32 ms·

Mothers who regret having children are speaking out

• funkythings 9y ago
  What's up with all this "Having children is bad, you will regret it. get a dog" mentality lately?
  • grasshopperpurp 9y ago
    Have you heard the expression, It takes a village to raise a child? We don't have villages, so many people have to be a village for their child, and it's very hard and requires a lot of sacrifice. It's good to question whether it's worth it.
    • ajmurmann 9y ago
      As you point out the support network is gone for many people, especially more ambitious people who moved for career reasons and likely also have student debt... On top of that though it seems like requirements for parenting have gone through the roof. Between helicopter parenting and all the activities one is supposed to do these days the effort must have gone up tremendously.
    • Torgo 9y ago
      I sympathize with the people, but why is our society like this? A society that punishes having children is almost by definition dysfunctional.
      • sremani 9y ago
        Forget about dysfunctional, it has no FUTURE.
      • sidlls 9y ago
        It's like this because people are inclined to instant gratification. In America this effect with respect to raising children augments the inclination toward selfishness (disguised as individualism).
        • ajmurmann 9y ago
          Looking at birthrates in other countries I'm not inclined to believe this phenomenon is limited to the US. In fact it seems weaker than in many other developed countries. I'm also not sure if I would call it selfish to decide against reproducing yourself. The other extreme of having children just because you want them for yourself and then not being able to give them proper opportunities is much more selfish to me. I think we should try to avoid moral judgements of people we don't know especially on something this intimate.
          • sidlls 9y ago
            I'd be more inclined to agree with you if the language of people who eschew children weren't so often focused on their selves ("independence", "freedom", etc.) or simultaneously accusational ("how could you bring a child into this world!"). "Selfish" isn't a moral judgement in this case: it's an accurate description.
            • vigilantpuma 9y ago
              I think having children is pretty selfish also. You bring a child into this world... for what? To see yourself continued in the next generation? To make some future friends for yourself? To have that experience? How are these not selfish things? Both choices are selfish in different ways. The fact that one requires some personal sacrifice doesn't make it selfless.
      • ajmurmann 9y ago
        I think it's partially a outcome of work getting more specialized. You need to move to find work that's a good fit and you need to move before that to acquire that skill set at a good University. If you don't get very skilled you likely will end up poor at some point which brings its own issues. It's true in any developed country I know of. Fingers crossed that this is temporary till remote work and education becomes the norm and we maybe even get guaranteed basic income.
  • intopieces 9y ago
    Can you give some other examples of this mentality on display? Have there been other articles on HN? This sentiment has been prevalent among my peer group (b. Late 80s/Early 90s) for at least a decade. Very few of my friends outside of the very religious are looking forward to having children. As far back as June 2014, Pope Francis spoke about this phenomenon. http://time.com/2814527/pope-francis-dogs-cats-pets/ http://time.com/2814527/pope-francis-dogs-cats-pets/
    • criddell 9y ago
      It's a very common sentiment to hear on Reddit. There are subs dedicated to promoting and discussing a child-free lifestyle (e.g. /r/childfree/).
      • saalweachter 9y ago
        There are also subs devoted to how much an individual character in a book series sucks (eg, /r/fuckmoash). The existence of a subreddit does not really imply a dominant cultural phenomenon.
      • upvotinglurker 9y ago
        From the first page of a google search for "reddit parenting": /r/parenting, /r/parents, /r/raisingkids, /r/askparents, /r/newparents, and /r/parentsofmultiples. I suspect it depends on what part of reddit you hang out on.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • sidlls 9y ago
    Rather than help address then problem a sister comment alludes to "get a dog" folks are helping to perpetuate it.
    • monktastic1 9y ago
      > Rather than help address then problem a sister comment alludes to "get a dog" folks are helping to perpetuate it. Sorry, can you help me parse this sentence?
      • sidlls 9y ago
        Sorry, "then problem" should be "the problem", and the "sister comment" is the one about how we (in America, presumably) no longer have "a village" to raise children: parents are mostly on their own for the task. My point is that folks who have the "get a dog" mentality are supporting the forces that make child rearing increasingly burdensome.
        • briankelly 9y ago
          I'd say that the "get a dog" mentality is more of a symptom of the root forces than support of them. Others have already explained it but essentially the trend of tribe/village -> urban neighborhood multigenerational/extended family single home -> suburban nuclear family -> transplanted dual-career couple has eroded any support network parents had. On top of other lifestyle, economic, and environmental pressures, the "get a dog" people are just saying "fuck it." Sure they add some social/peer pressure but that's blue on black compared to everything else.
          • monktastic1 9y ago
            > I'd say that the "get a dog" mentality is more of a symptom of the root forces than support of them. Perhaps it is both? These things tend to be cyclic. "Fuck it" tends to breed conditions where more people say "fuck it." That said, I do believe in something like a "get a dog and help care for the community" mentality that's not a "fuck it" at all.
  • mtgx 9y ago
    It's a side-effect of modern societies. This is actually a trend spanning at least several decades. As societies become more modern, they start wanting fewer to zero kids. This is actually the main reason why I've never been so worried about those overpopulation predictions, or worried about what happens if the technology starts allowing us to live hundreds of years. Well, if we knew for sure that we would live 500 years (and continue to be young and health), nobody in their right mind would want a kid at 30. And you'd likely still be able to die from accidents for the next 100-200 years.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • 3princip 9y ago
    Immaturity. People refusing to grow up and get on with life.
  • Red_Tarsius 9y ago
    Mainstream media nudges the unfit to choose a child-free life by their own volition. It's a lifelong marshmallow test: do you want to have fun now, or do you want to have a legacy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
    • gerbilly 9y ago
      I love my parents but I am not their legacy.
      • matt_wulfeck 9y ago
        By definition you are their legacy.
    • greenshackle3 9y ago
      Sounds like you want (or already have) children to fulfill your own self-interested goals ('to leave a legacy'). That's a recipe for disappointment. If you have children you do it for them, not for yourself. And there are better, more predictable ways to leave a legacy. Having a kid is a shot in the dark; sure maybe they'll cure cancer, but maybe they'll be the next hitler, or more likely, they'll be an average joe with no lasting impact on humanity.
  • criddell 9y ago
    Do you think people shouldn't talk about it?
  • _jal 9y ago
    I haven't seen any massive upsurge in the sentiment, and I pay attention, because I'm someone who gets grief about choosing not to spawn. But what's surprising about that "mentality"? Breeding is something some people indeed come to regret, and having the self-awareness to recognize that likelihood in one's self leads to better outcomes for the not-parent and the not-child[1]. A big part of what what I've seen in having these discussions is people resenting those who made different choices. A lot of people follow a script - get married around this age, acquire home, make a kid or two once you can afford the tax privileged accounts, etc. Some of those people resent those who saw they can write their own script and fail to look unhappy about it. [1] I always hear, "but what if you're wrong?" To which I reply with some variant of, "You should go to medical school. Sure, you're a bit old for that, it is expensive, a huge, somewhat risky commitment, an enormous change in your life for a long time, and you think you'd hate being a doctor. But what if you're wrong?"
    • Toast_25 9y ago
      That medical school thing is an awesome response, if only I could use it on a doctor. I guess I should go with "you should go to engineering school"
  • upvotinglurker 9y ago
    As a person who doesn't want children, I still hear much more of the "you're deluded to believe you don't want kids," "you'll change your mind," "you're a bad person for not wanting kids" and (from coworkers) "your personal/work-life balance needs must always be immediately and completely subjugated to mine because I have kids" mentalities.
  • to_bpr 9y ago
    At what point in the last 10-20 years has the image of the nuclear family not been under attack? Beyond medicine and the fact that it's less violent than 200 years ago, it would be incredibly hard to argue we now live in healthy societies.
  • menacingly 9y ago
    This was my reaction. I was surprised to see all the sentiment in these comments that this is _counter_ to the popular narrative. I see articles like this all the time, and hear it expressed by friends in person. I think this might be one of those things like atheism, where your ideology becomes generally accepted enough that you forget you're not being rebellious anymore.
  • lumberjack 9y ago
    There is a growing anti-natalist movement, lately.
• jchw 9y ago
  I'm not sure why this is so surprising. Having children just because everyone else has children is not a good plan. If that's not what you want to do in life, why wouldn't you regret it? It eats out enormous chunks of your life for something you apparently don't want to do. Some people genuinely want to do it, some people genuinely don't... Also: It is pretty irresponsible to have a child even though you know you don't want to take care of it.
  • hateduser2 9y ago
    I find t hard to believe anyone genuinely doesn’t want to. I suggest they’re wrong about their feelings. They only exist because every ancestor of theirs has children. Every person who exists today shares that quality. It seems like a critical part of life to have kids or a kid at least.
    • LandR 9y ago
      Guy here, I genuinely don't want kids and honestly can't see that ever changing.
      • tonyedgecombe 9y ago
        I remember saying that to myself ...
    • malnourish 9y ago
      We haven't had to make decisions solely based on survival and bloodline continuation for a long time. We're also capable of meta-cognition, so even if some realize that they may want children, they might reason that it's an infeasible idea. Further, some people simply would rather spend the time for themselves. Personally, I grew up in a below poverty line single parent home and would like to spend time and money for myself and my SO now that I'm doing OK financially.
    • jchw 9y ago
      Your logic here reminds me of this Onion article: https://www.theonion.com/report-finds-children-of-parents-often-become-parents-t-1819576757 https://www.theonion.com/report-finds-children-of-parents-of... Nonetheless, common misconception that everyone on earth is having children. Nearly half of women in the U.S. have never had children. The exponential population growth that would follow from every single adult having at least one child every generation would be insane and absolutely unsustainable. It seems like it could be a natural response to crowding in populations that people stop having children, or it could just be a result of people feeling uncertain about their future. Not sure, but either way, I know for an absolute undeniable fact that right now, I could not want anything less than having a child. I'd rather go to prison. Besides, not everyone should be a parent. There's plenty of criminals with mental disabilities that make them hugely unfit parents even if they wanted to be. The world really would be a better place if said people simply chose not to procreate.
• JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  > She never wanted children (“I was very independent,” she says)—her husband did. Premarital counseling would have caught that. > “It would have been a deal-breaker.” IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!!! Now you made a new person that you don't want! Shame on you and your husband! Kids, money goals, debt, work goals, travel goals, where to live; these are all HUGE things that need to be discussed, while in the presence of a trained counselor, before saying "I do."
  • reverend_gonzo 9y ago
    Absolutely agree, though I don't think its necessary to have done so in front of a counselor. Before we got married, there were a number of things that we discussed and had to make sure we were on the same page. Of those, the most important were children and religion. I personally made it a point to get an understanding before we were even serious. Now that we're married, the question isn't "Will we have children?", it's "When..." and that's much easier to figure out if both people are playing the same endgame.
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      I say in front of a counselor because most people just are not honest with themselves. A trained counselor will help them come to terms with things. Oh, and thanks for pointing out religion, I forgot that on my (knowingly incomplete) list. Edit: I say most, but I probably should have said some.
  • djschnei 9y ago
    Personal responsibility?!
  • sidlls 9y ago
    Life isn't that simple. Even people who have studied and think they're prepared for all that having kids entails aren't really prepared for it.
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
• throwaway2016a 9y ago
  If given the choice I would choose to have my daughter again I would. But even so I can definitely empathize with many of the people in this article. My wife and i have always been very open communicators. After having a kid when people would ask us if we are enjoying parenthood we've always answered honest. "It's the most work we have ever done in our life" (and I build startups!)... "We got no sleep last night, she woke up at 2 AM and wouldn't go back to bed." And it is amazing to me the backlash we got. People who plan to have children were telling us "all I ever here is the bad stuff!" and essentially saying we should lie and say everything is perfect. The fact is, having a child is the biggest life commitment you will ever make and if you and your significant other are not prepared, you're in for a bad time. But at the same time I think this whole "you're not allowed to say anything bad about parenthood" is unhealthy. This article talks about people who are willing to speak their truth about parenthood and I think overall that is a good thing. Edit: If more people talked honestly about he burden of parenthood we'd maybe have less unwanted kids. We as a species are well past the point where we have to have 10 kids just to ensure the bloodline continues. Be honest with people about how difficult being a parent is. Some people like my wife and I will choose to do it anyway knowing exactly what we are getting into and other's won't. And that's OK.
  • mherchel 9y ago
    No one can ever be 100% prepared for children.
    • throwaway2016a 9y ago
      Excellent point. I removed the "100%" With some reflection I don't think I was 100% ready. But I did at least make sure my finances were in order, I knew what it would do to our budget, and my wife and I had expectations set going in who would bear what responsibility. It sounds like the people in this article didn't think of that stuff. And I'm not sure I entirely blame them. We as a society make it a taboo to talk about anything but good stuff when it comes to parenting.
  • dominotw 9y ago
    I live an puerto rican neighboorhood in chicago. People live here in combined family structure with many generations living in the same building. I've become acquaintances with many of them and i've noticed that parenthood is much less of a burden for them since they have extended family to support them. Not just a matter of practical convenience but the immense moral and pshyclogical support you get from living next to your parents, cousins is immeasurable. I always see kids playing outside and everyone keeps an eye on them, you are not dealing with your kids 24x7 nonstop. I am convinced that if you are going to reproduce this is the way to do it. Even though I make significantly more money than them I am jealous of their lifestyle :D . These parents take vacations without their kids, which I know many of valley friends think is impossible.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• titzer 9y ago
  Appreciate your parents.
  • jdavis703 9y ago
    I don't like to say insulting things on this platform that values civility. But this is one of the most naive comments I've read this year. Perhaps I speak from stories, but many of the parents I know in my family aren't involved in their children's lives, abuse their children or just plain weren't in appropriate social and economic conditions to have children. Many, maybe most, parents are just not worth appreciating.
    • titzer 9y ago
      I lost my dad when I was 18. I've lived now over half my life without him. You're being downvoted because you can't differentiate wisdom from naivete. Appreciate your parents.
      • Toast_25 9y ago
        That's really terrible. I lost my mother to mental illness a little younger than that, she's still around but she's not my mom, she's terrifying. I'm honestly not sure which is worse.
    • monktastic1 9y ago
      Well, sentences tend to become a lot more awkward when all the necessary caveats are inserted. There is something healthy in the comment, if you're willing to find it. If you're reading naiveté, perhaps it comes from your own pain, and I'm sorry.
• romanovcode 9y ago
  Ugh, wouldn't want to hear that from my mother.
• bla2 9y ago
  This is clearly a ruse by Big Childbirth who want to talk other people out of having children so that their offspring has less competition.
• virgilp 9y ago
  Most things in life that are worth it are hard. I find that Occam's razor is deeply misleading - when it comes about the important life decisions, the exact opposite applies: the easy path is one of superficiality, short-term gratification, that you will come to regret later. Yes, raising children is difficult (especially the first one, since in radically changes your life, you're no longer independent). It's also rewarding, but it _is_ difficult. And that's for the best case, when you get a normal child - I don't know if I can even grasp the difficulties of raising a problematic child (e.g. diabetic). You should absolutely not do it on a whim; but if you do it, I'd say "go all in and enjoy it". Don't regret your previous life, fully embrace the new one. It has its perks, too - and they are not few. And (at least I hope so), it only gets better as times goes by.
  • lawlessone 9y ago
    >And (at least I hope so), it only gets better as times goes by. Lol!
    • virgilp 9y ago
      Well, I have three, and the oldest is going to be heading to college soon. So it's not a completely uninformed hope :) - though it is, of course, a deeply subjective one.
  • peeters 9y ago
    What does Occam's Razor have to do with making life decisions?
    • virgilp 9y ago
      (I think you edited? People do have a tendency to over-apply it, from my observations. To extend from "chose the simplest model that explains something" to "when faced with a choice, chose the simplest solution") I wasn't trying to say that it's bad/ that's it's an useless mental model. I was trying to say "don't apply it to important life decisions, if anything, the opposite of it is true there".
• unklefolk 9y ago
  It is very difficult for those who have already had children to consider, if in retrospect, it was the right decision. Once you have children it is no longer a cool, abstract decision. The subject in question (the child) has been made real and it is difficult to reflect on the decision to have children without considering the living, breathing person in front of you and how that person would not have existed had you chosen otherwise.
  • criddell 9y ago
    Exactly right. Even those that think their life would have been better without children likely don't want to hurt the kids they do have.
• jbob2000 9y ago
  Society has lost its way if arguably one of our most fundamental, carnal functions is too burdensome to carry out. Whether the burden is monetary (day care, cost of goods) or social (sports, parties), there's got to be a reckoning coming. There's no way we can sustain this way of life.
  • AlexandrB 9y ago
    On the contrary, this is probably good news as we are nearing the carrying capacity of our planet. I don't think birth rates will ever decline to the extent that the global population collapses but a declining birth rate is really something to celebrate.
    • mrdodge 9y ago
      It's only declining in the places where people give a shit about the Planet in these terms.
      • lumberjack 9y ago
        They "give a shit" but at the same time pollute a thousand times more (per capita). So one less American and one more Indian is a net positive for our green earth.
        • thriftwy 9y ago
          I'm not sure about that. USA has a lot of nature preserves and strict environment laws. 3rd world countries may experience runaway population growth where no land left undisturbed and nothing is preserved. If we take CO2 it's another thing, but low emissions won't save you once all the biosphere is literally eaten.
          • dominotw 9y ago
            That has nothing to do with cost to earth. We just export our pollution to seas and china. If all countries start living like americans we'd need 5 times the surfaces area of earth.
• intopieces 9y ago
  I would love to see a comparison between similarly aged mothers in countries with more equal gender benefits for child rearing (Scandinavia? France?) and those where mothers are still the de facto responsible for the day to day labor. Part of this might be caused by the need for a two parent income to survive. It means that the default parent has two jobs, whatever their ambition might be.
• Omnius 9y ago
  Kids are hard work, expensive, a huge responsibility (it's your job to make sure they don't end up entitled little assholes) and you have to give up a 3rd of your youth. I never wanted kids. Accidentally got my girlfriend pregnant in my early 20's got married and had another child, on purpose, 5 years after the first. I wouldn't change anything and even with all the sacrifice and hard work the rewards run deep and i couldn't imagine the person i would be had i not ended up a father. My oldest is heading to college in next fall and i am already feeling sad about how her daily absence is going to leave me feeling a bit empty. It's not for everyone and i can only speak for myself but i never knew i wanted them or how much more fulfilling my life would be until i had them.
• lasermike026 9y ago
  American child rearing is unbalanced. Read this: Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
  • dkhenry 9y ago
    I like the concept of that book and it does a good job of explaining a very different culture in an approachable way, but its important to point out there is nothing "french" about good child rearing, and nothing "American" about bad parenting. There are plenty of American parents who can make the bold claim that book makes, but there are plenty more who refuse to listen to advice and have very low expectation so of being a parent. There is nothing magical about having your kids sleep through the night, or play quietly, or be able to behave in a public place, or eat the food you give them. You just need to put in the work.
  • djrogers 9y ago
    TFA is Canadian
  • aidenn0 9y ago
    Trying to raise your kids differently from that in the US is quite the hassle though. There are plenty of news headlines where it got ridiculous, but here's two examples from my life, with my oldest daughter (I'm sure I'll have more as her siblings get older): Someone called the cops on me for leaving her, at 8 years old, in a car, parked in the shade, on a cool day for 5 minutes. She was questioned by a stranger at age 10 (where are your parents, what are you doing alone &c.), when I let her walk by herself through the safest part of town for 3 blocks from my office to an after-school activity.
• dkhenry 9y ago
  Anyone who had kids because they thought kids would make them happy is in for a bad time, but that's not what this is about. This is about narcissism and people not being able to learn from what is going on around them. Clearly even after kids the people in the headline of this story didn't understand life or how to live with others. Just the tale of their parenting lets you know that not only did they not have a good relationship ( claim of 90% of work by one parent, and spending most days carting the child around to "activities" ), but then the burden of this unfulfilled and damaged life is placed on the child, if you could do it again you wouldn't have a child, therefore that child will see it as their fault they have ruined your life. You can't hide those emotions for long and they end up with bitterness and resentment. The truth is even without kids the realtionship was not in good shape, and these people would have had an empty and shallow partnership. That is how human relationships work, when hard times come they don't break your relationships they revel them for what they are. Motherhood or parenting or children aren't the problem, the basic breakdown of people being able to live and relate with other people is.
  • maerF0x0 9y ago
    The doublespeak is palpable too. >"I love my son with all my heart,” she says. “My life revolves around this child. Sorry, no. Love means desiring what is good for that person. Not existing is not good for that person... As well, her life revolves around her happiness, which is why her decision wether or not to do it again is answered by it's impact on her happiness.
    • kevinh 9y ago
      I don't see anything contradictory in what she says. You can love someone, yet not always take actions that are best for them. Your life can resolve around someone else, while you wish it didn't.
• sndean 9y ago
  > Declining fertility rates and older, more educated first-time mothers have also contributed to heightened expectations. The fertility rate in Canada has dropped from 2.1—the replacement level needed for the population to renew itself without immigration—in 1971 to 1.6 in 2016.” It's interesting to contrast this concern (is concern the right word?) in Canada with articles about the same thing in parts of Africa [0]. The only difference being what side of the replacement level the population is on. [0] http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-closer-look-data http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-child...
• brndnmtthws 9y ago
  Good for them. I really dislike a lot of the cultural dogmas that exist (at least in the first world) about stuff like this. We have too many people on this planet already, and no you don't need to breed unless you and your partner are some sort genetic miracle. I think nurture is more important than nature, and if you really want to parent you're better off giving an underprivileged child an opportunity through adoption than breeding.
  • dionidium 9y ago
    It's remarkable that anyone could with a straight face say that the drive and desire for children is a "cultural dogma". In the nature vs. nurture debate, not everything is a tie.
    • brndnmtthws 9y ago
      It's strictly subjective.
      • dionidium 9y ago
        No, it's not. We don't just throw our hands in the air and say, "I guess we'll never know!" It's not a tie. There is evidence for one side or the other. And in this case, the evidence couldn't possibly be stronger for one particular side.
        • brndnmtthws 9y ago
          I'm not convinced. Is there evidence that the parent/child bonding only occurs if you share DNA? My personal experience suggests otherwise, especially given that my mother was adopted.
    • underbluewaters 9y ago
      There are a lot of folks making this same argument. I studied evolutionary biology in University and can say confidently that you are on a lot shakier ground than you think. There is not necessarily an innate drive to make a traditional family. Sex, sure. Most people have a sex drive but what happens afterword need not be familial bliss, or even sticking around to raise the child at all. In fact there a lot of very successful strategies in nature to offload that work to the other parent or even fool unrelated adoptive parents.
• tabeth 9y ago
  I suspect the main reason it's difficult is because of the individualistic nature of western nations. In a society where people live with multiple generations of family raising children is probably much, much easier. Add to this the fact that everyone wants to have the best schools, houses and things in general, and the income that's necessary to get and maintain said things and you see that having modern children is a trap.
• djaychela 9y ago
  I don't have biological children - I was never in a position where I would have considered it a good idea to have them (for various reasons, internal and external), and I've always seen it as about the biggest responsibility that you can have. However, about 9 years ago I met my current girlfriend, who had 4 kids from her 16-year marriage, and I'm now considered by them to be their step-parent. I remember I found it absolutely exhausting when I first started seeing her - it took a couple of years for that to not be the case - and they are -not- difficult children; quite the opposite, they are all really wonderful, and we generally get on very, VERY well. But it's an immense amount of work, and every time my girlfriend compares herself to where she would have been had she not had children and committed her time to be (what I consider to be) and excellent parent, I have to remind her that she's been a full time + (and then some) parent for about 12 years. Returning to the workplace for her has been difficult as she now works a full time job as well as being a mum - and one who cooks just about every night of the week, and has generally impossibly high standards for herself as a parent; despite her/our eldest now currently studying at Cambridge University. I can totally understand why some would regret having children; it's presented as being a utopian existence that you get immense satisfaction from in many quarters, and anyone who dares question whether it's the right move for them (or indeed their prospective children) is given short shrift. It's not for everyone, but everyone is expected to have children. I have been given long-winded lectures in the past for not having my own, and I'm sure anyone who dared to question the experience with said inquisitors would have a very hard time!
  • brango 9y ago
    I honestly never understood why you'd put yourself through all that for someone else's genes to propagate.
    • djaychela 9y ago
      Half the genes are those of my partner... and I guess it could be that way even if they were biologically my kids? TBH I used to think about it a lot when we first got together, but now I don't really think about them other than they are my kids... not biologically, of course, but there's more to life than biology. Otherwise I'd be my Dad, and that would be Worst Case Scenario for me.
• mabbo 9y ago
  The outrage at saying you regret having children seems to me to be evidence that there's a nerve there to hit. It's a bit like accusing 10 supposedly straight people of being secretly gay, and one of them losses their mind screaming denials. 'Methinks he doth protest too much.' But we've built a society in the west based around worshipping our children. Politicians can do anything if it's "for the children", no matter how draconian or insane. It's rude to ever comment on how someone else chooses to raise their children. It's considered horrible to not do everything you can to make your children happier, better, etc. Better go buy a house with a yard because your kid might want a yard, because everyone knows that kids need yards. The really interesting question isn't whether it's okay to regret having children- it's what's going to change when society unshackles itself from this strange obsession.
  • brango 9y ago
    I agree. I wonder who's outraged by someone else saying something about their own life and feelings? I suspect it's other women.
    • DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      > I wonder who's outraged by someone else saying something about their own life and feelings? It's kinda violating a social contract. Everyone's the product of thousands of people over thousands of generations who chose to have kids. By choosing not to have kids you also choose to not contribute the the labor force that will likely take care of you in your old age. You can say all you want about contributing money or inventions, but money is just a claim on future labor and few people's inventions are really that valuable.
      • brango 9y ago
        So you're saying those "outraged" parents don't like it either and don't like to see people freeloading and not taking their share of the pain? They're "outraged" because some people are getting off scott-free?
• whistlerbrk 9y ago
  I'd be interested to see how the age of the children correlates with regret. That is, do parents regret having children when the child is 2? How about 12? How about 22? I don't have a hypothesis on how that would play out, but it is important to remember that people are (ever increasingly) programmed for short term reward and child rearing is the ultimate long term investment.
• mereed 9y ago
  But you're regretting the wrong thing. You're projecting onto the child. You are actually upset about the desertion, the divorce, the ridiculous super-paced lifestyle you chose over the actual simplicity of life you could have chosen. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, these upcoming generations. Too many of you are manipulated by a faux culture that doesn't really care about you but it does care about the money it can make off you. And to that end, it indoctrinates you with the idea that you are missing out on life if you don't follow the same workaholic path to assumed value to society. That is "the script" and you just don't see it. Most of you will never be remembered by that society you think you will just die if you are not a part of its moving and shaking. But you WILL be remembered by your children...if you don't get duped into not having them.
  • jupiter90000 9y ago
    Why is being remembered important? Just curious.
    • lazerpants 9y ago
      Furthermore, doesn't that make having kids an even bigger risk? What if they then choose not to have kids. According to the "being remembered" metric, you've been doubly duped because you had to raise children and are eventually unremembered anyway.
• Seanny123 9y ago
  This article seemed more like the documentation of a cultural phenomenon (mothers able to publicly admit regret) than a sociological study. But I still want to know why mothers regret having children. The comments seemed to be filled with uncharitable explanations, but are there any publications (other than the isreali one) that summarises the reasons for regret?
• spiderfarmer 9y ago
  As a father of three young kids I can tell you it's a lot of work, it's not always fun, it's not always rewarding and it's not always what you want it to be. But I can also tell you I never felt love like the love I feel for my children. I never felt as proud before I saw my children do things that astonish me. I never felt as close to my wife before I had children. The feels man. For me it makes it all worth it. I absolutely get that it's not for everyone, but for the people that are undecided: there are a lot of happy parents out there and I am one of them.
• hypfer 9y ago
  "Hacker News"
  • wordToDaBird 9y ago
    This is what I am not getting, why are all these articles that have absolutely nothing to do with technology popping up, and then making it to the front page, is the algo messed up?
    • AndrewDucker 9y ago
      "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it." Both from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • nu-world-odor 9y ago
      Hacker News is really regretting having babies today.. seems obvious.
  • jhiska 9y ago
    Like Slashdot and Reddit, once Hacker News became influential enough it was taken over by political actors. It makes sense from a political actor's point of view to push their message on whatever platform reaches the most influential people, and Hacker News was that platform once, but it destroys the platform in the long-term, and I don't think they care about people wanting a platform for discussing news for hackers. In this article, the message being pushed is one of social change, and although I agree with the agenda, I don't think it's appropriate in Hacker News either.
• yequalsx 9y ago
  I don't have kids but it seems to me that the way the U.S. is structured for middle and upper middle class families exacerbates the issue. Suburbs are not walkable communities. Kids don't seem to play in the streets in their neighborhood like I used to do when growing up. It's taboo to let a 10 year take the bus by himself or to be alone. Activities are much more structured and that means a lot less flexibility.
• dctoedt 9y ago
  It's not just that one partner wants kids while the other doesn't. Don't forget the influence of would-be grandparents who ask, "so when are you going to give me grandchildren?" Of course grandkids are fun to play with and occasionally take care of but (usually) aren't a full-time responsibility.
• CapitalistCartr 9y ago
  When we enthusiastically adopted the "Nuclear Family" (along with Levittown suburbia) after WWII, we knew at the time it was new, but new was Good(tm) and Sciency! Soon, we seem to have forgotten that it was a recent decision, one we can change. But it was never a successful design. Women found staying at home stifling; teens found suburbia stifling. The lack of a deep social structure deprived parents and children alike of a massive support structure. Other social organizations sprang up to fill the void, but clubs are no match for generations of closeness, and frequent moves made even that ineffectual. The only segment of society that clearly benefited was and is Corporations. Having a worker class that can be shuffled around like game pieces allows easier optimization of cost center locations.
  • jimmaswell 9y ago
    >But it was never a successful design. Women found staying at home stifling; teens found suburbia stifling. The lack of a deep social structure deprived parents and children alike of a massive support structure. Do you have any sources supporting this? I'm pretty sure the "nuclear family" + suburbia have worked out fine.
    • watwut 9y ago
      Betty Friedman book gives pretty accurate picture. Plus there was that feminists revolution where women fought to not be at home.
      • jimmaswell 9y ago
        Suburbia doesn't preclude two working parents or a stay at home dad.
        • watwut 9y ago
          He asked for source of multiple claims one of which was "Women found staying at home stifling". But I also think that while some dads would be happy at home long term, just like some women really are, majority would have same problems then women at home do. However, the stigma of "it was your choice don't complain" etc could be even larger.
• leot 9y ago
  Regret is unhelpful and indicates a lack of acceptance of the past and present. As such, it is personally irresponsible and shouldn't be celebrated. Stepping back, norm breaking seems to have gotten even more newsworthy lately. However, publicizing a broken norm is not always an obvious good. Propagation of the news of a norm being broken encourages more breaking of this norm. And often we have little understanding of the work this norm is doing. Is it damaging for a child to entertain the idea that their parents might regret their existence? Probably. Is it damaging for all involved to have a big conversation about motherhood regret and its being ok? Also, probably. Not every thought deserves to be aired.
  • gerbilly 9y ago
    > norm breaking seems to have gotten even more newsworthy lately Sorry, where are these norms supposedly coming from then?
    • leot 9y ago
      Why do you smile when you see a friend? Was it a rule you decided on or something you just do? What if you suddenly stopped?
  • monktastic1 9y ago
    How about remorse? Perhaps even that is not the appropriate word here, but do you believe there are any circumstances in life where grief is a natural and even healthy response? If so, why not this circumstance? I would suggest that if you encounter a situation in life where there's genuine remorse for a choice you've made, there aren't only two options of "celebrate your regret" or "suck it up." There's such a thing as honoring pain without dwelling on it, and if done properly, it actually enables your growth in a way that's healthy for both you and the world. And if so, perhaps it's okay for the world to learn from your growth.
    • leot 9y ago
      The trouble is that "regret" is doing too much work. It's at once a statement of fact and an activity. As a statement of fact it's ok. As an activity it's usually a waste of time.
• Edgar_S 9y ago
  Article is filled with lots of narcissists just complaining that their lives suck. My wife grew up with narcissistic parents like that and until now she has mental trauma that will haunt her for life. These mothers should be shamed and deserve it. They are not complaining about kids, they are simply saying that they are incapable as human beings of living with another human being. Life is not about self pleasure, it is about making sure that you try to make as many people that you encounter in your life as happy as possible. These so called "mothers" would be miserable pieces of with or without kids. That is just a narcissistic nature and there is nothing else to it. Doing 90% of work, and always taking kid to places! That is literally the words a pure narcissist would have.
  • ionised 9y ago
    Life is not about self pleasure, it is about making sure that you try to make as many people that you encounter in your life as happy as possible. On what sacred tablet did you find this meaning of life?
    • Edgar_S 9y ago
      Simply through observing narcissists rob people of their happiness to fill the the hungry void in their dark hearts
• teekert 9y ago
  I think this is a result of the ever increasing age at which people have children. One of the first things I said after having a son at 30 was: "Man I could have handled the sleepless nights much better at 23." In fact I often went out on Friday night, take a shower and proceeded to work 10 hrs in the super market, this would kill me now (at 35). Moreover, the longer you wait, the more accustomed you are to freedom and a lot of money. Not having children at 35 you can work for a small house and travel a lot (where I work now you can easily get away with 2 months of vacation a year, part of it unpaid) or perhaps do a lot of gaming of you wish... then you have children and that all ends, or it doesn't and it becomes hard work. I have friends without kids and with the adventurous life style and I tell myself: It'll come again, take it easy, raise kids, enjoy the ride. Still sometimes I feel myself hoping they reach the age they can ride a Mountain Bike asap and I can get back to adventurous trips... But it will come, there are a lot of things to enjoy now, watching children explore the world, it's absolutely great, but don't compare yourself to people without children, or if you do make the comparison holistically... do not just look at their Facebook lives. There are many childless couples that would swap with these regretting mothers and fathers in a heartbeat. All that said, I think it is good taboos as in this article are being lifted, perhaps kids are not for everyone and it is not all fun and roses even though society almost expects you to say and act like it is. Strangely it is also not very appreciated if you go on about your deep love for your children either... these are strange times perhaps.
  • menacingly 9y ago
    I think the age thing is because we're all coached to wait until we're "ready", but in reality no one is ever ready. You just have to dive in.
    • somethingorothr 9y ago
      Don't ignore economic factors. Stagnating wages, delayed careers due to the 2001 and 2007 crashes and subsequent recessions, and increased debt all conspire to put people in a position where having kids in their 20s is simply not an option.
• gumby 9y ago
  I was a single parent for six years and regret not a minute of it. But my own mother’s advice to me many years ago was, “Don’t have kids. They mess up your life and I regret it.” Although I wouldn’t have existed otherwise I am sorry for her that society 50 years ago dictated that she had to have kids. I loved this quote in the article: > One commenter called Dutton “an utterly miserable, cold-hearted and selfish woman.” It’s the commenter who was selfish, presuming some obligation on the part of Ms Dutton.
  • upvotinglurker 9y ago
    > my own mother’s advice to me many years ago was, “Don’t have kids. They mess up your life and I regret it.” Hopefully your mother waited until you were an adult to give you this advice!
    • gumby 9y ago
      I was about 18. My dad was annoyed and got her to “apologize” which I think was unfair: she lives her kids and wants the best for them, hence gave important advice. I had no choice in the matter of being born so I don’t feel bad about getting this advice.
• woliveirajr 9y ago
  In general, I think that readers/posters/commenters here at HNews are above (? not sure if it's the right word) the average population in terms of reading, thinking, planning ahead (and are even able to discuss planning strategies like "should I go waterfall or RUP or Agile or XP or..."). And it's easy to notice that this subject arises many points-of-view without any effort. Extrapolate that to the whole population, where some pregnancies happen without planning, without even noticing, without previous discussion between the couple, or even without too much thinking ahead for single-alone parents. Yes, given that each child is different, it's no surprise that hardly anyone is prepared to be a parent, and that parenthood can last even after you have grandchildren, becaus yes, even when your child marries and get their own children, you'll might end up helping here and there. I really appreciate that people outspeak about how hard is to be a parent, because the easier way is to do like those who are inside the cold pool.
• juusto 9y ago
  I married my wife 10 years ago. When we got married she was ready to have "at least 3 kids". Now she is not even sure she wants 1. I know it sounds selfish and absurd but we enjoy our life so much: all of our time we spend with each other, we travel 4-5 times a year to different countries, on the weekend we go for hikes in some national parks close to us. I could go on, but the theme is that we enjoy a lot our company and both me and her we are terrified of changing this. And if that was not the selfish part here it comes: I am actually afraid for both me and her when we are old that no one will come to visit or we won't have friends in this late stage in our life, we have moved to different countries 3 times. Those that have more or less the same lifestyle, how and what do you deal with this? I am quite interested in learning how others cope with the selsifh feeling that you should have someone to be with you.
  • somethingorothr 9y ago
    My wife and I have been married for a little over 14 years and, from the beginning, knew that neither of us wanted to have kids. There's nothing at all selfish about being happy with your current life. The real question is why you'd feel selfish for not wanting to have children. It's simply a choice. It's neither selfish nor unselfish, it's just a decision based on a very real cost-benefit analysis. As for old age, I'll point out a few things: First, having children is no guarantee you'll be cared for in old age. My grandmother on my father's side was virtually abandoned by most of my family during her greatest years of decline. And she's unfortunately a datapoint in a much larger trend of neglected elderly. Heck, I read a story recently of elderly people in Japan dying in their homes and no one realizing it until the smell disturbed their neighbours... Second, one can, and should, build an extended support network. The great irony is that having children makes that a lot harder--it's tough to build and maintain friendships when parenting is taking up most of your time--which means this will become more difficult as your own friends have kids. Be prepared to have to work harder to maintain those friendships and to build new ones. But don't neglect this. It'll be tempting to let your social network shrink to just you and your wife. Don't let that happen. Third, you can plan for your own care. Being child-free means you're more likely to have funds to ensure you can retire healthy and get the necessary care needed as you become infirm. In the end, though, it's unquestionably a tradeoff, and it's certainly the case that, by not having children, you're more likely to have less support during your declining years. Personally, I choose to take that risk knowing my wife and I are doing what's right for us, today. We can't be living our lives, now, for an unknown future decades from now.
• natecavanaugh 9y ago
  The saddest part of all of this to me it's just how many marriages and lives have been destroyed or severely hurt by the inability to have children, while others can so easily produce them, and either take it for granted or regret it. I don't think there's anything to solve here, per se, but there does seem to be a massive disconnect between our biology and psychology in many of these cases, but the people most deprived are the kids in these situations. Maybe the thing to solve is the readjustment of our expectations of genetic continuity, rather than cultural, moral and personal continuity, so that adoption and fostering are seen as a valid alternative. I know a lot of parents do see this as an option, but sadly, it does seem to be treated as a consolation prize rather than being a decision that benefits society and the parties involved.
• program_whiz 9y ago
  Its obvious that having children must be a positive biological function that prior generations somehow wanted to do, or we wouldn't be here. Any species that doesn't breed goes extinct. So I believe these factors are the root cause of why children suddenly seem like such a "problem": 1. Lack of support network -- many people living as just a couple or alone (and the strain on couple is so high that likely they will be alone soon). 2. Social emphasis on individualism rather than self-sacrifice or community focus. 3. Breakdown of community and trust -- so watching and keeping kids safe is full time job. Must be driven to and from everything, no playing by themselves after school. 4. Increased education -- older parents with more debt and pressure, working in more demanding and/or rewarding jobs. 5. Children need more -- expense of having child keeps increasing. The cost of all goods rising relative to wages, but also the cost of school, daycare, extra-curriculars, etc. Basically having a child is a huge cost, the medical bill just to have the child can be $20K in some hospitals. In most of the world that would mean no one could have a child in a hospital.
  • remir 9y ago
    I absolutely agree. Something natural, like having children, has become complicated and this is problematic. Knowing that there's single parents struggling to care for their children because they're alone, without support network or community, is heart breaking.
    • jxramos 9y ago
      That's an interesting line of thought about the artificial complexity/problematic aspects overlaid on something so natural. A society that can reduce any friction about so necessary a behavior should enjoy a strong long term competitive advantage. The barren lifestyle can only proceed as long as generation+0 then another will inherit it by default. There's some funny quote I heard once, "the future belongs to those who show up". We need people to show up, how can we make it not so complicated?
      • lovich 9y ago
        It's a product of straight greed. Look at any business that is making large profits but still won't give paternity or even maternity leave because they don't want to pay for their employees choices. Many people and companies viee themselves as individuals who are extracting value from society instead of members of a community who are adding value to their society. Until that becomes a rare viewpoint, or at least one with no power, we will have these problems
• neverminder 9y ago
  This reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800082 which in my opinion is relevant to the subject. Today's parents spend too much time with kids, too many helicopter parents and all that stuff, so it's the parents who overreact, overdo and exhaust themselves. Comment from throwaway2016a: > "We got no sleep last night, she woke up at 2 AM and wouldn't go back to bed." > The fact is, having a child is the biggest life commitment you will ever make and if you and your significant other are not prepared, you're in for a bad time. My grandpa had 10 siblings and from his stories I can tell that if he as a kid woke up at 2 AM and woke his parents (who worked their asses off from dawn till dusk to support the family) up for no good reason - he'd be the one to have a bad time and he learned that at a very young age. He did grow up to be a stand up guy who never complains about anything and the lack of all the rights, freedoms and attention that today's kids get didn't seem to get in the way of that.
  • thriftwy 9y ago
    I think that throwaway2016a was speaking about an infant under year. Would you be hitting a newborn child? I bet you won't. What outcome would you ever expect here?
    • eanzenberg 9y ago
      Not about hitting at all. It's about sleep training and crying-it-out, both of which can be done for infants > 6months old (we've done it with our boy).
  • DenisM 9y ago
    > never complains about anything While convenient for others, this is not quite healthy. It's possible to traumatize a child into quiet and obedience, but times have changed and we don't approve of that anymore.
    • neverminder 9y ago
      I believe he would laugh and say he doesn't have time to be traumatized. He's 86 and still going strong, always working on something, the man is like a shark (certain species of sharks die if they stop swimming) and doesn't look traumatized at all. Our generation though, we are a lot less stoic. Times change.
• twobyfour 9y ago
  We also, as a society, put a lot of conscious and subconscious pressure on women in particular to have and to want children. Girls are exposed from a young age to overt and covert suggestions that their value is in their reproductive appeal and reproductive potential. Women who don't have children are constantly questioned about it; treated as "less than"; and perceived as having something wrong with them. Women who don't want children are perceived as subversive. (We put some of these same pressures on men, but it's perceived as "normal" for men not to want children.) And then the burden of childbearing and childrearing falls more heavily on women than on men. So it's unsurprising that a lot of women have children and then regret it. What's infuriating is that the same pressures and stupid norms that push women into having children for the wrong reasons are the same ones that prevent them from speaking up about it and warning others once they realize they have.
• wiradikusuma 9y ago
  I think countries with cheap labor are lucky. We're in Malaysia, and while maid here is more expensive than in Indonesia, we still can afford a fulltime maid (from Indonesia). We're middle income family, both working. Of course, there are some horror stories about maid mistreating/abusing the baby, but that's minority. I work from home, working on my startup, still zero revenue for almost 2 years (giving me stress, _my_ savings almost gone). But it's like blessing in disguise, as I can monitor the maid and give more attention to the kids. Having baby is very stressful and time consuming (even with maid), I even told all my newly-wed friends, "If you can, don't have kids yet." But I told them it's the best thing I've ever had.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• geebee 9y ago
  One factor here is that people spend much more time with their kids than they used to. There was an article recently, I think on the NYTimes, and my comment would be much better if I could find the link with the data, but here goes. I am reconstructing this from memory, and unfortunately, I have to admit, I may not remember this accurately... I read that the amount of time married men spend, on average, with their children in 2017 exceeds the time that married women spent with their children in 1960 (hand waiving, I really wish I could find that link). So, now that men have stepped up, women are able to spend more time on leisure and work, right? Nope! Women almost doubled their time with children in that time period. I think it was 54 minutes per day for a woman in 1960, and something much lower for men. Now, 56 minutes per day for married men, and 106 per day for married women[1]. The tragic thing here is, I don't think it's even all that good for the kids, past a point. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, in SF west of twin peaks, and yeah, even here in SF, we would leave the house, find our pack of neighborhood kids, and not come back until someone yelled "dinner", at which point the kids would all start to go home. My parents and grandparents had similar experiences. That is gone. At least in SF. There is a little bit out outdoor play, but it's a whisker of what it used to be. A tiny fraction. And like I said, the sad thing is, I don't think all this supervision is good for kids, not to this extent. I see parents, more often women but plenty often men, standing outside a skate park, bored, browsing their phones, then getting the kids into the car and driving them off to their next scheduled thing. Hell, a supervised skate park visit is the most unstructured thing they'll do that day, more often it's a dance class, then a cello class, then baseball practice, them swimming lessons. Oh, this is even more ironic - if the data is correct, women spent less time on child care back in 1960 when they spent less time at work! So the increase in child care is coming out of a diminished amount of leisure time, not more. Yeah, of course this makes people unhappy. And like I said, the real tragedy is, I seriously doubt it makes the kids any happier. It's not that they don't want time with their parents, they do, they often love that time. But they don't need constant supervision - if they knew better (many kids today don't even know what that play outside freedom feels like), they'd realize they're happier without constant supervision as well. Not sure why this all happened. I don't quite buy the theory that we all became irrationally afraid. I think something else happened here, something that brought about the collapse of a critical mass of kids. I'd let my kids play outside, but there's no pack there anyway (of course, in SF, the population of kids under 18 has collapsed in my lifetime, maybe there are greener pastures - but I've read this has happened all over the place, not just in cites that have experienced a huge drop in the population of children - also, my neighborhood is one of the few in SF that still does have a lot of kids, they just don't play outside anymore) [1] This will be the last time I say this - sorry, I don't have the link, this is as best I can remember.
• GiorgioG 9y ago
  I don't get it. Parenthood is the easiest it's ever been. Diapers show up at your door. You can monitor the baby with a camera. Some of us work from home, etc. Yes in the early years they entirely depend on you 24/7. Be happy if your children are healthy. Parenthood can be soul-crushing when your child has a chronic illness. Our son is a type 1 diabetic which means one of us is always near him (aside from when he's in school, and my wife is in constant communication with the staff, we watch his blood sugar remotely using NightScout.) I can't imagine what it's like for parents who have children with more severe illnesses (cancer, paralysis, etc.) Just for some perspective for those who aren't familiar with Type 1 Diabetes, our son's body no longer produces any insulin. If his blood sugar goes too low without intervention he can pass out and die. If his blood sugar is too high he can go into DKA and he can slip into a coma. This goes on 24/7 and will for the rest of his life (unless they find a cure.) He was diagnosed four and half years ago and he just turned six. My wife and I have been out without him less than a handful of times because he's not old enough to self-manage his condition and our parents are (rightfully) scared of caring for him. No sleepovers, no leaving him with a neighbor/family/etc. More often than not one of us is up several times per night to check his sugar.) When he's low in the middle of the night we have to wake him up, force him to eat something (glucose tabs, chocolate, etc.) He'll go back to sleep and we'll wait 30-60 minutes to make sure his sugar returns to safe levels before going back to sleep. We have no regrets. We tell ourselves that we're happy he doesn't have something much worse. If I were to have a supposed-adult tell me that they regret having (healthy) children because it's hard, I would have the urge to tell them to go do something anatomically impossible.
  • billmalarky 9y ago
    >I don't get it. Parenthood is the easiest it's ever been. I'm not entirely sure this is true (for everyone at least), since many people don't live as close to the children's grandparents as they would have typically in the past. All the tech in the world doesn't make up for 8 additional (in the best case scenario) eager helping hands. As for the rest of your comment, I have a ton of respect for your handling of this hardship. I'm not entirely sure what else to say other than I always vote in such a way as to build a society that makes life easier for people dealt such an unfair hardship such as yourself and many others.
• ndh2 9y ago
  This article is a bit of a let down. They repeat the same thing over and over again. That there are mothers who regret having children, and how they are criticized by some other people as soon as they voice those regrets. What the article doesn't address is exactly why they regret having children, and what could be done to alleviate their problems. Or how mothers who regret having children differ from those who don't. Is it a personality trait, or does it have to do with the environment? Probably mostly the latter, but in what way exactly? The topic is interesting, the article not so much.
  • paulcole 9y ago
    > what could be done to alleviate their problems Nothing. You can't put the bun back in the oven. The best you can do is talk openly about how for some people having a kid is a terrible, irreversible, regrettable decision.
    • taeric 9y ago
      That seems defeatist. Healthier/stronger support networks would almost certainly benefit everyone.
  • dgabriel 9y ago
    I mean, they definitely talk about how the specific demands of modern motherhood are exhausting. Here's a quote: "Feeling trapped or suffocated is a common theme in Donath’s work; mothers felt “as if the metaphorical umbilical cord binding them to their children were in fact wrapped around their neck.” Many women said they felt pressured to have children. So did German novelist Sarah Fischer, author of Die Mutterglück-Lüge (The Myth of Mothering Joy: Regretting Motherhood—Why I’d Rather Have Become a Father), published in 2016, who writes she knew she’d made a mistake “when the contractions started.”
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• superflit 9y ago
  I am late for the discussion, but maybe I could shine something on this whole discussion. Having a kid is the most hard/stressing/demanding thing if you are doing the best and the right thing. Kids don't choose when or what disease they get. Have you a meeting in the morning? That's sucks you are on ER at 5:00 am since 2:00 full of vomit. Want to move to Nepal and be a monk for one year? Your kid will not wait. A lot of people outsource or do different decisions, but EACH decision has a price. You pay now or in the future with interest. Yesterday was my kid first day after vacations. He was throwing a fit. But yesterday was different was not a common fit. So I asked what the problem was? Are the schools? Teachers? Friends? No. he said: I want to be with you daddy. That got me, real hard. I started to cry, and he hugged me. I want to be with him all the time. But that is not life about. He is growing. Soon will be a teen and later married and have kids. And I will be left missing him. But still, this is marvelous. Having kids hurts and it is not for everyone. But I will do everything again 1000x times.
• bhouston 9y ago
  Kids are awesome. So much fun.
• epx 9y ago
  There is a huge interest from the government that people pursue the white-picked-fence ideal: three kids, big house, etc. This moves the economy, at expense of happiness. But, still, there is a choice - nobody needs to have children if they didn't really want.
• subjectsigma 9y ago
  Seems to me like a wider trend of people, for some reason, starting to believe that life should be easy when in the past people believed that life explicitly shouldn't be easy. Guess which group was happier.
• oxymoran 9y ago
  Both my wife and I never wanted to have kids. In fact I tend to dislike most kids, especially babies. We accidentally got pregnant, but then lost the baby a few months in. After that my wife wanted to try again. I went along because I love her and a small part of me did want to have kids. He is now 7 months old and I love him to death. But holy fuck, what a pain in the ass this is. And he is a good baby! But he needs 100% attention (not just supervision, but engagement) or else he freaks out. I can’t imagine what a “bad” baby would be like. I totally feel what the article is saying about feeling trapped. I feel like I do not exist anymore, but that everything I do is for him. There are risks I can’t take now. Ideas I can’t pursue. Hobbies I won’t have time again for years. Haven’t had sex in months. I see all these dudes, who after having kids, love kids. I thought that might happen to me, but no, the thought of having another kid makes my skin crawl. I love my son more than I thought was possible, but my wife asked if I wanted to have another one and without hesitation said “no fucking way”. Time to get snipped.
  • lacker 9y ago
    For what it's worth, I think a 7 month old is just about the hardest age of kid to have. They are old enough to scream and complain but young enough to not be able to fix any of their problems themselves. Hang in there, and good luck ;-)
    • taeric 9y ago
      Something that worked really well for us, teach the kid sign language. It isn't just that they are screaming and complaining. They are trying to communicate, and failure to do so is frustrating. I can only imagine how frustrating it is when you haven't learned the emotions, yet. (And don't let "teach them sign language" think you need to teach full on words. Basic signaling that is agreed between you and them is all I mean. Typically "want" and "hungry" are the only ones you need.)
      • jhpankow 9y ago
        The "Baby Signing Time" series was a game changer for us. It was nice to know what the problem was before my kid could speak. Other parents warned me this would be the most difficult time because of the not knowing, but this absolutely minimized it.
• anonforasecond 9y ago
  Of the few regrets I have in my life, not getting a vasectomy in my 20s is probably the biggest. All the financial mistakes I've made (the jobs I didn't get/take, the investments I should have made, etc) are nothing compared to the regret I feel about becoming a father. I love my kid but the only reason I have one is because my wife wanted one and I want her. I absolutely get why people would want kids (watching a child progress is beyond interesting and the reactions are often priceless) but the loss of self and freedom isn't worth it to me. I told myself I'd never have kids but I lost a lot of backbone when I got married because I love her more than I could ever love anything or anyone. The advice I give anyone who asks me and is on the fence is this: "Unless both people actively _want_ kids, don't do it. Wait until you're both in violent agreement or it's a bad decision." I'd never walk out on either my kid or my wife but were I a weaker person, I might have and my wife can see it in my face. It's a hard place to be.
  • throwaway0055 9y ago
    fellow regretful father here and I couldn't agree more. Anyone who thinks that having a kid because they're partner wants one is a good idea should take note. A lot of relationships won't survive one parent resenting the other because of a kid. +1 on the loss of self and freedom. I got my vasectomy after my second and couldn't be happier.
  • dingaling 9y ago
    You are not alone. I am a stay-at-home father for a 4yo. It can be interesting at times. Mostly however it is frustrating and deeply lonesome, some days I've gone all day until dinner-time without being able to talk to another adult other than a passing "good morning" in the street. And I look at my childless-couple friends with jealousy, they jump in the car and go for a weekend break or spend ten hours composing an award-winning photograph or just spend a Saturday doing nothing I don't mind posting this under my usual ID because it's not something I hide anymore. Often though it is considered shameful to say "I don't enjoy being a father". Rewards? An hour here or there when my wife can take the child out of the house.
  • AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    The losses are real. Loss of freedom, money, time, and often the loss of your wife's figure. I get it. I really get it. (Martin Mull said, "Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.") But if I could tell my younger self one thing about those days, I'd say: Don't miss what you have by focusing on what you lost. Be present with your kids, instead of mentally withdrawn, wishing for what you could do if you didn't have them. It could be that my younger self wouldn't get it. It could be that, without the kids making me less selfish, I never would have seen how selfish I was being. Looking back, though, my biggest regret for that time is how little love I gave to my children.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway0055 9y ago
  It takes a specific type of person to enjoy parenthood. I, however, am not one of them. I love my children but being a parent fucking sucks. It has its moments of joy. But the day-in-day-out sucks. If I could do it over again I wouldn't. Most people will research a car purchase more than they will parenthood before getting pregnant. I was one of them. You have that urge and you just go with it never questioning the reality and magnitude of the commitment you're getting into. I didn't want a second child and my wife did. When she said she was pregnant I was not happy. I resented her for much of the first years of my second child's life because I never wanted another screaming baby in my house. My wife used to talk about wanting a big family but on the second pregnancy she realized that was an idealization - not reality. She thought she would enjoy staying home with our son when he was a baby. The reality was she ended up job hunting after less than a year. We're both happy I got a vasectomy after our second.
• ciconia 9y ago
  Having kids (a boy and a girl, 9- and 8-years old respectively, both adopted) changed my life in a profound way. I made me much more materialistic (as in providing for my family), more interested in day-to-day life than the myriad artistic and intellectual pursuits of my younger self. Today I cannot imagine my life without my kids, but I also know that once they start their own adult lives and their own journeys, my life will stop revolving around them, and we will get back the freedom that we sometimes miss so dearly today. As much as I enjoy my kids, a part of me can't wait for this chapter to be over.
  • tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    As our kids have grown up we have found our parents becoming more dependent on us, we are getting squeezed from both sides.
• nunez 9y ago
  Damn. I’m 30; my fiancee is 32. We are going through this HARD right now. I’ve asked tons of folks why they’ve decided to have kids and what their experience with them has been like. Nearly everyone has said that it was extremely hard upfront EXCEPT for a friend of my fiancee’s who had family nearby to take care of her child while her and her husband worked. But my gut feeling is that those that legitimately regret having kids won’t say it in fear of feeling like they are a monster. My Mom is guilting me pretty hard into having kids. My fiancee’s sisters are both pregnant as are many of her friends. It also doesn’t help that most of the people in our age in our neighborhoods also have kids. Our lifestyle is mostly: lots of going out, lots of fun, lots of “us” time mixed with time for ourselves when i travel for work. Whenever the “do you want kids” question comes up, the answer is never an immediate, resounding YES on both sides, which means that it’s a no. The thought of never being able to do what I’m doing now seems like it would destroy me. But “everyone” says that their feelings towards their kids replaces that, so maybe it won’t be so bad? But not having them is feeling harder and harder by the day, not because I want them more and more but because I feel like I need to have them for some reason and she’s running up against her “soft limit” (35).
• orionblastar 9y ago
  Raising a child is hard work, when they are a tween or teen it is even harder. My wife and I found a better system called Love and Logic that made it a bit easier. It would have been nice if we learned it earlier. Our son is in college now and helps us out, while I help him with homework and edit his essays so he gets better grades. Since 2003 I've been on disability and been mostly a stay at home dad while my wife works. I taught my son how to fix computers and build them. He fixed his friends computers and then learned how to fix cars, ECT. I would go through it again if I had to. Not everyone is cut out to be parents and children can vary, as you never know what you are going to get.
  • dgabriel 9y ago
    Wait -- you edit your college-aged child's essays??
    • orionblastar 9y ago
      I proof read them to check for mistakes.
• josephjrobison 9y ago
  Any parents here see a benefit in raising children on their productivity in a weird way? Some very talented tech people I follow had kids early and it worked out well for them!
  • lhorie 9y ago
    Yep, the lack of free time helps me procrastinate less.
• pithic 9y ago
  It might be worth exploring the reason why the "taboo" on this subject has recently been breached. Could it be that how we define life and our expectations of it have shifted? In a world where the goal in life is personal enjoyment, of which ease is a precondition, childbearing is more commonly regrettable. Perhaps there never was a taboo, just a different conception of what a human life should aim for.
• hosh 9y ago
  Huh, interesting contrast to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646
• pmarreck 9y ago
  Odd that this post was directly above this one in my feed: "The desire to have a child never goes away": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646
• Gatsky 9y ago
  In my job, I meet a lot of elderly people many of whom have significant medical illnesses. I wish it could be otherwise, but almost all the people that have 'aged well' have children. Many of the arguments against having kids are from the perspective of a 20 - 40 year old. More than half our lives are going to be spent being older than this, and it is easy to optimize for things that will simply be irrelevant after a while.
  • jxramos 9y ago
    I thought I heard something in this direction once, that a woman adds years to her life in a linearly scaling fashion with the number of children she bears, which plateaus beyond some count like 5 or 6 I think it was. I think this news came around the time they discovered maternal-fetal “chimera” cells which apparently go in and fix stuff in mama IIRC. Sometimes I wonder about all these medical records we gather and how they'd contribute to measuring stuff like you point out. With all the data enumerated in the future it should be a relatively straightforward analysis right?
    • Gatsky 9y ago
      There are definitely tangible health benefits. Giving birth and breastfeeding reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The protective effect for breast cancer goes away if the woman becomes pregnant when she is older however. Pregnancy also reduces the risk of multiple sclerosis. For most of human history however, the dangers far outweighed any benefits, with maternal mortality being a major cause of death. There are probably many other fascinating things going on as you highlight. I should add that there could be selection bias going on - perhaps those that have children have existing social, economic, psychological and health attributes that also predict successful ageing.
      • jxramos 9y ago
        Great comment, this provoked some day dreaming about mammalian physiology around the design of live birthing trading against maternal mortality where live birthing clearly wins in the risk/benefit evolution of such species. I'm very curious how maternal mortality distributes across other mammals, is it a pretty constant thing? I'm also curious about the aggregate extension of life women have experienced from birthing vs those tragically lost during child birth, say the sum of the ages of all such lost women, how those two figures would stack up. Looking at this hit http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/ gives a figure 385 per 100,000. "Maternal mortality refers to deaths due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth. From 1990 to 2015, the global maternal mortality ratio declined by 44 per cent – from 385 deaths to 216 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UN inter-agency estimates. Doing some back of the envelope calculations 100,000 sample size 385 maternal deaths in sample (picked the higher figure) 30 average maternal age at death (my own guess, leaning high) 11,550 years lost (385*30) 1 age increase per birth (my own guess, leaning low) 99,615 added years from successful births 88,065 net added years of life to mothers in sample. Even if I choose a more pessimistic mortality rate of 1000 per 100,000 it's still a net positive with my figures; I roughly estimated that the break even point is 3226 deaths per 100,000 according to the above calculus. This analysis only works because the mortality rate is a thankfully such a small fraction, but tragically not 0. I wonder if there was ever a period in human history where the mortality was ever above 3%?
• Robotbeat 9y ago
  One possible resolution of The Fermi Paradox and The Great Filter are: We figure out reliable and cheap contraception and raising kids is too difficult and/or expensive, so everyone basically stops doing it. ...in the meantime, you'd get collapse of social systems as the weight of a society composed nearly entirely of the elderly brings growth to a halt as the few young try to take care of the huge number of elderly people. Luckily, in the West, we still have immigration so we don't have much to worry about. But when the poorest countries start becoming wealthy and get access to cheap/reliable contraception, there will be no one left to immigrate into their countries. We might get lucky and have the machines take care of us as we age. But thus ends the human race. EDIT: My solution is for society to stop treating child-rearing as a second-rate job and for us to fully support both fathers and mothers as equal caretakers, giving both full support in the form of leave and childcare, etc. And universal healthcare, too. Without massive immigration, childbirth is way too low in the West (and now, increasingly, in the Far East) to maintain a stable population. I'm a huge fan of immigration, but not every country in the world can rely on that at the same time.
• baldfat 9y ago
  When people tell me they are having their first kid I send them this song. "You Ruined Everything" by Jonathan Coulton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrZ01A6Q_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrZ01A6Q_M My favorite title in life is being a dad. I loved changing the dirty diapers for my wife. I love joking with them about how they puked on head when I was carrying piggy back down the stairs. I loved seeing them succeed. I have 2 "bios" and 3 "adopts" and I loved all of them deeply. Sure there are hard crappy things. I hated how my first was super colicky and cried 8 hours a day. I hated when they were feeling down or hurt. I hated when my middle son was diagnosed and then 4 years later died of cancer, but I wouldn't want to trade any of the bad things because I would have missed the highs and the norms.
  • coryfklein 9y ago
    I applaud you for sharing and I'm so glad there are dads out there like you that just plain love being a Dad. However, I would highly recommend you never use this narrative in response to anybody who opens up enough to say they regret being a dad (or a mom).
    • baldfat 9y ago
      So if you kids are good I am fine that your regret it, but if you publish it so your kids can see it I am pissed. I work with kids. I see neglected kids everyday. I see abused kids everyday. I don't have much sympathy when kids are neglected or not nurtured. If a kid feels unwanted the mental trip is bad.
• bearmobius 9y ago
  > Thomas Gilovich—a Cornell University psychologist famed for research that indicates people are far more likely to regret things they haven’t done than things they have—examined people with high IQs: not one regretted having children; several reported regretting not having a family. That assumption has been challenged, however, by the “childless by choice” movement and research debunking the myth that babies have a bonding effect on marriage or that children bring happiness: a 2010 American Sociological Association study found that parents were more likely to be depressed than their child-free counterparts, and that people without kids were happier than any other group. Not one high-IQ person studied reported regretting having children, and yet the objection made here is that another study showed "that people without kids were happier than any other group"? There seems to be some conflation of ideas here. Lack of regret and happiness are by no means the same thing. You can have no regrets about doing something while simultaneously admitting you would probably have been personally "happier" having not done it. I would say most sacrifices are like this. For example, you wouldn't fight for a cause you believe in (say, protesting against a corrupt regime) and put yourself in great personal danger in order to maximize your happiness - that would be a terrible strategy. You're much more likely to have a happier life by keeping your head down, staying quiet and not rocking the boat. You would only fight for a cause because you believe it's greater than yourself, and more important than your personal happiness. The belief the pervades this article - both implicitly and explicitly - is that your happiness is the highest value in life. If you believe this - and I don't - perhaps not having children is the most logical choice. It does seem to be the case from the data that childless people are happier. What can be made of this? Maybe this: having children is not about making you happy.
  • threatofrain 9y ago
    Indeed, children go far beyond happiness. Your happiness dies with your mortality. What is sacrifice? It is the expenditure of self, as a resource, to achieve...? Whatever purpose.
• shiven 9y ago
  Well, what now? What are these mothers going to do about it?
• kazinator 9y ago
  I regret that ... I don't have access to all the parallel universes so I know which way things turned out for every important decision I ever made!
• HiddenDaath 9y ago
  "Antinatalism" - look into it. It's not only unethical to have kids but we, as humans, are just animals borne out of random processes and it's totally okay, even commendable to go extinct as species. Maybe it's about time we hit the maturity level where we stop thinking that we are important and do the most rational thing?
• covermydonkey 9y ago
  Having a child introduces a stubborn force that presses hard against our own selfishness.
• hemling 9y ago
  To anyone who has become a parent recently and wondering what you have done to your life: I feel your pain. After my daughter was born I had dark moments. Boy, was I naive about having kids. It was by far the most exhausting task I ever had to do. Especially the first year was tough. Relationship with mother, work, self-confidence, everything went down. But let me tell you this: it gets better! My daughter is turning three and she has grown into something splendid. I didn't expect this, but I can honestly say that she is giving me as much as I give her. She has her own personality and it is a lot of fun to get to know her better every day. I still miss my old life, a lot, but now I get to have fun with this creature and can learn from her every day something.