they make me laugh with their silly antics even when I've had an awful day. I am so thankful and grateful for them. They're truly gifts.

I'll always be somewhat rigid and a bit of a hard-ass, but in many ways that has served me well as a mother.

 

[artdecogirl]

I have three children, all grown and I don't regret a moment. I was a young mom and there were challenges but my grown children are my best friends, It has been such a honor and a pleasure watching them grow into adults with there own lives, l can't imagine life without them. I have a close friend that never had children and she is very sad about it now, she is close to her nephew but she also says seeing him grow has made her realize all she missed. Makes me sad every time we talk about it.

 

[Jambalaya]

Thank you to everyone who replied. Looking at this thread and the mirror thread, it seems that fundamentally, people who wanted to have children did and are glad, and people who didn't want them didn't have them and are also glad. That's good!

Some people have said they respect that I didn't want to bring a child into a potentially bad situation. That was definitely a reason, but then, people have children with less-than-ideal partners all the time - mine wasn't physically abusive and he had a good job, no addiction issues - and people muddle through and are happy in the end that they have their kids. However, I thought there was every chance he would walk out on me and children, and I don't feel I could have coped with that. One of the emotionally abusive things he used to do was ignore me a lot and refuse to admit anything was wrong. This could go on for a week at a time, and it happened a lot. I had a deep fear that he would treat a child the same way. I think I would have been a great mom and as long as the children had me, they would have been OK, I think - but what if something happened to me? I have a LOT of earlyish cancer in my family.

Anyway, these are all the reasons I decided against it, but I hear parents talk about the deep joy of having children, and it just makes me wonder. Mostly I'm fine with the situation, but yeah, Valentine's Day!

I do have some nieces and nephews of my own, and their parents have definitely struggled at times. One thing I don't feel I'm missing is watching children grow. I've watched my nieces and nephews grow, and it's not that which makes me wonder what might have been. It's more the deep love and affection between parent and child. But all the growing stages, like learning sports and having birthdays and passing exams, I feel like, well, everyone does that, and I don't find watching others move through life stages that interesting, tbh. I think it's more that I'll never have a deep bond with my own child - but on most days, I'm convinced that having kids with my ex would have put me through more than I was willing to handle...and they might have been like him, not like me!

Bottom line is, I was married for a decade and if I'd wanted to have them enough I guess I would have. But of course, you wonder what might have been.

 

[Tekate]

Wish I had them earlier - wouldn't change a thing.. they are my center, my babies and they completed my life.

 

[ruby59]

Wish I had them earlier - wouldn't change a thing.. they are my center, my babies and they completed my life.

Except for the wish that I could have had more - +1,000,000,000 to your post.

 

[Jambalaya]

That sense of completion - I do feel I missed out on that. It sounds like a good feeling.

 

[Polished]

We had three two daughters and a son. I find it all rather fascinating. Just lately I've been contrasting my niece (who I adore) with my daughter. The family is getting excited over my niece's wedding. They've bought a house in our town intending to have children in a couple of years and say they'll upgrade their house to a different suburb years down the track. I foresee a great life ahead for them but it has such a clear outline. I don't see any evidence of this with my three. My eldest goes through terrible heartbreak, breaking up with really lovely boyfriends because they're not going to make her the person she knows she can be. She does poetry slams here in Australia and overseas. She says she's passionate about education and is about to undertake a Masters of Education in order to teach, but then she rang me the other day, worried that the choice she was making was a "safe" option. Grief hon. you've got to earn a living. When you have children you really have no idea what you're unleashing on the world.

 

[maccers]

No regrets! But I'm afraid of the teenage years. I heard karma is a b*]€#. Lol

 

[Jambalaya]

We had three two daughters and a son. I find it all rather fascinating. Just lately I've been contrasting my niece (who I adore) with my daughter. The family is getting excited over my niece's wedding. They've bought a house in our town intending to have children in a couple of years and say they'll upgrade their house to a different suburb years down the track. I foresee a great life ahead for them but it has such a clear outline. I don't see any evidence of this with my three. My eldest goes through terrible heartbreak, breaking up with really lovely boyfriends because they're not going to make her the person she knows she can be. She does poetry slams here in Australia and overseas. She says she's passionate about education and is about to undertake a Masters of Education in order to teach, but then she rang me the other day, worried that the choice she was making was a "safe" option. Grief hon. you've got to earn a living. When you have children you really have no idea what you're unleashing on the world.

Polished - I hear what you're saying. It would be a great comfort if you knew your kids had a solid plan and had someone who loved them. But it's probably best not to compare, yanno? It doesn't really mean anything that your niece apparently has it all figured out. I know plenty of people who had a solid outline and then their forties hit, and...whew! Maybe your daughter is wise not to commit so young. Having said that, you might want to point out to her that people do tend to pair off and the older she gets, the smaller the pool becomes. It's a balancing act between not committing so young that you wonder "what if," but not leaving it so late that everyone's paired off. I just think comparisons don't really help. If she's not feeling it with the lovely guys you mention, then she just isn't. If she was feeling it, she definitely wouldn't be breaking up with them!

Re. the safe option, just tell her that raising a kid these days costs 250k without college!

Edit: What on earth is a poetry slam??

 

[Polished]

Thanks so much for your kind response Jambalaya. My daughter's just got back from overseas and I've felt a bit churned up. She was in tears about a guy she'd met over there, who she said had "just got who she was". But still she felt she had to call an end to it and get back to Australia to further studies here. I don't think I even answered the question properly. It's not that I've regretted my decision to have children but that doesn't mean that it's always easy. There are times when your instinct is to protect and you can't. To wrap them in cotton wool isn't the answer. There are times when you'd like to make a choice for them, with the intention of making their life "easier". Doing so wouldn't help them. Anyway I'll leave this with one sentence from a letter my daughter wrote me after her recent stay with us that may help to show us that we're not as ineffectual as parents as we may sometimes think we are: "our chats mean so much to me, they represent a touchstone to so many fundamental elements of myself, I'm always so grateful for your insights and opinions...."

Lol a poetry slam is a venue with an open mic. where people can get up and perform their poems and comedy routines in front of an audience.

 

[jordyonbass]

Not a woman, no kids, took on a teen for almost 6 months and regretted it (as has been documented here).

I'm honestly not trying to be difficult, that's my experience so far!! As for actually having my own kid, not there...yet. My previous experience should have put me off but I may either be stupid, a sucker for punishment or both (most likely).

 

[pearaffair]

I have always wanted to have children and in August my dreams will come true

I don't think I will have any regrets, but I will have a shadow self - that's what I call the part of me that takes a different path. The life you didn't choose but you can imagine

I'd have more money, sleep, time, etc - but I have always wanted kids more than anything. So it's ok with me.

 

[Jambalaya]

I have always wanted to have children and in August my dreams will come true

I don't think I will have any regrets, but I will have a shadow self - that's what I call the part of me that takes a different path. The life you didn't choose but you can imagine

I'd have more money, sleep, time, etc - but I have always wanted kids more than anything. So it's ok with me.

Many congratulations, pearaffair! You sound like you'll be a great mom and you will have many happy years with your little one.

 

[Jambalaya]

Not a woman, no kids, took on a teen for almost 6 months and regretted it (as has been documented here).

I'm honestly not trying to be difficult, that's my experience so far!! As for actually having my own kid, not there...yet. My previous experience should have put me off but I may either be stupid, a sucker for punishment or both (most likely).

Jordy, I do think it's different with your own kids. Although I like kids, I never liked looking after other people's kids/babysitting for the simple reason that you have all the responsibility but none of the authority that a parent has. When a kid crept out of bed or had their reading lamp on after lights out, I could hardly bellow at them, "PUT THAT LIGHT OUT RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!" like I would have to my own. Well, I could, but the kid would then have been all "Oh, Jambalaya was MEAN to me!" Mostly, you really can't tick off someone else's child like you would your own, and therein lies the problem with looking after other people's kids.

 

[Jambalaya]

Polished, it sounds as if you have a great relationship with your daughter. That's so amazing. When I was younger, I had friends whose parents didn't know who they truly were, or what was going on in their lives, because they knew the parent would judge/make unhelpful remarks/fly off the handle/whatever. Basically, they feared rejection from the parent, so they edited themselves. It sounds as if you have an open and true relationship with your daughter, and many, many people don't have that with an adult child. I think you should be proud.

 

[AGBF]

We had three two daughters and a son. I find it all rather fascinating. Just lately I've been contrasting my niece (who I adore) with my daughter. The family is getting excited over my niece's wedding. They've bought a house in our town intending to have children in a couple of years and say they'll upgrade their house to a different suburb years down the track. I foresee a great life ahead for them but it has such a clear outline. I don't see any evidence of this with my three. My eldest goes through terrible heartbreak, breaking up with really lovely boyfriends because they're not going to make her the person she knows she can be. She does poetry slams here in Australia and overseas. She says she's passionate about education and is about to undertake a Masters of Education in order to teach, but then she rang me the other day, worried that the choice she was making was a "safe" option. Grief hon. you've got to earn a living. When you have children you really have no idea what you're unleashing on the world.

I have a lot of empathy.

...and it only gets more complicated, not less, as your children get older. On Friday I saw my periodontist, whom I have been seeing since before i adopted my daughter as an infant. His wife is his dental hygienist and she is just my age. They had three baby girls at the time i was adopting my baby, so I saw their daughters grow up and they saw mine grow up. After my appointment my hygienist asked me for information on separation anxiety. One of her three daughters is getting a divorce from a marine on active duty who has two young children with him. The three year-old girl is suffering terribly now every her mother (my hygienist's daughter) leaves her alone. I cannot tell you for how many years this woman and I have leaned across her counter and talked both me in the dental chair about her family and mine! We agreed that as the children get older, the problems become more complex. But if you haven't gotten there yet, it may be hard to convince you!

Deb